Barbell Shrugged - Drugs, Women, Murder, and CrossFit: The Story of Vincent Miceli — Real Chalk #54

Episode Date: December 18, 2018

From Wall Street cold calling to owning a successful gym in NYC with a detour into the nightclub scene along the way, Vincent Miceli’s career trajectory is all over the map and he has got some stories. I caught up with him at Solace to compare notes on gyms as businesses, how to create great programming, and what we would do differently if we could start all over.   Vincent talks about his own weight-loss journey (he lost almost 100 pounds in a year) and how he got into CrossFit (spoiler: it involved flipping a coin). We get real about what we look for in coaches, wonder where the insanely energetic people coaching SoulCycle classes come from, and break down what running a gym really looks like when you get down to the expenses. It’s a little bit of storytelling, a little bit of insight offering, a little bit of knowledge dropping, and a hell of a lot of fun. With Vincent’s “there is no ceiling” mentality, anything is possible—and this episode is proof of that.   Buckle up! - Ryan   HIGHLIGHTS: 1:00 My gym is bigger than your gym 2:30 Vincent was a 24-year-old millionaire 6:30 Let’s go build some nightclubs 7:15 Crazy cocaine stories 13:30 Murder makes you reevaluate 15:00 You try consuming 30 to 40 drinks every night and see what happens 18:30 90 days to turn a life around 22:30 Coin flips and CrossFit 23:30 Vincent is going to the Games 24:15 Vincent is opening a gym and he's never coached a class 26:00 Is a gym a business or an investment? Two different approaches 27:10 How to make shit happen: be the person with the most passion and the best perspective 28:30 Give the people what they want: different classes for different interests 29:30 The good and the bad about Marcus Filly’s program, and why HIIBB works 31:00 Tendinosis and Active Life 34:00 Programming overlap: how TBB solves the problem—power to the people 35:30 The opex model 36:30 CrossFitters are brats, and the interest is fading 40:00 How do you find high-energy coaches? 42:15 Don’t do the stupid shit—what causes injury 43:00 How hard is making money with a gym, and what makes a coach worth paying? 47:15 Incentivization and why it’s slippery 52:00 Three things that could change, and three things that were great ideas 57:00 “The only major difference is I owned more things”—more money doesn't necessarily mean more happiness ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc_miceli ------------------------------------------------------------------------------  ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/ barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

What's up, everybody? We got a new, hot episode for you guys. I'm sure you saw the title, Drugs, Women, Murder, and CrossFit. My man Vince Michelli is from New York City, and I happened to meet him when I was up there for the StrongFit Expo just a few weeks ago. So basically, I had asked people on Instagram, hey, who do you guys want to listen to? Or if you have a really cool story and you want to be on the podcast, go ahead and DM me. I didn't know who Vince was, so I emailed him back, and I was like, so why should you be on the show? Give me something good.

And he's like, well, if you consider losing millions of dollars in the stock market, losing 100 pounds, there was some murder in there, some women, some cocaine, this and that, then maybe you may or may not want to hear my story. And then I was like, oh, snap, this is going to be a really good story. So as you guys know, I'm a big fan of really good stories. So I had to have him on the show. And once I got to meet him, he was super, super cool. And we got down into the nitty-gritty with so many different things, like on how his path went from this stockbroker who was making insanely good money to him in the club business losing all this money and all these things happening. And then he lost 100 pounds.

And then the way that he got into CrossFit is actually absurd. It's like the craziest story. He flipped a coin. And then from there, all the things that he did to create this business that he has that's actually doing insanely well called the Body Blueprint. So basically he's building this thing up to sell it. So a lot of people out there, they sell food products or they sell chains of gyms or this or that, whatever they want to franchise. And then they try to sell this thing off. So I know he's really close right now to a buyer right now who's going to be potentially buying a series of his gyms.

So the guy has some really cool things to say. And I think if you're a gym owner out there, it's really great listen for you. And if you're someone who just wants to hear a great story and wants to get motivated, this is also a really great story for you as well. Online, I have all of the little time slots where you can hear all the best parts of the story for anybody who's just looking for a particular part or you want to go back and listen to a particular part. But before we get into the show, sponsors right now are going to be everything that I have going on in my life as far as fitness and making you

guys fitter and sexier and just better human beings all together. You guys can go to CrossFitChalk.com, click shop, and you guys have access to all of my e-books, including the very popular high-intensity interval bodybuilding that I personally invented. It is my own signature style of training that I do on a daily basis. I mix in some of the CrossFit Chalk workouts in there as well, the ones that don't include things that kind of bother my knee. I have a knee that kind of bothers me on the regular, but the interval bodybuilding stuff is right up my alley. It's stuff that I really, really enjoy. And I really think you guys are going to dig it. So use code REALCHALK in all capital letters. You guys get 20% off all those books. I even have a 30-day kettlebell only book that does

really well that a lot of people dig. It's not your traditional kettlebell stuff that you see everyone doing, all those weird flows and just stuff that I cannot stand to watch. But I have real legit CrossFit workouts in there, real legit strongman workouts in there, bodybuilding workouts in there that are all kettlebell-related. So it's very, very unique, I promise you. If you don't like these for any reason, just email me and I'll just give you your money back because there's no chance that you're not going to like it. Another thing is the Chalk Online programming is growing like fire. It just

gets bigger and bigger every year. It's by far the thing that makes me the most excited in my life right now. It's just benefiting so many people. But not only is it great for individuals or people who work out in the garage or people who go to a gym and have open gym and they just want to do a really cool workout that's really, really fun. It's great for affiliate owners. You don't have to make workouts for your gym anymore. You don't have to sit there on Sunday night and stare at the computer screen for an hour to five hours to six hours. Sometimes it takes me just an ungodly amount of time. I've spent three hours on just one workout before, like multiple, multiple times. I actually don't really want to talk about it. But you guys can go to CrossFitChalk.com, click sign up, and you guys have access to my Chalk Online workouts. And you

guys will have a mobile app. You'll be able to compare your scores to everybody in my gym, everybody that's on the online gym. You'll be able to track your workouts. You'll be able to just see everything. And then once you sign up, you also have access to my interlint library of every workout that I've ever made in the last like five years. So you're getting a serious, serious logbook here. And you're getting access to everything that we do in the gym. Not only the CrossFit workouts, but you're also getting the sweat workouts, which are really, really taking over right now, I think, as far as the membership goes. It's not a lot of the heavy barbell stuff. It's more of the dumbbells, the kettlebells, the cardio stuff.

It's the lean and mean fighting machine type of workouts, and that's also another thing that I like to incorporate in my workouts a ton. And it's actually kind of gaining the popularity of some of my CrossFitters in the gym. People love the sweat workouts and they are exactly what they sound like. They are just sweat. So you get in there and you are sweating profusely.

Anyway, you guys can go ahead and go to CrossFitter.com and sign up for that. You guys can go to Ryan Fish, R-Y-A-N-F-I-S-C-H, my Instagram. Click the link in my bio. And you guys can sign up for the online program as well. It's $20 a month. Yeah, it's a really, really good deal. And it just gets rid of any sort of guessing on workouts.

