Trading Secrets - 272. Joey Gonzalez: From pursuing entertainment to global fitness brand Barry’s CEO, the real business behind the brand, power in adaptability and pursuing fulfillment over the 9-to-5 Episode Description:

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

This week, Jason is joined by entrepreneur and CEO of the global fitness brand Barry’s, Joey Gonzalez! Joey had dedicated over a decade of his life trying to break into the entertainment business in LA, but after realizing he wasn’t achieving the financial stability he desired, he knew he had to make a change. In addition to acting, he was working jobs in real estate and in the restaurant industry before stumbling upon his role as a fitness instructor with Barry’s Bootcamp. From there, Joey organically worked his way up the company, eventually assuming the role of CEO 11 years after taking his first class.  Joey breaks down how failure and adversity have been some of his greatest teachers—and why settling for a traditional nine-to-five often comes at the cost of fulfillment and passion. He shares how his early career in acting seamlessly translated into becoming a world-class fitness instructor, from musicality and performance to programming and staying calm in chaos. Joey dives into the business side of fitness, including how to advocate for yourself, what consumers should look for before committing to a membership, how locations are selected, and the real drivers behind their global success—from private equity and adaptability to embracing local nuance in every market. He also reflects on how COVID reshaped the business, breaks down instructor pay structures, offers insight into his personal nutrition and training, recommends must-have home gym equipment (including how he discovered the Woodway treadmill), and shares his thoughts on pursuing an OPM or MBA—before tying it all together with a focus on the four F’s. Joey reveals all this and so much more in another episode you can’t afford to miss! Host: Jason Tartick Co-Host: David Arduin Audio: John Gurney Guest: Joey Gonzalez Stay connected with the Trading Secrets Podcast!  Instagram: @tradingsecretspodcast  Youtube: Trading Secrets Facebook: Join the Group  All Access: Free 30-Day Trial  Trading Secrets Steals & Deals! Upwork: Instead of spending weeks sorting through random resumes, Upwork Business Plus sends a curated shortlist of expert talent to your inbox in hours. Trusted, top-rated freelancers vetted for skills and reliability.... and rehired by businesses like yours. Right now, when you spend $1,000 on Upwork Business Plus, you'll get $500 in credit. Go to Upwork.com/SAVE now and claim the offer before 1/31/2025. Rula: Rula does things differently. They partner with over 100 insurance plans, making the average co-pay just $15 per session. That's real therapy, from licensed professionals, at a price that actually makes sense. Think about it - you use your insurance benefits to maintain your physical health, so why wouldn't you do the same for your mental health? Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance. Visit Rula.com/tradingsecrets to get started. Square: Whether you're selling lattes, cutting hair, detailing cars, or running a design studio, Square helps you run your business, without running yourself into the ground. With Square, you get all the tools to run your business, with none of the contracts or complexity. And why wait? Right now, you can get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com/go/tradingsecrets.

Welcome back to another episode of trading secrets. Welcome to 2026. I'm curious, I got David with me here. We're going to do a little intro longer than normal because we got a new year here. Because I just want to know, how are you feeling going this year? What are you working on? What are you not working on? What did you learn from last year?

What type of, like, big 2026 trends or hacks are out there? I don't know. It's a new year. It also feels a little weird this, like, Monday is January 5th. It felt like from planning the holidays until this first Monday of 2026 has been four years in itself. And the perfect guess we have on, Joey Gonzalez, CEO of Barry's Boot Camp, who's going to tell you all about the ins and outs of what you should know about their gym,

different biohacks, different things that he does. how we got to where he was, starting from the ground up. It's a perfect episode for 2026. Now, before we do anything, please remember to hit subscribe, follow us on social media on YouTube, and give us five stars and let us know guests and themes you want us to cover this 2026 because there will be some trading secret shakeups.

