EntreLeadership - #359: Own a Business, Not a Hobby with Jason Khalipa

Episode Date: January 27, 2020

NCFIT founder Jason Khalipa has never been one to shy away from hard work. Case in point: In 2008, Jason graduated from college, won the CrossFit Games, and started a business. But he didn’t stop there. From the moment he signed the lease on his first gym, Jason went all-in on building a business bigger than himself. Tune in to hear the invaluable lessons he’s learned that have allowed him to scale NCFIT from one location to over 20—and counting!   entreleadership.com/podcast NCFIT website As Many Reps As Possible by Jason Khalipa Jason Khalipa's website Jason Khalipa on Instagram EntreLeaderahip's Business Health Assessment Review this episode for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business is a pretty remarkable thing. Think about it for a second. It's an idea and that idea becomes a plan. The plan becomes a product or service. The product or service becomes an organization and that all ultimately serves and adds value to people. There's nothing quite like it, but our perspective on business is often skewed by the people

who highlight the destination and almost completely ignore the absolute grind that is the process. From the Ramsey Network, This is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host Alex Judd, and today's guest is someone who knows the value and the struggle of the grind. Many know Jason Kalipa as the champion of the 2008 CrossFit Games. But since then, he's dreamed up, started, and scaled a thriving business. It's called NC Fit, which, in addition to having over 20 gyms around the world,

it's pioneering widespread corporate wellness programs, reinventing fitness in the hospitality sector, and even changing the way people think about fitness. But this growth journey all started in 2012 when he was forced to confront the fact that he actually did not own a business at all. He simply owned a hobby. I had a mentor of mine one day. We were walking down the hall of this one gym that we owned. And he's like, hey, ma'am, just letting you know that all this. can go away tomorrow and that what you have here is a hobby and not a business because if you get

hit by a bus, this thing's going away. And he said that to me and it really resonated. And after that day, I started putting things in place to get to the point where it's bigger than me. It's not just me. It's that organization. And you might be a figurehead of it, but it should still be able to have people in place that could lead it on in the future. And that was really important to me. It took me a long time to get to that point, but after a year or two, we were able to develop the team that, which actually worked out really well in my favorite because I started developing the team because I wanted to have a business, not a hobby. But then my daughter got sick and it ended up working out really well because I stepped away from the company for a little while and it just kept running on the

It kept running. So you had prepared for that moment without even realizing that moment was coming. So it worked out really well. Wow. My goodness. So 2008, you're pretty scrappy at that point. Was it literally solopreneur you were starting on your own? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So from a business perspective, we opened up 1,500 square feet, $1,500 a month, six-month lease, and we opened it with $10,000. And so in 08, you know, we opened the business. What do you know about starting a business at that point? Well, that's really interesting. So at that point, I knew I loved to coach. I knew I wanted to make an impact on people. But I also didn't realize at the time, but I had backed it up with a lot of confidence because because I had been working at the health club for so long the health club was all

about business it was all about sales you were working at just a regular gym is that correct or a regular health club yeah and cross it was all about anti sale anti business like you know let's go coach let's let's let's really help these people and they were just totally different ideologies and which was really good for me because I had so much exposure to the business side and then I had a lot of exposure to the coaching side. And so I tried to marry those two when we started the business. And so you probably brought a little bit of your sales experience because, I mean, we believe around here that like if you are truly selling, you're serving someone.

Oh, yeah. If you're selling to the right person. Yeah. I'm extremely grateful for my lessons that I learned working at a desk selling gym memberships because we had a lot of different diversity in the area I was in. A lot of different cultures came in. And so you learned how to adapt and grow your business. based on talking to somebody.

And you started to learn how to listen. And here, what are they looking for out of this gym membership? And how ultimately am I going to get them to sign up was the question. But I learned a lot about people and talking to people. And so that played huge dividends early on in the business because you get people to come in. And there was nothing to sell them on except for yourself and your service. And that was an important thing that I learned throughout college was selling my passion, right? Or sharing my passion, I should say.

I read something not long ago that it said the millennial generation and the generation following it, more than any generation in recent history in the United States, is interested in the topic of entrepreneurship and starting a business. But then it also said more than any generation in the history of the United States, they're less likely to step out and actually start a business. So they love the idea of it, but it seems like they're terrified. And I say they, we, right? It's my generation. We are terrified to actually step out and do something. So what are the prerequisites? What are the things people need to have from your perspective looking back in order to start a business? I think at the time, if I can go back and advise myself, I probably would have advised myself not to open a business. And the reason why I would have is because I don't think I had the background to feel credible enough to go do it.