You can also go to the date on there, spin it. I call it Chalk Roulette. And you can just land on any workout. And that could be your workout for the day. Every Saturday we do team workouts. Um, there's a ton of, ton of, ton of stuff on there. It's very, very, very worth the $20. All right. So before we get into the show, I just want to say, I love you guys and I hope you guys enjoy it. And Vince has a great story. And if you guys need anything else from me, or you guys want to hear from someone specific out there, or you want a question answered, remember you can DM me,

Ryan Fish on Instagram, or you can email me, Ryan, R-Y-A-N at CrossFitChalk.com, and I'll get back to you. So here we go, hitting the show with Vince Michelli. All right, Chalk Nation. We are here at Solace Gym in New York City yet again having another episode because it's Tuesday and it's your favorite day of the week, right? I hope so. We are here with Vince Michelli. He owns The Body Blueprint. Correct.

Is that correct? And it's in New York City, right? It's in Westchester. Westchester. Where is that as opposed to where we are right now in Manhattan? So it's like a 27-minute train? It's in Westchester. Westchester. Where is that as opposed to where we are right now in Manhattan? So it's like a 27-minute train ride out of Grand Central. 27 minutes.

You have that down. Down pat. We're in Manhattan. So if you guys don't know where Manhattan is, think about the Christmas tree that you think of when you think of New York City. We're pretty close to that. Rockefeller Center, people ice skating, Home Alone movie, anything like that. You guys, we are right in Macaulay Culkin's footsteps here. um also this gym is amazing is it not it's beautiful insane it's an insane gym i have a really nice gym in orange county people always are saying nice things about it and i come here

and i'm like wow this is like a dungeonous really really really cool gym um i heard it's 40 000 45 000 a month for rent that's pretty absurd. Yeah, Manhattan rents are up there. Yeah, that's insane. Mine is 5,500 square feet. It is in Newport Beach, California, which is pretty expensive. And it's about $3 a square foot. So to give a little comparison, I've got 7,500 square feet, and I pay $0.97 a foot a month. Oh, man, that is awesome.

What is your monthly membership? My monthly membership is $149. Oh, okay. So here I think it's like $300 or $400. Three and change. Yeah, so when we go into it, I'll talk a little bit about why I priced my structure the way I did because it actually equals out to like that normal 200 based off. Well, yeah, it's all demographics and average income and all that stuff that people don't

really think about when it comes to how much your gym costs. That's for a whole nother podcast. But what I really like about your story is you have like something similar to mine where there's a whole bunch of ups and downs. And I think people need to hear ups and downs. And I think people like to hear inspirational stories. And that's what I'm all about with my podcast is the journey to the destination, right? So I love the stories that get to these incredible things.

So let's talk about, well, real quick, I guess we had a lot of ups and downs, and if we had to talk about ups and downs, we had a lot of money, had a cool job, lost it all. Now you're back in the fitness world. Well, actually, you weren't even in the fitness world at all. But now you're in the fitness world now and you're loving it. And it's a true calling, I would say, right? Better than the other stuff. Yep.

And I can't wait to hear your outlook on what it was like to have all the money and then now to have good money but not the same amount of money. I'm very, very excited for that. I don't want to know it now. I want people to hang on and hear that part and really, really learn some life stuff on that. So let's talk about your background right now. We'll get into the nitty gritty and get into where you started, where events started. You're in New York City and you were a stockbroker? Yeah, I was a financial advisor. Are you on Wall Street? I was. Well, we call it being on Wall Street,

but I wasn't actually working on Wall Street because the commute down there blows. So I worked in Midtown. It's more than 27 minutes. Correct. So that's spot on. So I got my start very similarly to what you see in the Wolf of Wall Street or Boiler Room where it was like hammering phones. Okay. Like 13 hours a day cold calling, learning how to to speak to people having scripts, all that stuff

what got you to talk to people? because right now every time I answer a phone and I know they're trying to tell me something I literally can't I don't even know if it matters what they say I cannot listen to them so I think those days are completely gone so the whole mindset of cold calling out of New York to people not in New York, there was a lore to it in the 80s and 90s.

Like, hey, you're getting a call from Wall Street. I've got a hot tip. So when I graduated college. Now it's like no one answers anymore. No, but. Or they answer and they're like, can you please go kill yourself? There are what's called in the industry like uh deal junkies right so when i like so now i'm on call lists for stocks so when i get a phone call from a cold caller

i'm gonna actually hear the deal out because i remember when i was that and i remember that there are some that could work most of them if you're getting cold called from like a kid who probably might or might not have a license or whatever does he believe that it might be a good tip sometimes yeah and sometimes they yeah right so um i'll at least hear it out and then i'll typically give them some advice on what it's like to be a cold caller um but i i was doing that for a while and uh my first boss who was a huge mentor of mine, we just really didn't have the same values as far as how money management went. And I went out and took a pretty good job at UBS. And I worked for a big group that managed north of half a billion dollars.

And I worked my way up within that group to be a partner in the book and building my own thesis around financial investing. Is that a lot of money for someone in that field, half a billion dollars? Yeah. I mean, you make a million dollars a year. Oh, yeah. Geez. So by the time I left, we were managing three was 2006-ish, 7, that's a lot of money for like, you know, a group of three or four financial advisors. How old were you at the time?

24. Holy fucking shit. You were making a million dollars a year at 24 years old? No. I was doing well. I was doing really well. I don't. Another thing that I did.

So I'm always the most aggressive you could be. So I did no 401k, no IRA. I took 30% of my income and I bought UBS stock options with it, which the firm then matched also. So like as things started shaking up a few years down the road, I had this like really big option pool that I can dig into. And for anyone who doesn't know what an option is, it's like the ability to purchase stock without actually having to buy it at a given time. Yeah. Which means you could spend a lot less money and then make a lot more or lose it all. It's kind of risky. So I was working there. Really great job. You know, I had clients with like 50100 million who wanted like $50 or $100 million at the end of the year. They didn't care about making more money.

They just wanted to preserve it, which is super boring. And a buddy of mine from college who we had done some work with together called me and wanted to be in the hospitality business. And asked if I wanted to be his partner. And I negotiated my way out of my partnership and i went all in on building some nightclubs in the city um which was pretty awesome uh learned a ton met a ton of people i would say favors paid in vices so women or drugs or alcohol less longer than any other favor i've done for people um and i had i was in the hospitality business from maybe mid 2008 uh until mid 2012 okay so four years in this business yeah and it was hard and fast what were like some of the craziest things that happened?

I can't let that part go without hearing some of these things. I don't care what it is. It could be an orgy with a thousand people. It could be like fucking Obama's wife came and gave someone a blowjob. It could be anything. I want to know. So the biggest thing, the wildest shit is that cocaine is an interesting drug. That's a hell of a drug if you listen to Dave Spell.

Right? It's like no one does cocaine until someone does cocaine. And then everyone does cocaine. So you could be out and it's like no one will say a word. And then someone is like, hey, I'm going to go do a bump. And then the whole room is like, oh, can I do some with you? Yeah. Or like, oh, I didn't know you had it.

Cool. Yeah. So like for me, a lot of – I did it like twice in college. And as soon as you do oh, I didn't know you had it. Cool. Yeah. So like for me, a lot of, a lot of. I did it like twice in college. And as soon as you do it, everyone is like down to do it. It's crazy. Even if they've never even done it, they're like, oh yeah, let's fucking do it. Yeah.