Things will be done a little differently this year, but an exciting way for the Money Mafia. David, 26, how you feel it? Like, where are you at mentally? You're looking in the rear-view mirror at 2025. You're looking in the windshield. 2026, how you feel? Yeah, I feel pretty good. I feel pretty good. I'm not in this mode entering 2026 where I feel like I have to change a lot or I have to get my ass into gear. So

I'm feeling really good about that. I got to just touch on something you said, Jason. I think the listeners will feel this. There's got to be some kind of study that is done about when Christmas falls the day of the week. Because I'm telling you, this Thursday Christmas, which basically means that whole weekend after is a write off and then the Thursday New Year's, which means the whole weeks are write off. I think I texted you on New Year's Day, which was Thursday, and I said, I've never had a Thursday feel more like a Sunday. I had Thursday scaries thinking I had to get to work on the next day, and I had a whole

another weekend, which was a complete write-off. And so it felt like the longest break ever compared to a Saturday Christmas. It feels like Christmas is one or two business days, and you're back at it Monday, the 27th. It's business as usual. You party on New Year's on Friday, Saturday, and you're back, and you didn't even get a break. that was real. I think I might have had some resolutions that came from being such a long break

where I maybe let a little loose a little too hard, but that's how I'm feeling current state of mind. Did you feel that at all? We'll get into the letting a little too loose for New Year's Eve or the holiday. But before I get into that, what I felt, you know me, man.

High energy guy, do a lot of shit. My head's in 10 different places and a little Tasmanian devil. I have never been more lethargic in this like this Christmas period to New Year's Eve. I'm still doing my stuff. You know, I'm still going to the gym. I'm still getting some work done.

But, man, I am doing it at a snail's pay. I'm just anybody, I don't know if it's the moon. I don't know if it's the time of year. I'm tired. Are you tired at all? Is this a me thing? I am tired. I will say that.

I think that has to do with my three week old or four week old now, but I got to spend some, I don't have that excuse. I got to spend some time. Maybe this is your body saying you're tired because you're trying to do the things that you do 365 days a year. And I need you to slow down during the hall. So that you can get energized to do it again. Okay.

Maybe that's it. But it is tiring. I mean, traveling, the holidays, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, the holidays without a doubt are the most mentally stressful time of the year for a million different reasons. And I think as we get older and the love you mom and dad and and Dale if you're listening and in, and Gary if you're listening, sometimes when we get older and our own lives start to grow within our personal lives, having to go spend time at the

holidays with parents. having to revert back to like the teenage childhood expectations of like those dynamics it is more like wearing and stressful on the brain sometimes as amazing as it is it's like it's just really interesting but it's a stressful time of year it's amazing time of year but stressful well i'm sure i can't even i mean we talked a lot about this katherine and i is just like when you have kids like you guys obviously have two kids right you want to start to then create your own traditions within your own family while still appealing to the traditions that like your families want to carry out too because like how meaningful is that. And I have to imagine with kids,

it's got to be like, you know, Santa comes, open the gifts, okay, pack them in the car, go to this in-laws, go over here, go do the face time over here. It's got to be even crazier with kids. I would just say it goes back to the root of any successful marriage or relationship communication and communicating, I think in that dilemma, it becomes what is important to you, what is important to me, what's going to be important to our kids that maybe we did or that we didn't do as kids and find a way to kind of make sure that each of those really important things are being done. I've gotten more in the Christmas spirit being with Ashley because I never did a lot of the things that she did. So that's kind of how we feel. By the way, shout out Catherine

surprising you. What an amazing, amazing moment that was. So I need to just, I mean, the night before she, so I sent her flowers and like, I kind of like her family. It's just like, hey, Merry Christmas. but, you know, have the best time of the family go Lions because Lions were playing on Christmas Day. They FaceTime me. Like, the family FaceTime me at 9 p.m. I said hi to everybody that night. I'm like, Merry Christmas. All right, I'll call you in the morning.

I text her. She took a 6 a.m. flight on Christmas Day. My dad went and picked her up. They put her in my mom's room until I got up. And she was only there in there for like 20 minutes and she was just like she was wrapping gifts. I get up. Weirdly enough, I go right outside to get the gifts because I, I was like the last one up that day.