And at the time in 2008, the economy is in the tank. CrossFit is not even well known at all. And I decided to go open up a business. and looking back on it, I don't know if I would have advised myself, but I also think that I had things lined up to do it right, meaning I didn't have any external pressure, right? I didn't have any children. Timing was really good. I had just won the game, so I had this kind of notoriety, and I had a background in the health club. So I don't know if back then I had as much as I wanted to have now, but I'd ask anybody who wants to start a business, do they have that earned confidence?

Do they have that background to know that when they sign that lease, they're going to be successful? Because once the lease begins, you start acting irrationally if you're in the tank too quickly. You'd have things lined up for you. You know, it's one thing to say that I want to start, like we were just talking about coffee. I've talked about this before. I love coffee. We were talking about the fact that Jason's coffee is probably way better than our coffee. I like bougie coffee, right?

I love gas station coffee personally, but teach his own. It's to each his own. But I don't know the first thing about sourcing it, roasting it, selling it. I don't know anything about the health laws in my area if I wanted to open it. Meaning I know a little bit about business, but I would need to go learn from people, go identify mentors, go work at a coffee shop that's doing the best in the world, go take the things that I like and build them into my business, take the things I don't like and leave them behind.

I should have done that for longer, right? and I think that anybody who wants to start a business, go to school for as long as you can before you actually sign the lease because once you sign it, you've got to know that you're playing and you're playing to win. The clock has started at that point. You're already in the game. I love that though because what you're saying is just being passionate about coffee is not enough. No. I mean, the restaurant business is a great example. I love food.

But I don't know the first thing about sourcing these products, how long we keep them for. I would need to go learn those skills for a long time. and then identify key people that have unique sets of skills there and then bring them on board. Because the thing you got to understand about starting on business, like what makes you different, what makes you uniquely better than your competitor and how are you going to win is just what we think about. And if I can't answer that, then we probably shouldn't be pursuing it.

And you said go to school earlier. I assume that's not necessarily just formal education, right? So it's connecting to the right people, learning from them, putting yourself in positions where you're getting the right. Yeah, and you'd be surprised if you connect to the people in the right way, in an authentic way. People want to help you. They do.

And they want to share their information, but you need to go identify that. And you need to put in the work and you need to back that up with action. I cannot tell you how many people on a regular basis. So last year I did this thing where I talked to 400 gym owners in the span of like six months on the phone. Just to check in, hey, how's the industry?

What are you seeing? What are we seeing? How can I help you? Because I really wanted to understand, is our business on the right path? And for all of these people I talked to, do and all these people I meet in person, you can give them the world. You can give them anything you want.

You can give them the answers they're looking for. But they're going to fall on death of ears nine times out of ten. I'll look at these people, like, dude, all you got to do is go do this, do this, this. You'll call them in six months and they haven't done any of it. It's because it doesn't mean anything unless you put action behind it. You know, when I talk about going to school, I talk about I would go to school in the morning. I'd work at night and then I'd go ride the elliptical until super late at night with the owner of this gym. almost every day for years picking his brain.

I wouldn't just say, hey, can we meet? Oh, no, I don't have time. Oh, well, what are you doing later on? Oh, I'm going to go work out. Do you mind if I go jumbling elliptical? Like, being assertive. Like, you know what I mean? Ask, ask, ask until you don't stop asking.

We talk all the time here. One of our kind of mantras is you got to live like no one else so later you can live like no one else. And it seems so often we see the picture of the entrepreneur that has scaled a business bigger than themselves that is traveling to the Bahamas. and is making money while they're they are not checking their phone. And that's just not an accurate picture, it sounds like. No, it's not.

And I think it's actually a really sad thing because people want instant gratification. And in entrepreneurship, in business, it doesn't happen overnight. You have some anomalies, of course, right, where you'll have a startup that a startup gets, you know, goes for an IPO 24 months later and they all of a sudden get paid out hundreds of millions of dollars. But for the most part, first of all, you didn't see what that person went through before the IPOed. And that's just the exception to the rule. In general, more times than not, it's in the trenches working for a long period time. And then eventually you start building up some

momentum. And then it snowballs into something else. So you said you started the business and then you start to think about scale so that you are building something that if you do get hit by a bus, it's still going. It's still running. What are the first steps you take to really start doing that? Well, I mean, I think the first step, and again, I didn't really know it at the time, but the first step was identifying what am I uniquely good at, where am I adding the biggest value to the business, and start focusing more on that. Which, what was that? For me, it was growing the business.