It's crazy. And so. But after my second time, I was like, I can tell that this is, this needs to stop. Yeah. It's a wild thing. But if you're in the nightclub business, I can assume that it doesn't really need to stop. No.

It just goes on every day, all the time. It's just always there. And I would probably say the biggest surprise to me was the amount of really famous people, whether they're elite athletes or celebrities or business people, who, like, really are into, like, some debauchery. Yeah. Weird shit. Yeah, like, how much partying.

Like, what else do you do when you get so much money you're like i have so much money that i just want to see weird shit happen yeah so like a lot of the nightlife industry is is drugs and women and being in scenarios you probably shouldn't be in from a client standpoint right and as an owner um you just see it all you like witness all that you're like firsthand to all of that so that would probably put some of it together yeah yeah um so that was really interesting for me to witness as like a 26 year old guy who had no business being in as deep as he was and like running as fast where are we in new york when this is happening so this is 2008 we opened our first club and then sometime mid 2009

we opened a second and then is this like manhattan area though yeah this is we had one in chelsea um we had involvement in one in soho and then another one we built in soho as well okay so soho is like the richest area, right? Yeah. So those are high roller people over there. Yeah, and they were up there as far as clubs go, as far as popularity. So that was a time when a guy like me could open a club and kind of get lucky and still have some panache to it. Now these clubs are run by major corporations.

They have like $200 million a year in revenue and they could spend money on David Guetta and Tiesto, all these really big name DJs to come in and just perform as opposed to like, you know, paying $500 for a DJ on a Tuesday and doing like $30,000 a night

in revenue and like, you know, swinging from the chandeliers with happiness. So we opened our main club in night in revenue and like yeah you know swinging from the chandeliers with happiness so um we we opened our main club in in 2009 which was like we were the lead investor and we were the majority shareholder in um and we were doing like 230 grand a week in revenue, which is like for a 2000 square foot place. Big. Yeah.

But we weren't making any money. And I was like, yeah, it was a major red flag for myself and my partner. And because we had gone all in, we didn't like invest two million dollars and had like a million dollars left in the bank. We were like, cool, we're going to go all in. And then we need this to work, which is for anyone listening wants to start their own company. That's lesson number one.

If you're going all in on a company or starting your own company, you actually have to be able to live or make money from that business. I mean, that's the problem with CrossFit gyms is everyone thinks that you can start it with like $60,000, even $100,000. It's like, well, let's say the equipment and the rent and like all these things do cost 100 grand. You still need to have another 100 grand on standby in case shit just keeps splattering against the fan. And then the fan breaks and falls off the fucking wall. You know what I mean? It's true. Yeah.

So that was like, that was a really big lesson for me. And like when I built the gym I have now, I knew I was in a position that I didn't need to take a salary from day one, and I could just reinvest all the money to grow it. So I went the opposite way. I only raised about $130,000 to build the gym. We opened Profitable day one and reinvested all of it. I reinvested every single dollar. We grew 100% year over year. Let's freeze that and go back to...

It's good. It's good. It's giving us little crumbs before we get there. All right. But so you're not making any money with the nightclub. Correct. So what do you do? So...

Because this is still good for people right now who own businesses. Like, what did you do in that time? We weren't making any money, and we were the majority shareholder but we were silent partners right so we were silent investors did someone step in and put money in so we well we the business was running when i say we weren't making any money like there was no money left over yeah so our million and change investment to us was doing nothing but you know if you searched our night club it was in the post it was on the cover It was top ten nightclubs in the world. It was Rihanna and Puff Daddy.

It was like everything you would think of that a really sick nightclub would have, except the guys making money who needed to. So you were getting like a salary per se. You were still living. You just weren't making extra money. Yeah, and I would say it was a laughable salary for New York City. And we only did that based off of some extra capital we had put in that we negotiated the interest to be paid out like that.

So we had to get creative as time went on and we went over budget and we needed more money and all this other stuff. So fast forward I'd say fast forward about a year from when we opened um the business was like nose diving so in new york city it's like three months you're out of business for nightclubs when it's not cool and like when it's not cool that's all your money in three months gone if you just it's, right? So we were nosediving. And my partner and I, we took over the entire business from our third partner. We had some fundamental disagreements on where the business should go and how to preserve capital. And I went from being a Wall Street guy and a silent investor to operating and managing, you know, like a 150 person organization nightclub, which was.

Difficult. Insane. Yeah, it was it was wild. So we fired everybody like we cut 30 percent day one. I overpaid to get quality back in the room. And we spent the next year trying to completely rebuild the revenue of the business

because we know we'd have to basically grind out the business to get our investment back. Which then ended in somebody being murdered in the nightclub and I just walked away. It was like, it you know there's tons

of articles about it just like a gangbanger type of it was like a hip-hop night supposed hit it was pretty wild um like murdered in the club on the floor everybody saw it type of thing everybody saw it ran out the city kept us closed for 20 days so like we run businesses now that for the most part we get paid once a month right like you could yeah there's some in-betweens there right but for the most part like i don't know if you go on the first or the 15th you get everything but i just get paid every two weeks i pay myself once a month yeah so imagine if um right a water main broke we'll use something like completely random and then you were closed from say the 10th until the 25th of the following month that was uh and that that big hit's gone yeah right that

money's gone a lot of people and a lot of crossfit gyms i'm assuming couldn't go one month without their auto renews right that'd be hard so where we were in the nightlife at the nightlife business is you need that revenue to keep going. So the city kept us closed for I think it was 19 or 20 days. Now all our bills are now coming due, like the 500 grand in alcohol we bought and our rent. And now there's no money on top of it. So we wouldn't be able to operate without doing a capital call or bringing in a new investor. So after that, I just walked away.

I was like, I'm fucking out of this industry. I started to unwind my partnerships. And I was like, that's it. It was a wild four years. I got, as my father says, a doctorate in business really quickly. And I walked away. Because drugs, women, murder, I didn't sign up for all three. Yeah.

Right. Like, so, um, and at the end I was 240 pounds. Right. So like in the process or getting there. No. So like if you, while this is happening, you're getting fat. Yeah. I'm getting fat.

Right. So, um, I'm like a slender frame guy. I'm probably about 165 pounds right now. Um, and I started the nightlife business at that weight. And by the time we were done, I was about 240 pounds. Fuck. So you weren't sleeping. You're probably eating like shit.

Eating like shit. Drinking 30, 40 vodkas on the rocks a night. 30 or 40? Yeah. All night. Smoking cigarettes. Did you ever work out really during this time? Like bullshit. Like with friends? Or did you go on Smoking cigarettes. Did you ever work out really during this time?

Like, bullshit. Like with friends or did you go on your own? What were you doing? So I had ironically enough, I lived around the block from the original location of the Black Box. CrossFit NYC. Okay, you went there. And my buddy was like, bro, you have to go check out this

CrossFit thing and this story's going to sound bad but it's not actually i walked in there and i was overweight and i did a free week pass and i think like the wad was like static dead hangs for a minute and then like max kettlebell swings like whatever mrap4 or something like that like that was what my first workout was you probably couldn't even dead hang though because you're a fat motherfucker and i had the worst experience of my life yeah like right like the worst that yeah worst and i was like i'll never do this again i'll never come to one of these gyms i had a gym in my building i

lived in a big high rise and i just kind of worked out there but like dominoes twice a week and doing cocaine every day and smoking cigarettes and drinking like no matter what you're not losing weight you're not getting in shape didn't matter so unless you're par losing weight. You're not getting in shape. It didn't matter. Unless you're Paris Hilton and you just do coke and just get skinnier. And you just don't eat. Yeah, I just don't. Right? So my relationship at the time was kind of also unwinding.