And I come back in and my mom is filming. And I was like my dude, I've been into social media shit doing all this stuff for this would be year number nine. That's insane. That's a whole different conversation. You're nine of this. And my mom, I don't think I've ever seen her hold a camera to fit to like videotape me. I'm like, what is she doing?

But all right. Like, let's fucking go. Hey, mom. Merry Christmas. And then I saw her and I was like blown away. When you saw the, when you saw the camera. Was there any, any hint of like, oh, she's filming me to get a reaction because Catherine's visiting? I thought when I saw the camera, I was like, this is weird.

Never what I thought. Catherine, the one thing, too, that also saved that is if there's probably one day of the year that I see my parents maybe take their phone out and get some videos, it's probably Christmas. It's probably the only day they do it. So I'm like, oh, mom's just like doing the Christmas thing again. You know, like, oh, Christmas morning. Well, I got to say, for those who saw it live on Instagram, in the moment that's how i found out that she visited uh and surprised you too and the feeling that i got as your friend and like how overjoyed happy i was that that was actually reality

was so cool because like you said we had talked about it days before your guys is first and what you were hoping the last christmas ever apart and how to handle that in the future and attack that and to know that you didn't you didn't even have to do it because she's the goat and she got on a plane on six am i i was so happy for you guys uh it was great it was great to see that's sweetie brother yeah it was it was awesome it was a christmas it was like the best christmas ever and then i think about uh what i wanted to ask you was now that you're like you know you're no longer the grinch you're now like the santa claus we talk money on this podcast do you how do you deal with the santa claus thing with with car

like do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do you do not like this crazy expectation for the next year like what are your it's so far I grew up in a household where Santa Claus got you the gift you wanted and mom and dad get you 20 other gifts. Like that's... Oh, see, I was the polar opposite. So was it. I was like, Santa gives you the 20 and then at the end, Mom and Dad give you that one

gift you wanted. Ashley goes, no, they're all from Santa. Oh, every one? Like, mom and dad don't get you anything. Yeah, like that... Every gift? She's like, yeah, no, he's like, parents. She goes, parents give you gifts on birthdays.

Santa gives you gifts on Christmas. I'm like... kind of makes sense. Like birthdays are for parents. So that's a, that's an argument that I lost. There, dude, there's this funny. I just had breakfast with Andrew Reese this week. Love the guys. The absolute best. And obviously, like, you see someone and then what happens? Your phone, you start getting all their social media, right? So I get the social media that's he did. It must have done it a while ago. But his comment to Sean in the like video skit was, well, that's not what my mom did. My mom did it way differently.

And then it went to his tombstone in loving memory of, you know, it's like obviously a joke like he got killed after saying that. No, I feel like there's so many things like this like tradition. You're like, well, in my family, we did this, you know? As far as budget, um, the budget really comes in with Ash and I making a really strong, concerted effort to not spend on each other. Um, Christmas is about our kids now. Um, I think similarly too, like we have Mother's Day.

We have birthdays. is we have Valentine's Day. Like Christmas, we get a couple things, but it's very, very, very, very limited for each other. And a lot of it goes into your kids. And, man, Carter's two and a half. And he really understood Christmas this year. And he was great.

And we didn't spend crazy amount with him. I will say, and this is for another episode. I had a panic attack with all the stuff we have in the house. And I need to, like, start cycling through and getting rid of some of it and donating some of it because it's, like, making me go crazy. But I did get him as, he really wanted hockey skates. he got his first set of hockey skates. So he's got to go rip on the ice.

Wow. That was great. That is awesome. I love that. That's beautiful. You can't beat it. All right. Well, let's get into, I will say, I'm just going to quickly touch on this,

holiday spending for me for like, I need to do better with budget because I just like, I go all out on Christmas. It's great. It's like I spent a lot on Christmas this year. But I also did something cool this year is I did donations, like very specific, thoughtful donations in the name of certain family members and stuff to certain charities that they would like, which I thought was cool. But yeah, I think I probably got to get that under control, a holiday budget.