It was getting new people in the door. It was marketing our product. It was being the ambassador, being the face. And it's probably still today. And so if I was coaching on the floor in our gym in the beginning, for the first six months, you do everything. And you do everything because you're just trying to stay afloat. If I could do it over again and starting today, I probably wouldn't recommend that because

the industry has evolved. But back then you could do that. but the first thing for me was a delegate out the, I don't want to say least complex, but the thing in your business that someone else can do as well as you can if they're solely focusing on it. So it's the most reproducible almost. Yeah,

in a sense, right? And so what are you uniquely good at, whatever that is? The more time you spend in that area, the more larger impact you can make on the business. So if I'm spending time coaching classes for five people, spending my hour,

when I could go and maybe go do a presentation at a company and do a lunch and learn and get 30 new members in our gym, that's probably a larger return on my investment of time doing those things. And I'm the one uniquely qualified and available to do that versus other people might not have that same skill set. So you identify people that have different skill sets than you, put them in those places, and then you go find the things that can really add value that you're good at. I would imagine, and we see this with business owners all the time that we coach, intellectually, that's a great thought process. But then you actually have to give up being on the floor.

And that's really hard. It's harder than to sound. I mean, like, I'm making it sound very easy, but that's the hardest part of being an entrepreneur is that you think you're great at everything. And you're not. How did you scale the hurdle of being able to turn that over?

Well, I just had unique people just call me out. I think when you surround yourself with just yes men all the time, it can start to skew you. And especially people with people with golden handcuffs. So if you surround yourself with people, they're getting paid a lot of money to tell you yes. I don't think you're going to get to where you could possibly get to.

And so I think what's important is having this layer of trust and surrounding yourself outside people who have no vested interest, but just getting their perspective. I was competing for the United States one time in this competition. And this was like in 2011. And so at the time I was in the business, what, three years? And I was still answering the phone. So at that point, I really felt like I was uniquely good at answering every phone call

because I thought that I could sell our product better than anybody else. and so I'm competing and this woman calls me. And so instead of it going to some central line, it goes to my cell phone. I say, hey, you know, this Jason Cleaver. How can I help you? She goes, oh, I'm interested in your gym. And I started talking to her about it.

And I hung up. And this gentleman next to me, he looks at me. He's like, hey, he goes, who's that? I was like, oh, it's a woman who's interesting coming to our gym. He goes, oh, cool. I was like, you know, I like to answer the phone every time because I feel like I do a really good job of getting them in, getting excited. He goes, hey, man, I'm just letting you know.

like you didn't do a very good job right there you were short with her you cut her off you basically gave her the information you she was looking for and you didn't deliver a premium product and that's all we said but what it was to me was it was a rude awakening that i was out there thinking about competing thinking about other things and i didn't give her the appropriate time had that been someone at a friend desk at our gym he or she who answered the phone could take in their information could have set them up with a private session, could have been able to follow up if she didn't come in for that session, and it would have been a better premium service than me one foot in, one foot out. And I learned a valuable lesson that day that me doing everything at 70% is never going to be as good as someone

doing it at 100%. And so that's when you started turning things over, which put you more in your sweet spot of doing what only you could do. Yeah, I mean, I think I was dabbling with it for a while. Like when we opened up our second location, it was in 2010. So we had gone from our first location for six months, we outgrew it. So we went to a new location. Then we outgrew that. We went to another location at that time. In our third location, we then opened another business with a head coach at the time who was so good at what he did that we needed to create opportunity. Otherwise, he would have to leave and go do something else. And so that gave us a good competitive advantage. Because basically when we look to expand, it's either for opportunity or whatever, or if you have someone on your team,

that's just so good that if you don't create some type of trajectory, they have an obligation to go somewhere else. So you are now in over 20 locations, just with the direct-to-public gym model, correct? We have direct-to-public, we have corporate, and then we have digital. Between all of those, we have, it's tough because some of our scale is smaller, but there's 22 locations that we own or operate. So that's including corporate. And corporate is, in my opinion, what really helped us.

I mean, we started off with open to the public. We did well. At the time, you know, we were growing. Then we got into corporate, which really helped because these longer-term contracts, this additional revenue, helped us reinvest back into our commercial locations. And I explain to people what you mean when you say corporate. So commercials open to the public. You could go.