We were living together in New Jersey. So I left Manhattan. So you're driving to New Jersey from New Jersey every day to the nightclub? Every day through the Lincoln Tunnel. Wow. It was like a disaster. This is really gnarly. So I was really unhappy with myself. So as I stepped away from the club, I'm like, well, and I tell this to my members, too, when people talk about getting healthy.

I'm like, vanity changed my life. So I'm all right if it changes your life also. But I remember looking at myself in the mirror after getting out of the shower, and I'm like, I would never fuck me. Yeah. No, totally. And not in a bad way, I'm like, I would never fuck me. Yeah. Right? Like. No, totally. And not in a bad way, but just like I'm not attracted to me.

So why would any other human be? And April 11th, 2012, I stopped everything. Drugs, alcohol, smoking, eating unhealthy and just ran super hard for 90 days. I was like, let me just see what happens. And I wrote a whole bunch of workouts that now looking back in hindsight were like a variation of what we kind of program now. I'm like super setting bench press with jumping jacks or burpees. Was it even smart programming or was it just fun? It was just fun.

I just knew like a three-day split, right? Like chest and back and legs and abs and then arms. But there was no plan to get stronger. No, no. I only cared about getting skinny. So I didn't give a shit about anything else. I'm like 240. I got to get down.

So I still, to this day, believe that that's the best way to program is for fun. Yeah. Because think about what you had going on in your life and you came into a CrossFit gym and you just wanted to work out. Yeah. But they're making you do fucking static holdsFit gym and you just wanted to work out. Yeah. But they're making you do fucking static holds and this and that, right? Yeah. So in my, so like everyone right now is obsessed with this like competitor programming. Yeah, I hate it. And getting you here and getting you there.

And like people ask me all the time, if I sign up for Chalk Online or one of your programs that you have, am I going to get stronger in this and that? I'm like, yeah, you will get stronger. But it's still not the goal. Yeah. Like, you look at my workout and you're like, that's a fucking rad workout. It looks really, really fun. And that's my goal. It's 90% of the people who walk in your gym, 95, 98, 99% of the people who walk in your gym want to have a good experience.

And they want to go home. They want to feel good about themselves. They want to look in the mirror and be like, fuck yeah. I'd fuck me. Yeah. Right? And that's really what it is. So I'm happy to hear that like

the goal for you is to have a really good workout for 90 fucking days yeah and I wish the world would start to just kind of veer towards that

unless you're going to the CrossFit Games which you know right now as we speak that you're fucking going there's something about you

that everyone is like dude you're a fucking freak of nature and you're gonna go it's easy for me to have a tangent on that because everyone right now is like everyone thinks they're going to the. It's easy for me to have a tangent on that because everyone right now is like, everyone thinks they're going to the CrossFit Games and it doesn't fucking matter.

So when we get to why I built a gym, you're going to die laughing. Yeah. On how I actually got into CrossFit because it's kind of wild. So we did 90 days. I lost 30 pounds. Yep. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, me and my then girlfriend. So are you 220, is that what he says?

Yeah, like two. No, no, I was 240. I was probably like 210, 215. Yep. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, me and my then-girlfriend. So are you 220, is that what he says? And now you're 190? Yeah, like two. No, no, I was 240. I was probably like 210, 215. Okay. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, me and my girlfriend ate, drank, and did everything we could do for three days. That Monday, I did another 90 days. And then when I made it to the end of that 90 days, I had done like maybe 15 pounds.

And I'm like, cool, let's just do 180. Went 180, nothing. And after a full year I went from 240 to 155 wow um and in that time moved back to Westchester my relationship had ended I was in between projects right I had like a um I had started a t-shirt custom apparel company uh maybe like eight or nine years ago now that was still running, but I was making pennies off of it. I'd already filed bankruptcy. Like, so I'd lost everything, right? I had the Rolex that's on my wrist right now. And it's like a vintage 1984, the year I was born. It's super sentimental. Like other than that, I had nothing. So I'm trying to figure out

what my next thing's going to be. I could have went back to UBS for a big, cushy, like $300,000 a year job, put on the suits every day, take the train into the city, which for New Yorkers, like taking the train into Manhattan every day is almost like prison. At least it is to me. So I think that you're wasting an hour, hour and a half of your day. It's horrible. Right. So it's like three hours a day. You can't even get back. Yeah.

So I was like, no, fuck no, I'm not doing that. So I was looking through a muscle fitness, and I'm like, you know, 4% body fat, 155. I was a little too thin, right, for my frame, but I felt great. I'm going through a muscle fitness, and anyone who's kind of been in the industry for a while or reads that magazine, it had the old school Rich froning bsn like ad where he was doing a super high box jump on one page and then the olympia on the other and i was like oh one of these look cool i'll flip a coin so i flipped a coin and it landed on the crossfit and i'm like cool i'm gonna go win the crossfit games never even seen it never did a crossfit i only had done that one workout at nyc yeah

i typed like crossfits in westchester i drove up to my then my soon-to-be partner and i walked in i said hey man i spoke to you on the phone like i'm here for the crossfit game shit i have to do like five workouts and then i go to the games and it's cool and at the time this is like 2013 maybe yeah he had already been like four times regionals or like he was like a middle of the road regional he's ready to start laughing at you and he goes bro what makes you think that that's even real yeah and i didn't know what to say back because i had no clue what i was undertaking i was like well wouldn't it be super awkward if i made it right now this conversation yeah so i have this weird weird thing that I just don't actually believe that there's a ceiling to anything. So I had this full intention of qualifying for the game.

I'd never done an overhead squat in my life. Obviously, I didn't. But the first night I was in his gym, I'm like, oh, there's something about this economic model, knowing nothing about the membership, about how much it costs really, that could work in the part of Westchester County that I'm in. And that night I signed up for my level one and I signed up for my affiliate and I joined the message board and started asking questions. And I think like eight months after that, I was open and I was I I had never coached a class ever. Coaching my first class. Which is really scary kind of to hear. Of course.

To hear because when I hear that, sometimes I'm like, oh, my God. I don't know what it's like in your case. Obviously, you have a successful gym now at this time. But like – Yeah, that's insane. Most of the time. It's completely insane. 90% of the time or more, that is a terrible scenario.

And they're giving most gyms a bad name 100 and like guys we hire at my gym if they've never coached a class or they're coming from like being a teacher to want to be they intern for a year shadowing and so like i raised a tiny bit of money you know um built it i opened and i was like well all i have to do is not hurt people. If I could not hurt people, I know how to get in shape. That's actually not a terrible way to look at it. All I have to do is if I don't hurt the woman coming,

then she could only leave if I don't give her some kind of success. You're going for entertainment. It was always about experience for me, like client experience. Which is what it's really all about. You're going for entertainment. Right. It was always about experience for me, like client experience. And I opened. Which is what it's really all about. Yeah.