If you can spend with meaning, though, it, fuck, does it feel good? Like, it feels so good. If you spend without meaning out of panic because you didn't have thoughtfulness and so you get the designer thing, even though there's no meaning behind it, that's what keeps you up in I. But man, when you are fortunate enough to work to spend without impacting your finances and have meaning behind it, I've had the opportunity to do it a couple of times my old job where it's making a lot more money. Man, it's just the best. I have some, we should do it.

I think any gift you give, there should be meaning, thought, and time spent to it. Even if you decide that you want to do the material thing, if you're going to do the material, designer thing, whatever it is, let's just say, I don't know, let's say it's a sweater. I don't know. You should go to every single one of the luxury, if that's what you're going to do. Luxury places. Understand it. What is the vibe? Like, like, spend the time, the energy so that, like, whatever this special moment is, there's, like, such intention behind it. So I think that should be for, like, any gift because, like, I think the people are like, oh, here, like, just go get it or whatever. Like, that's, that ruins the entire point. Best gift I ever gave, and I'm going to let you think about this because I want to hear yours, is I was in a job. I was making three times as much I was making now. I had zero expenses because I lived. on the site.

I live 3,000 miles away from home for my parents. And it was at the time my life where I knew I was never going to move back home. I opened a bank account for my parents. And I only put

$3,000 in the bank account. The only rule for the money in the bank account that they had to use was it had to go to a date night once a month. And every date night that they used, they had to send me a selfie or FaceTime me from their date. So it was like a one and they had to go on once a month until next Christmas and then

I couldn't do it every year. But that for me was the conversations that we had, things that they did and it was just that moment of my life where I was like 30 years old and I was just like, man, you start realizing how much your parents sacrifice for you all those years and how far they probably drift apart and just making sure that you have what your need. It was like to be able to give that back, I was like that was the best gift I ever gave. That's the best. You can't be, I mean, you can't be that.

I mean, it's funny. It's kind of the same. It was last year, last year had a really good year financially. I think the good thing about spending a lot during the holidays is fortunately anyone that's listening this. Hopefully you've had a good indicator of what the whole year has been, right? So you've seen how much you've spent, how much you've earned. So if you splurge on the holidays, I would say, at least do the financial outlook to understand,

like, you've brought in a lot of cash or you've spent a lot less so then you can splurge when it's time. But my dad was like, for like months and months, he had been looking at for this pickle ball. This pickle ball, it like sends the balls to. Okay. Right. So it's like an automated, like you put like 100 in. It'll shoot them at different speeds.

You practice with it. I don't know. I'm like blinking on the name of what that would be. But those things are expensive. Like on the low end, they're probably like the cheap ones are like $1,000. Expensive ones go up to like $3,000. and he had been studying this for like months and months and months and went up there and he had like three different things he's t in the pluses and the minuses and i see the one that he circles that's

like got the good value but it's still good it's probably a two two hundred bucks or something and i'm just a way i'm like you know what i've had i've had a good year let's rip this so i got it for him and it was so i've never spent like that you know and he was just so caught off guard yeah and he started like kind of like almost like shaking a little bit and like start crying This is like, like, tearing up and, like, stopping. And it was like, it felt like I was watching, like, my dad's childhood self who, like, maybe always never got that thing or never treated himself to that. Because he's always been so worried about, like, you know,

making sure that there were enough finance and stuff that, like, he got treated. And I have a video of the whole thing. And I didn't, like, put it on social media or anything. But, like, I'll have that video and that memory, like, forever. I saw a video. And after this, we'll turn to some New Year's stuff. I think we'll turn the page on up. But Jay, I saw a video, and this reminded me of it on TikTok,

and it said, don't forget about your parents because it's still their first time living, too. And it was, and you know what the video was? It was a dad, probably in his 50s, and he got a pair of Air Jordans. And he never, and he always wanted Jordans, but never got him as a kid, and now he's an adult, so you don't think your parents really want, like, fun gifts.