Anybody can go. I could walk into the gym today. Yep. Corporate is just for that company. So let's just say you guys want to have a service provider here. We would come in and provide the service for your fitness. And we could do all kinds of things. We could just do more functional style training.

traditional gym style, we can do the yoga, the Pilates, the Tel Avatres, we can run it all. And that's been a very, very rewarding, not only financially for our business, that's secondary, to very rewarding in terms of the bonds, the connections, and what I've seen. Okay. So you're operating in multiple spheres, which means you've inevitably got leaders that are really key decision makers in your organization that are moving this thing forward at all these different locations, which means trust is kind of a commodity for you. How do you discern, okay, that's a person that I trust to run this jam or that's a person

that I trust to run this project? Some of its intuition. Some of it's getting to know people for a long time, but some is that you just have to. If you want to operate at scale, you have to start trusting people. And more times than not, if you, you know, quote, hire slow, fire, fast, which is something we're terrible at. But if you do, then you have time to develop that relationship where you start trusting them.

And they can start off lowering your organization than. built their way up. At the highest level in our organization, we have a lot of trust. And I think that's critical because it allows me to do things like this and still allow the company to operate. And trusting people is really hard, especially when you even burned once, burn twice, burn three times. But you have to run a business. You have to trust people eventually. So if you keep looking over their shoulder or if you keep trying to do their job for them, they never have this sense of ownership in it. You have to let them have that. Otherwise, they're never going to take it on and move it forward. And frankly, your ideas are not always the best idea.

You have to be able to take other people's opinions because you're not always right. Okay, so you kind of breeze past the fact that you said higher, slow, fire, fast, but then you said that's something you're not very good at, which honestly for me, I'll tell you, is a little bit encouraging for me to hear that there's things that you're not good at. There's a lot of things I'm not good at. So explain the principle there, explain what you mean by higher, slow, fire, fast, and then explain the pressures that keep you from doing it. We just, I mean, we're hiring slower now, but I think when you're, when you're starting a business,

you start to be, like I was saying, I get a little bit reactive. And so all of a sudden, you need a position filled and maybe you find someone who seems like they're credible enough. Okay, let's bring them on the team, right? I'll train them up. And what you realize is that because I wasn't setting the expectations effectively, because I wasn't doing these things, when I would hire these people, regardless of how slow it was, I didn't set the expectation accordingly. And so ultimately, the problem isn't in our organization hiring slow. Our problem is firing fast. You have trouble letting go of people. Yeah. Why is that? Because I think you find one thing that is uniquely cool or you feel like they're adding value somewhere. And it allows to blind you

to actually what they're doing to the rest of the organization because they might be a really great individual contributor in their lane. It may blind you to the fact that they're toxic to the rest of the culture and the environment. And I've had that happen many of times and it's hard because you think if you let this person go or if you create some type of separation agreement that the company's going to go under because they seemed like such a critical component. But you knew deep in your heart that unless that changed, you would never get to where the company can go because they brought toxicity and undermining to the entire organization. And we've just done a really poor job of allowing that to go on for too long. But that's only through experience. Only through experience can I start

picking up on who those people are who are uniquely good at what they're doing, but they might not be uniquely good in our organizational structure. And maybe they could be better off doing something else. And I think the more mature I become in business is that what's good for them is also good for us. And what's good for us is good for them. Meaning if it's not the right fit and we don't see trajectory there for them, they could be doing something else better and they could be more happy elsewhere. And so you need to have those tough conversations. And I think for a while I avoided tough conversations, these birds and bees conversations too much. And I think now I'm just getting more numb to them. And I'm just having them quicker and earlier. And it actually saves us heartache

in the future. And it sets the expectation earlier. I can't tell you how many coaching calls I've been on with a business leader where they have a employee that they will literally sometimes use the phrase and they'll say they are toxic to our organization, but they'll say exactly what you just said. They're a performer, right? They're doing well. Like, they crush their numbers. They're the best salesperson. And every single time, we have a standard coaching question that we ask that person, knowing what you know today, if they applied for a job, would you hire them? Right. And every single time, the answer is no. Right. Right. We've had that same situation. And it's easier said than done. but I think what's really important is at least having those tough conversations a little bit earlier

we've let it fester and go on too much because you think they're such a top performer or a top person and I think had we had tougher conversations earlier maybe it would have smoothed out or maybe they would have just found their way out easier yeah no kidding you may have already hit on this but what's been the hardest part of scaling it to where it is today or what stands out as the challenge that you've had to overcome? Well, I mean, I think the biggest thing is that in the beginning, just different management styles. We briefly talked about this before is that for me, I don't need really like handholding,

whatever. Tomoy needs to get done. I'm going to try and figure out a way to get it done. But as the organization grows, different people have different skill sets. And oftentimes, I never laid out the expectation accordingly. And so one of the biggest problems with our company, especially early on, is that there would be a lot of like, hey, work hard, we'll pay you more. That was the system. But we never defined what work hard was. We never defined what paid more was. And it built up some resentment in our