Right. So, you know, one of my first coaches, he has been in the industry for a decade. He definitely has significantly more experience than I. So I had some influence from him. My then partner, Chris, he owned one of the oldest affiliates in the area as well. So, I mean, I had some guidance. But, like, as far as coaching every single class every day, it was someone who had never coached a class. So I was like, all right, well, like, cool, let's grab some bands and, like, do some shoulder mobility and hit a wad.

Yeah. Right? And that's how, like, I built the gym. But the plan had always been to build the gym and then build multiples and then sell them. Because that's what I learned in the nightclub business is you can make money with one, but it gets really, really fruitful at three or four if you run the exact same model. So if you're making 7% a year year it's not really enough to be wealthy but if you have three that makes seven percent a year it gets like and you could continue to bring down your back-end costs and it starts to stamp and repeat so that was always the idea um i always thought i'd want to do that too and now i don't yeah so and the industry's changed and the industry

is going to change a lot in the next few years. Which I'm excited for. I try to tell everybody I think every three years, if you're a successful business person, every three years for me something cool happens. Yeah. I either get this insanely popular podcast or I go from owning my gym to owning an online gym that does really well or I start creating e-books. If you've heard of high-intensity interval bodybuilding.

Yeah. I follow your stuff. I invented that. So that's mine. Like every couple of years, this cool thing happens. Yeah. And I'm like, sweet. And I didn't even know it was going to happen at all.

But you just keep an eye out. I feel like a good business person, you're not necessarily the smartest person in the room, but you're just the most – what is it? When you see all perspectives. Yeah, you've got a little bit of foresight and you've got the bird's eye view. It's like your first day at CrossFit. You felt the economics of the whole situation. Yeah.

And it's not necessarily like you're trying to make money. You see what you're passionate about in a way that no one else sees. And I feel like that's what really, you know, essentially is what's making you successful. We've, everyone at the gym makes fun of me because I think I've demoed and rebuilt the entire gym every year since we've been opened. So I don't do that, but I sell all my equipment. Yeah. Which I got the idea from you.

Very frequently. So like I, you did. Like these weights here actually right now, like if the solid sky is listening right now, like you need to get rid of these now. Like they need to go. Like they're all fucked up. And like pretty soon your $400 membership is not going to seem so rad yeah it's uh we sorry and in and in but right now you can get money for those plates yeah and in another

two years you're not getting shit for those yep so uh december last year we demoed the entire gym and changed the brand over from uh well, we dropped CrossFit years ago. Oh, you dropped the name. Yeah, we dropped – not the affiliate, but we dropped the name years ago. Then in December – So you're like me where it's like chalk, but it still is CrossFit chalk, but it's just chalk. Chalk, yeah. And now the brand is The Body Blueprint, which the whole concept is our three classes are so vastly different.

I never understood like conditioning day on Thursdays in a CrossFit gym, right? Because CrossFit members, they want AMRAPs and they don't care about really the different modalities, right? So we run like a really traditional CrossFit class, a bodybuilding class, and then a 48-minute conditioning class. How does the bodybuilding class do? It's great. Does it do well? Yeah, but it's got it. So what we've learned is.

I want one so bad. It took a long time. So we started Dylan, who's who. Do you have enough space to run two classes at once? Yeah. So that's I don't have first. At first, we knocked everything down and we had like 7000 square feet open. And in December, we put up a wall,

turfed a whole room, like completely separate. No barbells in the second room. There's no chalk in the second room. So our build and our boost classes get run in, we call it the blue room because it's blue turf. And then all our CrossFit classes get run in the bigger room. But Dylan, who created both of those programs, he started, I want to say, two and a half years ago building out our build program.

Right? So it was before really like... Is build the bodybuilding class? Yeah. Okay. Right? So it was like before Marcus Philly launched what is that massive success he has, we were spending like a year playing with movements that work.

I like Marcus's stuff, but it's just a little bit boring. It's really complicated for me. I have like short attention span. Well, it's time consuming. His fucking warm-up is an hour. You know what I mean? And then the workout and then everything. Like if you have the time for it, I think it's fucking phenomenal.

And I love what he's doing. It's very smart. Like there's nothing negative to say about it yeah it's just that a lot of people who are doing crossfit and what we do they're kind of looking for the quick fix right so like you have something like that and it's which is why i came up with high intensity interval bodybuilding yeah because i'm like all right let's get sweaty i don't know how long it is but 35 minutes and you could like get your pump and your sweat on and you're done which is how i lost all my weight in the first place exactly um and i think that's what people are looking for. Do that.

Let's go make money and live our lives and play with our kids or whatever it is. Yeah. And I mean, there's so many programs out and they all have their different benefits. And I think that's interesting because it allows people to understand what they actually want for their own fitness. I mean, I've been following active life for my knees for six months because I had tendinosis in both my knees for four years. And I was just tired of always being in pain. But like, oh, my boys are maxing out their squat clean. Like, I want to do that too.

Yeah. And then I can't walk for three days. And that's worked for me. But it's boring. And I tell them all the time. I'm like, it's so fucking boring. But like, I really prefer not having pain in my knee all the time. And your knees really don't hurt anymore?

At all. Zero pain. And that's been years. Like, I did. What was the diagnosis of the knee? Because you know my knee's fucked, right? Yeah. I would love any sort of help I can on mine.

So I had no tears, right? I had patella tendinosis in both knees that was so inflamed. The orthopedist was like, if you play any sport that has lateral movement, you're probably going to tear your knee. He's like, as long as you go up and down only and you could deal with the pain, you're good. And I'm like, well, that's a really shitty answer. So I went to every doctor you could think of. I'm like bone on bone on mine. really shitty answer. Yeah. Like that's just a like so I went to every doctor you could think of and then. I'm like bone on bone on mine.

What Sean and those guys did for me is and again I pay for their program. I'm a huge component of paying for product because I own a business that I expect people to pay for the product. Well it makes you appreciate it more. So like. I don't even like like people who want to do favors for me. They're like I'll do this for you for a free membership. I'm like no I'll pay you and you can pay me. You can pay me.

Exactly, right? For those of you out there who think you're going to do some sort of trade, don't fucking do it. It's just better. It never works out. There's always a time where you're like, hey, so you didn't do anything for me this month. It doesn't work. It's just too much. It doesn't work.

I hate it. I hate even the thought of it. I would say it's a shameless plug because I'm a client. He's changed my knees. Okay. That's cool. Right? Barbell Shrug just interviewed them this morning.

Yeah. They're rock stars. I deal with Ray, one of the guys there, and it's changed my life. I couldn't be more thankful. Cool. And it's changed the way that I program also, which is cool. So how do we get to there from bodybuilding? My bodybuilding class, it's great.

We only do it twice a week. We did it three times a week, and we found it was too much. So we do Tuesday, Thursday bodybuilding, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday boost, and then six days a week CrossFit. And it works really well. The problem that comes into play, and this is what I have a lot, is, like, people can only come i mean they can't only come but like preferably they like to come at like four o'clock every day or six a.m every day or whatever it is right yeah so for my gym since i

only have enough space for one class at one time i have my class called sweat and it's at either five or six every other day it alternates so you don't get stuck at one of them. Now, if I was to have a bodybuilding class, I know the people who'd want to go to that go to the 4 p.m. class. Yeah, so then you got to... So, like, if I was to have that at a different time, I don't know if they'd be able to make it. So that's where the problem is for me.