And he's the same thing, he got him, and he cried. and he was like, I've always wanted a pair. And it's like, don't forget about your parents. They're going, like, even though it's about, like, you talked about Carter. Like, it's about my parents, they're still going through life for the first time too. So they still deserve the opportunity to, like, have that feeling. So that made me think of that in the video. That's special, though.

I love that you were able to do that for him and get that reaction. All of our parents deserve it. So. And as time ticks, like, I think it's just so important, whether it's your parents, your kids, your wife, your friends, whatever, to, like, stop for a second. and just have these kind of conversations. You know, like have those kind of conversations. And it just moves so quick, I think you forgot to do that.

It's like, even just a simple question, like, hey, dad, like, you ever remember, like, one thing you wanted for when you were a kid, but you didn't get it? Or, like, you know, what was your dream car? Like, just things, I don't know these answers. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting.

Yeah. So, I remember once, there was reminds me of this one story. I was like, I got to tell my dad this. We were sitting, it was back in Buffalo. I was going through college and college. I was really having a hard time in college my first year at St. John Fisher. I was just, like, struggling with the classes I was in. I was struggling with the transition from high school to college.

I just, like, was really depressed. And I was like, I don't know, what am I going to do with my life? Am I even going to make it through college? Like, how's this going to work? And I was sitting in our backyard. We have in-ground pool. My dad did a great job with the pool, but very, you know, like, you know, middle-class living. And I looked at the house in the backyard with my dad.

I was like, dad, I just want to say, like, this is so impressive. Like, you bought this house. You work hard. You've done everything for us. Like, I remember. I was like, I was like, this is, do you ever look at your house and just be like, wow, I did it? And he's like, yeah, you know, yeah, I do. But I also look at it like, and I, and I want, I also want like, you know, I want more.

I want to keep going. I want to keep going. And I was like, yeah, well, good for you. Just, you know, have that. And I still, I want to like go back to that memory again now and be like, yeah, I just want to let you know, like when I was in that moment, how impressed I was with what you did from where you, you know, started. And I don't know, it's like revisiting those conversation. that's a 2026 theme it's like slow down a little bit and start to like have some of those deeper conversations because time's just going you have to you have to be able to slow down

and have those conversations at the end of the day it's it's it's what life's all about um to be able to have those and ask those questions to get those answers before it's too late so um that's that's incredible that's amazing so i love it well let's go i know you're a time about so let's i jumped in there 2026 how about we start with this what's what do you think your word of the year is My word of the year, I have two of them. Moments. Okay? Moments. And this is why I mean by moments.

I always use the term as a hockey coach after a game. I said, do we lose the game or do we lose the moments? Okay? It's very clear sometimes in a hockey game where you know you're getting dominated and you end up losing. It's like, hey, we lost that game. But there's a lot of times you lose a hockey game. And it's like, we didn't lose the game.

We just lost the moment, right? A lucky bounce and things like that. So when I talk about moments I think about it like this I want to be able to do the little things in 26 to make the big things possible because if you take the moments to make the feel of the big things better

then when you look back in your year you say I had a great year because you remember the big things but if you don't take care of the moments to allow the big things to happen you won't ever get that feeling. I love it. I think that's me.

makes so much sense. So that's so moments is my word of the year and then choices we've talked a lot about choices lately. Yeah. Oh yeah. So choices is my is really I'm triple downing on realizing that everything that we do in life is a choice. It just whether we want to, you know, relative to this episode, do we want to eat healthy? Do we want to go to the gym? Do we want to communicate with our partner? Do we want to get up a little earlier? Do we want to hit the snooze button? Do we want to stay in our job? Do choices? Like really, really looking in the mirror. and making choices and sticking to them and understanding that if we want to change them,

they're our choice. Those are my two words of the year. How about you? And I also think with choices, I know it gets a little hard because I think what people do is they make choices that aren't in the best interest of themselves and then they get so upset with themselves for that choice.