business because we never clearly defined expectations both ways. And as we've grown, that's been something that's really important to us is from the get go, clearly communicating, this is the expectation of your role, this is where you could go to, this is the pay structure associated with it that are we good we're going to have quarterly reviews we're going to have all these different things to make sure we're so on track but in the beginning it was more like flying by the seat your pants over time we had to professionalize and really what that came from is you know my background is i started a clothing company we tried a bunch of different stuff in college that wasn't very successful but my background was in the fitness space and it's not very professional we were you know

gym shorts and a t-shirt there's not much structure i never worked for a company that with more than 10 employees or whatever was. But when I hired a really close friend of mine, he came from Lockheed Martin. And, you know, Lockheed Martin, they have hundreds of thousands of employees. So for him, who's very used to structure in organization. And so he brought that into our company, which was a really big game changer because it started to, even though some people were really against it at the time, that structure was very helpful as we grew. So it's funny. I was talking to one of my buddies yesterday that works for a massive corporation and he was just talking to me about all the hoops and hurdles and rules and regulations

to jump through. And I think that's the risk an organization faces as they get larger is they can just apply a rule to every challenge. And then it just becomes a giant bureaucracy. We talked to Seth Godin on this podcast about he says, man, you've got to give people the opportunity to be human. So how do you walk that line of like, I don't want to have a handbook answer for every problem, but at the same time, we do need to be professional? I mean, that's a great question. I think we were so far on the non-professional side. I mean, our first location was filled with, we didn't have the money to pay for paint. So we had some graffiti artists who, I don't know, they're a full background, but they just came and tagged all the walls. I mean, we started off with spray paint on the walls

with, and we were like as far non-professional as you could get, right? And so for us to go from non-professional to corporate, we're talking about at least having some type of initial handbook that people sign. You know, so I think for us, it hasn't gotten that. point and I hope it never does. Of course. But I could see how, especially like meetings, for example, I'll give you a perfect example. You talk to some people like, hey, I'm in meeting after meeting after meeting. And half the time you're having a meeting about the next meeting.

And it's just a bunch of crap, right? At our organization, for a long time, there was no meetings ever. We would just like show up at the gym. We're working out. Hey, what do you think about this? It was just two, our conversations would be too like 80. In the middle of pull-ups and burpees. It would never allow us to have a think tank organ, you know,

conversation. Which is necessary. And so I guess for us, we then now have shifted towards, like for me, I could probably last in about maybe two meetings in a row. And then after that, I got to get outside. I got to go do something because I have bad attention problems. But our company went from like no meetings to like, you know, a few. And the few were really helpful because it gave us a time to say, hey, everybody come together at this time. We're going to talk about this subject matter instead of just having one off conversations all the time. But I think to your point, you could have too many meetings and too many of this, I don't see us ever getting to that point because we started off our roots.

You err on the side of scrappy. Oh, we err on the side of scrappy. Who are the leaders you look up to right now and what are the businesses and brands that you look up to right now? So in our industry, Rogue Fitness is doing an incredible job. Their customer service is what I'm looking for. So for me, where I get inspiration from his customer service, what I'm starting to realize the older I get, the more mature I get in business is that.

that we're in the people business, we're in the service business. We don't have a product necessarily, right? Our product is our people. And so if our customer service isn't there or our hospitality, then we'll never have a business that can continue to grow. And we are founded on service and not on amenities. And so if you think about that for a minute, that's a huge differentiator between our business and the traditional fitness model, is that we could be founded on people. And so we didn't have much capital. But as you grow, it's really important for me to remind ourselves that we're in the service space. And so where can I get inspiration from is outside of our space? Meaning last night, I went to a Michael Mina restaurant. How are they greeting us? How are they serving us? What does that

experience look like? Then you could stay at a Ritz Carlton. What are they doing well? And then you could go to this hotel, for example, it's called the Pedigal in Mexico. They ranked the number one hotel in Mexico. I just sat down with the GM for like an hour and talked to. And talk to you. It's, it's him about what type of things do you do to create this customer experience because I've never had a better one. And now how do I take those from there? For example, for him, he has, this is kind of a unique, he has these cards and he makes for his people. And there's 15 specific traits to exceptional service. There's 15 different ones. And every morning, every day, each like shift group comes together and they review one of them.

And so each month they review each one twice. But every day is a different focus. Hey, today it's going to be about eye contact or whatever. And then they talk about it and then they go out and they deliver it for that day. But that was unique to me because each employee carries around this little card with the mission, the vision, and these core values on it. And whether we implement that in our organization or not, that was cool to talk to him about how does he scale consistently for customer service?