I'm like, shit. And then even if they did make it, what if I put bench in the bodybuilding class, but the next day in CrossFit is bench? So we spent so long on what you just described. I know. That's hard. Because it's hard.

So what we did. Because I make CrossFit right now, and then I make my sweat class. Same thing. And I can't look at them. I don't even want to fucking know what happened the day before in sweat to CrossFit because I'll never get done programming ever. Yeah. I'll just be in my room all day, every day, 365, and I'll never have a life. Yeah.

You just can't make it make sense. So people will come at 5 o'clock one day and do CrossFit, 5 o'clock the next day and do sweat. They go, I already did this. And I'm like, it's up to you, honestly. To choose. To fucking change it. Yeah.

The coach doesn't care. I don't care. You're not hurting my feelings. If we did pull-ups yesterday and there's pull-ups right now, then just do fucking toes to bar or whatever it is. So we give all the workouts out on sunday same for the whole week and we say build the blueprint you want that's the whole like branding around right very cheeky which then going into the model we only have two options the the um the mid 100s range or 350 a month and if $350 a month, I can be your personal coach

who gives you your blueprint every single week with extra work based around what you need, based around having an accountability coach, based around some food, and we find that that averages our cost. So we could go a little below market on normal CrossFit and then go way above market on the like attentive. I don't even think that's above market. If you wanted a custom plan for me, I would charge you like fucking two grand. Yeah, that's.

Maybe five. But it's based off our classes. Like the amount of time it would put on me and stress. I can't make any more workouts, dude. I just can't. So. I make my books. I make my CrossFit workouts.

I make my sweat workouts. I make this fucking podcast. Yeah, there are a lot. I just can't do it. If you want to. I've had people hit me up. They're like, hey, I want a custom plan. I'm like sweat workouts. I make this fucking podcast. Yeah, there are a lot. I just can't do it. I've had people hit me up. They're like, hey, I want a custom plan. I'm like, it's five grand for a month.

And they're like, dude. I'm like, honestly, that's how much money it's going to take me to do it. And we're building an OPEX affiliate too now. I like the model of the OPEX because everyone's coming in doing their own thing. Yeah, the economics make sense because it's way less employees. The economics of that model is interesting and it allows us to capture the remaining market. So now we've got our CrossFit members. We've got our people who we have members. It's essentially an open CrossFit gym and each person has their own plan.

Essentially, yeah. So you're not in there being full retard. So we're planning to launch that Jan Feb. And that allows us to capture the CrossFit guy. It allows us to capture the person who never wants to touch a barbell in their life in our bodybuilding and boost class. Then it allows us for

the 35 to 55 professional or mother who doesn't really have time to be in a structured class. They need to get in, get out. They might not care about snatching or they might only care about running. It gives us flexibility in the programming too, right? And we think that that's going to be a big part of where the industry goes as well in the next few years. I think especially now with regionals being the way that it is,

you're going to have less people trying to compete. I even had people in my gym who really they really wanted to go to regionals, and now they're like, eh, I don't care as much anymore. Yeah. And even this place that we're standing in right now, they were telling me that their conditioning class makes way more money than their CrossFit class. I mean, we're standing downstairs right now in the CrossFit area, and there's, what, two people here, and upstairs is packed.

Yeah. I think we do three-to-one sign-ups, non-CrossFit to CrossFit. Yeah, it's crazy. It's not even, yeah. And I'm a CrossFitter, so I could say this. We're kind of brats, right? Like non-CrossFit members

don't need that much attention. They come in, they do what's on the board, they go home, right? The CrossFit people? No, the non-CrossFitters. Yeah. Right? Like, we're like, oh, we like, oh, I'm going to make this up.

We're going to row for an hour today. And they're going to be like, okay, cool. But if you put up rowing for an hour in a CrossFit class, who won't show up? Who will complain? Who wants to use the assault bike? If you did an hour rowing session, which is the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. I've actually done that a few times. It's horrible.

For max meters, it's awful. I think I had to get like, I forget how many meters it was. It was awful. But if you did that in a sweat class for me, everyone would be like, oh, cool. Like, I drank last night and I ate a bunch of fucked up shit. This is perfect. And it's like, all right, well, fuck that. You can even put Whitney Houston on and they'll just jam out to that for an hour.

Yeah. Put that in in CrossFit and they're like, dude, this is the worst music I've ever heard. I think my rower's fucked up his rower is getting two more calories per pole than I am and it is like a complete shit show it's just a different client completely I would love to have sweat and then the high intensity bodybuilding

in my gym and just like not even really have like the oil lifting would be like a little bit less we're exploring probably mid to late 19 opening a location only build and boost. 2,000 square feet, like, you know, 100 grand to build the room and just see if that works on its own, if it can be a standalone business. Because... It makes me sad that it even has the possibility of failing.

You know what I mean? Like, it shouldn't. It's just people's perspective of what they think they need. In a world where... Which is sad. Barry's Boot Camp is a $200 million business. They crush. They crush it, right?

And it's all experience. It's experience, right? I've taken every class you could think of. You know, the... Black light, and it's all experience it's experience right i've taken every class you could think of you know the black light and it's dark and yeah i mean they've got a model that's working you know what i don't understand is how they get trainers that are that fucking dope they're so dope you know why we talk about this all the time their trainers probably coach one class oh imagine if you gave someone if i was like yo ryan you got a successful business you have your own shit but you're in town for the weekend. I'll give you $100 to coach this one hour, and I'll give you $15 for every person you bring to the gym that isn't already a member.

Is it that much money? I'm like, there is a sliding scale to it, but a coach with 60 people classes, you can make like $300 an hour. I'll put a microphone on and act really amazing and energetic for that. That's a lot of money, right? I'll be gay all day, every day for $300 an hour. Right. So it's like you look at their – what their requirement is, they might coach the 6 a.m., do nothing, and then go –

5 p.m. or something. Right? And it's like as opposed to being the guy who opens and you're doing 5, 6, 7. But even still, dude, like I can't imagine like yeah it's just it's very very i've never been to a gym ever where anyone had as much energy as like someone at like one of those classes no it's crazy or like a soul cycle like i'm just like wondering how they find them you know what i mean like how are they getting found like i want coaches like that that's fucking rad they they probably have a different standard of deliverable also. It's probably one of them.

You have to fill your class like 70% or more. Yeah, but you know what it's like being a business owner. Sometimes you get a coach who's just like, they're good enough. And you're like, I just fucking need this person. And you don't want to fire them later because they're a good person and they're a good coach. But maybe they don't have the super X factor. But you're like, I need them. They're reliable.

People like them. Even though you know that they would like someone else more. Well, and you're in a city, right? And you're in a major city. In a suburb, it's a little bit different. It's even more different, right? There's even less to choose from. I just don't have a lot of CrossFit experience that was like a soul cycle class.

You know? Yeah. It's fucking nuts in there. It's nuts. It's crazy. I just don't have a lot of CrossFit experience that was like a soul cycle class you know yeah fucking nuts in there it's nuts it's crazy I would never want to be on a bike ever again that long it was the worst class ever to me

after 20 minutes I'm like if we're gonna dance let's just go to the club let's just get drunk and maybe I'll get laid when it's over right now otherwise I'm in here right now just getting blue balls

at all these hot chicks and I'm on this bike and I'm actually getting injured balls because this bike fucking sucks. My sister takes me and it's, you know, you're riding bike for an hour so of course you're going to sweat like a maniac. But yeah, it's also an event.

Like it's a spectacle. You're at a fucking Broadway show. It goes back to client experience. Kind of, yeah. That's it. So it's crazy that we look at the other CrossFit gym and that's who we're competing against. And in reality, we're competing against all the people who take 2% of our business away. Because if there's 10 gyms in the area that take 2% of your business, that's 20% of your revenue is gone. But, dude, imagine taking away that little bit of potential injury.

When do people get injured? Overhead, squats, imagine taking away that little bit of, like, potential injury. Like, when do people get injured? Overhead, squats, snatches. Always. Too many cleans. They catch a squat clean on their elbow. Like, it's very dumb shit. It's all dumb shit. And you're like, that could have been prevented by not doing this.

Like, why does this person need to snatch? Why do they have to clean? Yes, you will be a better human you'll be more functionally fit in all domains and whatever but like i bet that person would still be pretty badass if they squatted and deadlifted and just did like lunges yeah and like bench press i think and knew about eating and did some conditioning like if they look in the mirror and they're like i'm gonna fuck myself and like yeah they're way happier. Yeah, way happier. And that's really what matters.

And it's usually a split second of not paying attention. You're like snatching and you're like, oh, what's for dinner? Oh, what was that pop? Yeah. Right? Or they shouldn't be doing an all the way down low overhead squat. Or they shouldn't be doing the fucking weight. Yeah.

But so-and-so is doing it, so I can do it. It's hard. It's a really, really blurred line. It's usually new people. Yeah. Because they have a hard time accepting the fact. Well, actually, it's men who have a hard time accepting the fact that the girl next to them is lifting more than them. Yeah.

But if she has a mustache, it's fine. You know what I mean? If she has a mustache,'s fine you know what i mean if she has a mustache it's okay yeah if she still looks like you know like if she's really hot like you still want to fuck her and she's more and she's stronger than you then there's a problem yeah yeah you should probably so start wearing boxers instead of briefs let those balls hang a little bit lower oh man so that's good that's true i love i love these podcasts so i um yeah i was a non-fitness guy i had never coached a person i i looked at it this way like from what i did in my nightclubs how hard could it be to pay rent and electricity i was like how it's not nearly as much money i was

like how hard my rent was i think my rent between the two main places we owned was like $30,000 to $50,000, right? Plus we had like $150,000 a week's payroll. I'm like, well, how hard could like $5,000 a month in rent be and like $800 in utilities? I guess I could like figure out the rent.

If I don't hurt anyone, then I should be alright. I feel like you can get to the break-even part like pretty easy. Yeah. The next it's that next making money. Yeah. Like even for me, it's hard to make money. And I have like over 300 members in this little space.

And like we charge $200 a month and I'm in Orange County where everybody is like all about looking good. You know what I mean? It's like all they care about. Like fucking Botox is like squirting out of their faces and stuff. And like, you know what I mean? Like it shouldn't be hard to get these people yeah and i'm pretty packed out but like really i'm making money on like my brand you as a brand yeah and i think like for me it's it's employees are hard you know what i mean it's like it's the it's the coaching

factor i'm talking about right now it's like how do you find these people that are so impressive that you're just like fuck like you deserve this much money it's the coaching factor I'm talking about right now. It's like, how do you find these people that are so impressive that you're just like, fuck, like you deserve this much money. And I'm just going to, I'm just going to pay you more because you're that rad. You know what I mean? It's very rare that happens. Um, I've, I've come across like very few people where that does happen. I have a coach right now.

He's not my absolute best coach in the gym, but he takes care of the gym as if it's his. And like, I can leave and I'm like, I know for sure that the gym is gonna be takes care of the gym as if it's his and like i i can leave and i'm like i know for sure that the gym is gonna be taken care of if he's there he might not be the best coach there no but it's worth every dollar if someone walks in he's gonna help them if someone asks him a question after class he's not gonna be like i have to go like there's a lot of great things about him that are amazing and i like it's invaluable to me yeah it's like i'll give you anything so like i've randomly given him like 500 bucks and I'm like,

dude, I just fucking love you. Yeah, that's irreplaceable. Having someone that you know, you have that peace of mind that like, you're in New York

and you don't actually have to worry about anything, which is hard. It's hard, especially in today's world, I think people are so connected via social that

non-owners of companies have this idea what should be happening for them regardless of their output, if that makes sense, right? Where, like, you've got a successful gym, right? And it's probably considered, if not considered, one of the most successful affiliates, right, in maybe the country or the world, right? It's up there, right? And it's probably considered, if not considered one of the most successful affiliates, right? And, and maybe the country or the world, right? It's, it's up there, right? But no one actually knows what your payroll is and what your rent is and how much at the end of the month you're able to put in your pocket. But everyone just assumes you're like,

walking out. Yeah. You're like walking out with a bag full of money, right? Even my own coaches. I think they think, they think that I'm making all this money on that. I make good money on other stuff. Yeah. Just not the gym. So my core team I'm super transparent with financially. Yeah. Right? You just tell them how much money you make? Yeah.

I'm like, this is what we're doing. This is what we did. We lost money. I lent the business 10 grand this month because we needed these new things and we had a bad month and it was August and everyone freezes because everyone goes away or whatever it is. Right? Or we smashed it this month.

So like we're putting that $10,000 in the bank. I'm not even taking it back. We're just going to hold on to that. Do you incentivize them? Like if we crush this month, you get this much money? So I did in the beginning and I found it got really slippery because it's hard to incentivize somebody on gross revenue. Because most people don't understand the difference between gross revenue and what that net income actually could be. So if you pay someone bonused out on the increase of gross revenue, it actually ends up worse for us as the owner.

I've always wanted to do something like that, but I feel like you're going to do good on some months and bad on some months no matter what. And I know some people who want to pay coaches for more people going to a class. And I'm like, well, if everyone gets out of work at that time or they have to go to work at 7 a.m., everyone's just going to come at 6. It doesn't matter who's coaching. I pay most of my – I pay all my core team salaries, real salaries, like that are enough to live. And then I'm super aggressive with their personal training and things of that sort. So, you know – I don't take any money from personal training. Yeah, my core team, if they, you know, make a $50,000 a year salary

and then they end up making another $30,000 a year in personal training, like, that's a really good life for a 24-year-old. Right? Like, that's real money. Yeah. Right? It's like. For sure.

And you have peace of mind and you get to wear sweatpants and T-shirts all day. Right? So, but nothing solid for me. I every six months we all revisit everything and like, hey, this and my employees and like my my team, they trust that they could tell me they want to leave. Like I've helped my employees negotiate their new offers at other companies. Right. It's like there's there's a level of trust that I built

that they could be like, hey, I'm really thinking about leaving for these five reasons. Are they fixable or are they not? And I won't fire somebody on the spot if they're thinking... I built a relationship where one of my employees could be like, hey, I really think

this deal wasn't working. It's not working for these reasons. Like, can we come up with something else? I'm like, we'll change their salary and we'll change their payout or different things. And nothing is nothing set in stone to me in anything in business. Everything's malleable. Has to be. Because like you said, like everything changes every two years, every three years.