Because he's in the people business and so are we. So that's what I'm looking for. I was a long way to answer to say, I find inspiration from anybody in the people business because that's what we're in. Your eyes are open all the time. So you're super interested in service-based anything right now. How does that impact your day-to-day actions? It impacts the way the lens I look through.

You know, the lens I look through to get inspiration for different things. Like, for example, I'm staying at a friend of mine's house. in Nashville. When our family got there, he had a gift basket for my kids. That is a level of service that I could get inspiration from and say, hey, maybe we need a new member packet that comes to the T-shirt because that made me feel more welcome in his home. Yeah. That's an example of just looking at things in a different lens or after this, if I go to a coffee shop,

what are they doing well? And then what are they doing poorly? You're saying this coffee isn't good. This coffee is just the starter. Okay, this is the starter copy. Okay, so you're clearly, I mean, you just described for us, you're an idea guy, right? And I think a lot of business owners, like, they get out of the shower and they've just had 500 new ideas that could all generate revenue. It's a blessing and a curse.

And a lot of times what we see is, is a blessing and curse to you, the individual? It's probably a blessing and curse to the people that work with you even more. So how do you, how do you rein that in? and make sure you're filtering through the right ideas and making sure you're moving at a pace that your team can actually stay on board with you. Or do you do that? I guess is the question. I mean, it's a blessing occurs.

For a long time, we've been super reactive at our business. This was for a long time, for years. I'd come up with an idea, be like, oh, we've got to go do this. And to me, it was the only thing I mattered at the time. Like, that's it. Nothing else mattered. This idea is the biggest thing we've ever done in our entire lives. And it's great because it gets a team all, whatever, but it also gets a team all spun up.

because they're working on one project, then all of a sudden this guy comes in, dude, we need to go do this over here. And everybody's like, well, am I doing this over here? Am I doing this over here? What's happening? And so basically what I have is I have a filtration system

that is now placed on me. And basically I'm not allowed to talk to anybody about anything until I filter it through certain people. Because, you know, it's funny. What I think is the greatest idea right this minute, tomorrow it might just be gone out of my head. And the ones that stick are the important ones. So what we do is, I'll call this guy.

His name is Matt. I beg, dude, this idea is the next biggest thing. We got to do this. We need to start it now. He'll be like, okay, I'm going to put on the whiteboard under ideas that are next level by Jason. And I'll just put it there. And we'll look back at it in a week. We'll decide if it's still a next level idea, right?

And those are things that are helpful for me because it takes where I don't feel like the ideas are gone. It's just we need to identify what we're trying to do as a team and make sure we're executing on it. And when I come in and I try and just take over the ship and go left and right and left and right, we're never going forward in any direction. And I think at times in our organization, what we've done a bad job of and what we've learned the hard way is we've gone more flat instead of just going deeper with the current community that we already have engagement in. And I think that there's a way that once you go deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, then you can move on to a different vertical. But I feel like we were barely scratched on the surface. Then we go do some else. Barely scratched the surface.

Go do some else. And so you have to make sure you run an idea. through to completion. That's huge. I think one of the most powerful parts of your book, your daughter, Avo, when she was four years old, was diagnosed with leukemia. And one of the most powerful parts in reading your book was the email that you sent at 1.44 a.m. Tell us about what that email was and then tell us about the significance of that email for you as a parent, but also you as a business leader. Yeah. And that email really was the reason why I wrote the book. And so I wrote this book called As Many Reps as possible. And the motivation was

is that you never know when life is going to throw you a curveball. And so you have an obligation to go out there and continue to build hedges, build a hedge in your fitness by working out, build a hedge financially by working hard, and build a hedge with your relationships by actually having good conversations with each other and not being distracted, being present, being focused. And this idea of Amrat mentality is I never got better results than when I race the clock. And that's what AMRAP stands for, right? As many reps as possible. That's right.

And so when you turn on a clock and I say, hey, let's crush this podcast for 20 minutes. Boom, we're just on it. We're talking. We're talking. I'm not on my phone. I'm not distracted. I'm with you, only you. Same thing would apply if I'm saying, hey, let's do as many sit-ups as I can in

five minutes or as many push-ups. You'd get a lot more efficacy. You get a lot more bang for your buck because you're fighting the clock than just be like, oh I'm going to do a few sit-ups. We walk over here, talk to Bob. Do a few, you don't push-ups. Which is how most people handle the gym, by the way. But you could be so much more efficient with your time.