Like nothing's the same. The person, the client, the employee, you're not the same. What you thought was a hard no in 2015 might not be a hard no to you anymore. Yeah. So as an owner or a business owner or an entrepreneur or a founder, you have to be able to be real with yourself that nothing is what it seems and nothing is going to be what it seems. And you just have to kind of roll with everything. I don't even have like the weekly or the monthly meetings that a lot of people have like with their people. I just talk to them.

I'm like in my gym all the time and I don't have a manager. So like I literally am just like always saying stuff. I'm like, don't do that. Or, you know, like I really want like this to start happening. And I just say it to everybody every day all the time. So I feel like they're always getting credit. Like they're always getting stuff. I really do want to start having some sort of like meeting time.

It's just hard because everyone like lives in different places and like it's hard for everybody to meet up and i don't want to ruin someone's weekend like when they get to the weekend and all that and like i know i need to suck it up and just be like all right guys we're having a fucking meeting this weekend like everyone needs to be there we used to do a monday meeting and it ends up being like a 20 minute meeting and a 50 minute hangout yeah re Rex, I mean, I have a really short attention span also. Which is fine. You get the family vibe. So one of my guys was like, bro, because I'm always on video conferences.

He's like, why don't we try Zoom? Yeah. So now we have a standing 30-minute Zoom meeting once a week. And it's the most productive 30 minutes we have as a team. Okay. Because there's no time wasting. We're like, it's set. And you're like wherever you are. You could be in like Disneyland and be like, all right. That's it. And it shuts off after 30 minutes we have as a team. Okay. Cause there's no time wasting. We're like, and you're, and you're like wherever you are,

you can be like Disneyland and be like, all right, that's it. And it shuts off after 30 minutes. Yeah. So like we're in, we're just like, we're banging it.

We're going, bam, bam, bam, bam, hit it. And then that's it. We're done after 30 minutes.

And it, and it was really, it's been really working really well for us, which is cool. I like that. Um, so, so what are some of the biggest things

that you, let's go with like the top three things that you would change if you could start the gym all over again and the top three things that you like absolutely are stoked that you did straight out the gate. All right. So things that you're like, okay, I'm happy I did this, but I definitely would change this and I can do the same for you if you want. Yeah. So the top So things that you're like, okay, I'm happy I did this, but I definitely would change this. And I can do the same for you if you want. Yeah. So the top three things that I would change, right? So I raised a little bit of money.

I built the gym with $135,000. I probably would have did $250,000 and built a front desk from day one and had a full-time front desk staff person and phone number from day one. That's like – You didn't have a phone number. I had a phone – no phone number. Like we didn't have a front desk. Like it was, we, we got right. It was like, everything went to my cell phone because why not? That's does feel professional. It changed. Well, it changes the client experience from the get go. I have an absurd front desk, right? It's out of control. I see the pictures and it's beautiful. So that was one. Number two is I would say I'm super anal about cleanliness.

We have two sneaker policy in my gym. You cannot come in the gym with the sneakers you wear outside. And it changes the entire gym. New York City, that makes sense. You can roll on the floor and it's fine. And the women who come in Lul don't have to like wipe themselves off. So I probably would have got a scrubber from day one instead of mopping. So that was like a machine.

Yeah, like a machine. And then third was I would have spent significantly more time understanding the story I wanted to tell people about what we deliver. So many of us just... How do you get the story out, though, to everyone? So we typically run some pointed Facebook stuff. Facebook campaigns work really well for us. I have a few friends who I've built really

successful... You'd be surprised, after all my years in business, I just started that. Yeah. I mean, like we, I've done a few, I've done like two or three over. What's our timeframe? Okay, cool. Um, so, uh, we've done like a few over the years and it's like for a hundred bucks, we ended up getting five or six members, which is a massive return. right? So I would have really spent time with someone smarter than myself or my staff to understand the voice we wanted to deliver to people. Because once your voice is correct, those people just come out of nowhere. Right? So like, that was a big one, because we opened to break even, but we probably could have

opened way in the black making money. And now that our message is spot on for the past year, it's just like the right people are coming and they're qualified already. So I would have spent a lot of time on that. And that's, that's something that's not great for me, right? Like marketing. Um, and then three things that, what I love that I did correctly. So more than anything, I cared about what a client feels when he leaves. It's by far my most important thing. Coming back to look in the mirror and fuck me.

That's it. It's like the most important thing because that hour is their best hour. And if I have negativity in my day, they can't feel that at all. So I would say that was probably my most, the most important thing that I delivered is that like Ryan's coming here at five 30 on a Tuesday and he needs to leave here better mentally, physically sweaty, whatever it is. Um, the second thing was if you have partners or investors,

there's no good time for bad news. So having a really open dialogue with the people who are in your core circle makes every problem way easier, whether that's your general manager or it's your investor or it's your partner or it's your dad who gave you money or it's your landlord. Like there's never a good time to tell someone that you didn't do a lot of money this month or that the gym's shrinking before it comes back up. So the best time is just to do it. That's like. That is very, very good piece of knowledge right there. Because in my first businesses, we like hate all the things that were going wrong. And then when all the wheels fell off, like people are like, well, how did we even get here? Yeah.

Right. So communication and honest communication, removing ego with the people who are important to you in your core, like who matter to running your business is a huge one. Um, and then the last one is I like listening to my clients. Some people say your clients opinions don't matter. I really, really enjoy listening and understanding the things that matter to them because if one person out of 200 says it, it might not mean it. But if like 15 to 50 say it, there is some truth in that. Right. So I like to have client feedback to understand what's working and what's not working. That's great. So I like all that. Yeah. Unfortunately, I might have to put mine in the notes because we're getting kicked out of the gym right now.

We are. We've only been on for an hour actually but i feel like that was an insanely good episode i think like real quick the last thing that i really want to know quick from you is after having millions of dollars and then now having i don't know how much money you have but it's i'm sure it's less i'm successful to live are you fucking stoked on it now yeah are you more stoked on it when you had all the money yeah so there's only one major difference so being wealthy is fun um and it makes you worry about things less than normal people worry about but the only major difference is i owned more things that is it from like i've heard that on so many different scales like i had two phones and a driver and like a big apartment so like so now you drive yourself you have one

phone it's just the only difference is you have more bullshit, actual things. So it doesn't matter. It literally doesn't matter. You have to make enough money to support living, right? So money is important and being wealthy makes living easier, right? But being wealthy or being not wealthy, the major difference outside of paying your own bills is you just have more things. That's it. Cool. And faker friends.

Faker friends. That's it. Cool. And faker friends. Faker friends. That's it. I love that. It's always cool to have someone who has like been through both, um, spectrums of life. It's really great. Yeah. Dude, thank you so much for all that great stuff. And I'm going to put the three things that I think that I, uh, did best in my gym in

the beginning and the three things that I would change in the show notes. You guys can listen to those. I hope you guys loved Mr. Michelli's story here. And we are going to get out of this gym before we get kicked out of it. And they're coming down to yell at us again. All right. We'll see you guys later next Tuesday on The Real Chalk. Podcast. Podcast. Podcast. Podcast. Podcast.