If you set a clock, say, hey, I'm going to get into this place in 30 minutes. I got to crush it and get on with my day. And so I started segmenting my day in these different pieces. So I'd, you know, when I'm with the kids, be with the kids. When I'm working out, work out. When I'm in the business, be in the business. And that's really the fundamental components of the Amrat mentality. But that email, so we got a call to go to the ER around

dinner time because we left the dinner on the table so it was probably 6 p.m. right and it's funny we came back from the hospital like two weeks later the dinner was still the refrigerator and so you know you get this call like hey you know there's irregular blood work we're going to call you back and say okay well that doesn't sound good and so we got a call and they said hey you need to go to stanford er which we're really blessed to live where we live which is in northern california and so we went to stanford main Stanford hospital. And so they get us in the ER and essentially from when we get there at 7 p.m. until all night,

they're doing tests or evaluating, et cetera. And we had the news was probably at about maybe 1230 or 1 a.m. that she had leukemia. Like it was 99.999.99.99.99. And what they do is they wait until the next day and they do a bone marrow test out of the hip. And so they do some like they actually go into there. and that's when they really confirm, confirm, confirm,

but they've been doing this a long time. So they knew it was leukemia, just based on everything. So anyways, you know, this obviously is super heartbreaking and we're in the room and I just wrote this email

and the email basically starts off like never had more tears. I mean, I was just dripping, like, I mean, I was just crying, just like effective immediately. And this is your CFO. Well, this was,

so at the time it was actually to about five people on the email thread because I added to the part of the book that was pertained to what was next. There was a few other components. So the email, I deleted a few parts. So what happened was there was like six people on this email. And it was, you know, hey, Paul, we will not be doing this.

JP, we are no longer doing this. And we, I added, like, I just put them all on one email. We're no longer doing some rapid fire decisions in the moment. This event is done. This event gone. Take over this. Boom. But the main one was to Matt, who at the time was acting as CFO.

Now he's the president of the business. but it was just, hey, look, effective immediately, this is my full focus. This could be for a week, a month, six months, I don't know. But as of right now today, you're the acting CEO. You go do whatever you need to do and let me know when there's something that really needs to come up. That needs a big decision. But growth is at a standstill. Right now, there's nothing else that matters.

My favorite line is when you say, please email our team and let them know what's going on and request that they not email me unless it pertains to my daughter getting better. Yeah. Yeah, that's the way I finished it. And so he ended up sending an email, right? But basically what that was was an immediate shift in my focus from, oh, let's build a great business. Let's create career trajectory for our people to, whoa, whoa, whoa.

That is just 100% over there now. You guys take care of it. I'm going to go read every single book. I'm going to become an expert on AOL. I'm going to be the biggest advocate for my child and nothing else matters. And if you want to talk about anything else but that, then, you know, if it's really, really important, we'll set up something, but for now it's not. This is the most important thing.

And that night I learned a really valuable lesson that every one of us, and I still have this mindset every single day, is that you never know where life's going to take you. And when things are good, you need to be crushing it in your relationships because when your relationships are strong, you can handle a lot of really bad things. You need to be crushing it at work because if you're so, even if you're an entrepreneur, right, and you're just an individual contributor, if you're so good at your job and you call your boss like, hey, my daughter's just diagnosed leukemia. I need six months off. If you're uniquely good at your job, they're going to say, absolutely, I will support you 100%

we'll see you in six months, right? Because they know that you're so talented. And maybe if you're not putting in the work and you're not actually striving for that at work, they might be less that's a strong situation. But the point I'm trying to make is that if you're an individual contributor or you're an entrepreneur, you have an obligation to grow up there and bust your ass every single day because you never know what's possible. Yeah. Yeah.

So you're able to send that email almost because of all the work that you had done before. And had your business not been able to sustain you being gone, then one option is that the business. The other option potentially worse is that you have to stay in the business while your family is walking through all this. We saw that a lot. You know, like my wife and I, my wife, she hosted events called Ava's Kitchen at the Levi Stadium with the Michael Mina group. And we fundraise a lot for families. So I've donated the book

proceeds, almost everything that we're going to get from it. Yeah. Go to supporting families of pediatric cancer. Because when you're in a room and you're watching a family being torn apart, I had an obligation to write this book to inspire people to get out there and bust their ass in all different areas of their life because I witnessed families being broken apart because one person was at work, one person was watching their kid be sick in the hospital and resentment built both ways. And not to mention, yeah, you see a lot of stuff. You just got to go out there and you got to work. We get to talk to so many remarkable people for this podcast and we get to learn from so many

remarkable people. And it's so fascinating how so many of them have some version of a crucible story that reframes their perspective. And what I've come to notice is that more than anything, it reframes the way they deal with fear. And I think we've got a lot of listeners. We talked about it earlier, a lot of listeners on here that love everything you say on it. Like they're like ready to go run through a brick wall. But the thing that will stop them is fear. What would you say that person should do? I mean, fear of like starting a business, fear of going out there and making the next decision. I think that, you know, you're a smart person, whoever's listening to this, and they need to evaluate, have they backed up these decisions with hard work?

Have they backed it up with good evaluation? And once you've made that decision, go out there and execute on it. And worst case scenario, you know, you're back to where you're at today. But if you don't make these tough decisions, if you don't actually go out there and try, you always wonder what if. You always wonder, what if I had done that? Am I really reaching my expectations? Am I really reaching my potential? But if you keep being held back by fear, you're never going to reach your potential.

You're never going to reach those next levels. And I think a lot of people are held back by fear. They're fearful of not being successful, especially in social media. And social media these days makes it seem like everybody's crushing it all the time. But people have to fail to learn about themselves and then move forward. And if you're too afraid to fail, you're just going to stay in this comfortable rut. But then don't be complaining if later on in life you regret not doing these things. You know, I don't have an easy answer for that.

I just think you ought to get out there and go do what you think is best after deep evaluation. And if you truly believe that's what's best for you, your family, your business, your next job, they go out there and execute on it. In worst case scenario, you can always kind of divert back. This woman Juliet, that I know, I never forget, she said, it's something really powerful to me. She was a lawyer making really great money at a law firm. And she became partner and she was making hundreds of thousands of dollars. and she decided to open up a gym. And her deciding characteristic was she had the background,

she had the confidence, she had everything built up, right? She knew the business. But what made her really flip the switch was that someone said to her, worst case scenario, you go open this gym for two years. And let's just say it's not successful. But you had the capital, you had whatever. She at the time was 35, right?

She goes and does this for two years. She comes back to law. at let's just say 40. She still has another 25 years that she could work in law, right? If you make a decision today to switch things up, there's still a lot more trajectory in your future earning potentially. You can get back to where you're at. But at least you're not going to have to worry about what if,

or did I reach my potential? Because had I not made the decision to open up a business, I know I would have forever regretted it. And that's why I had to go out there and go do it. And at the time, it wasn't irresponsible because I didn't have children or anything at the time. Nowadays, a little bit different. But I knew I would have always regretted wondering, man, I know I could do that.

Well, if you know it, go do it. I love it. Where can people follow you? Where can they find out more information about you? How do they stay in touch with what you're doing? Jasonclepah.com. You can find the book on Amazon and also at Jasonclepah.com as many reps as possible. Instagram is really good.

Jason Kleepa. If you're in the Bay Area, check out NC Fit. We have our locations there. And then if you're a corporate partner, we would love the opportunity to try. and, you know, share with you what we're doing on the corporate side, because I think we're doing some really amazing things. Just email us. We'd love to chat about it. And what email would that be? Jason at Jasonclepa.com. There you go. You got the man's email, folks. You're the real deal, man. Don't be jerks to him. Don't blow him up. But if you are interested, shoot him an email. Awesome.

Well, we said it earlier. We believe around here. Live like no one else. So later you can live and give like no one else. And that's certainly true for you, for your life and for the way you're leading and influencing people now. Thanks so much for your time, Jason. All right. Thank you. Since starting the business with one location in 2008, Jason has now grown in C-Fit to have over 20 locations around the world, 15 corporate locations, and is leading a team of over 150 people. But I think the thing that stands out for me about Jason throughout that whole conversation is that he's a leader who is still very much doing the work. He is in the grind and he's showing up every single day, figuring out a new way to grow himself, but also figuring out new ways to invest into his team and into his

customer. And that's what we see is that the business owners who win are the ones who have a plan for moving forward and then focus on that plan. And that's why our team created the business health assessment. What this assessment is, is it's kind of a questionnaire that's going to ask you about your strengths and weaknesses as a leader, the strengths and weaknesses of your team, the stage of business that you're at, the things that you're working on, the things that you're working towards. And out of all that information, we're going to help you create a plan for moving your business forward by giving you information about what you should be focusing on as a leader right now. And so we're providing this business health assessment for free for podcast listeners if you

text the word progress to 33444. Again, text the word progress to 33444. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Entree Leadership podcast. If you did, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. For a chance to win a $25, Amazon Gift Card, you can review this episode by clicking the link that's in the show notes. And be sure to follow us on social media at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, and it was edited and mixed by Will Rutter. I'm Alex Judd, and on behalf of the entire Entree Leadership team, thanks for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like The Rachel Cruz Show. Hey, guys, it's Rachel Cruz. And I'm so excited to tell you about my podcast.

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