And I think it's like if you're going to make the choice to hit this news button, then live with the repercussions. You know, I don't know, it's like a lot, but like just to stop dwelling on what isn't when you make a choice. That's the choice you made. And nothing changes if nothing changes.

So if you want something to change, start making different choices. But if you don't, you don't have to be this version of perfection that maybe you see on social media or something else. Like maybe the answer is actually finding complacency with the choices you do make. And you'll find more happiness. But yeah, I think two for me, like, let's start with what, balance. I'll just give you that.

Like in general, I want to find balance within all areas of my life, balance with work, balance with planning ahead, balance with my sleep schedule, balance with routine, balance with Catherine, balance with work. Just like just in general, it's balance. And I think it comes from actually reminds me of the Chloe episode, like no is a full sentence. And I also think for me it's prioritization. Like it's reverse engineering. Like stop focusing so much on like I got to get a hundred things done today and think about, okay, at the end of this day when I fall asleep, what are the big three to five things that I really want to make sure get done? And let's reverse engineer it and start the day with that. So the theme is balanced and there's like little nuances, tricks, tactics. I'm going to

try to incorporate to achieve that. I love that you brought that up because we, in the recap of this episode, we will be talking about balance because Joey brought up balance in the episode and I love the way that he talked about it. So I love that for you because I know how important balance is for where you're trying to get to in life. And I think that that's really, really important. I think, David, I love that. We could probably go on for like another hour. And it's also what we have the JTA for to talk about our year-end recap, if this is the finance, the professional, the personal side end year. So this is a nice little tease, nice little warm up for that. But why don't we kick everyone off to the Joey Gonzalez episode, talk all about things in the

health regime and working out in biohacks from the CEO of Barry's boot camp. Anything before we wrap? No, guys, it's January 5th. It's time to get going. Barry's boot camp. Let's get it going. Let's get it going. We will see you guys in the recap. Let's ring in the bell with the one. and only Joey Gonzalez. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today we are joined by entrepreneur and CEO of the global fitness brand. Barry has ever heard of it? Joey Gonzalez, Joey had dedicated over a decade of his life, trying to break into the

entertainment business in L.A. But after realizing he wasn't achieving the financial stability, he knew he had to make a change. In addition to acting, he was working jobs in real estate and in the restaurant industry before stumbling upon his role as a fitness. instructor with Barry's boot camp. From there, Joey organically worked his way up the company, eventually assuming the role of CEO 11 years after taking his first class. Joey's unique story of working various side jobs to make ends meet to now being the CEO of a multi-million

dollar company is the epitome of what it means to be an entrepreneur in today's business world. Joey, thank you so much for being on sharing secrets. Thank you for having me. I mean, what a cool story. I think what's really interesting is a lot of people that listen to this show are actually the opposite of you. They get stuck in the corporate grind and they're trying to look at more of passion. And you started in passion and then aligned passion with a role as a fitness instructor. So I guess I just want to start with just a little bit of advice for anyone that is out there struggling with what they're doing on a day-to-day basis and they're trying to find a little bit more passion in their career line. What advice

do you have for them? By the way, that is like an amazing observation because I always talk about how, you know, I think you can learn so much through failure and through challenge. And when I think about the first 10 years of my career and I think about what I set out to do, I was in SAG at 13 and I was working in film, TV, musical theater, and went to USC to study acting. But it didn't end up working out for me, right? And I pull myself out by choice. But when I look back and I think about like what was the lesson that I learned, it was that I knew at a very young age that you could love work and you could love what you do. And so that's why in your intro you described how many different jobs I had after that because I wasn't willing to settle for just

showing up and working nine to five and not feeling that fulfillment and that passion. And I just don't think anyone should. And I understand everyone's financial position is different. But there is nothing, I think, more important in life than enjoying your work. Yeah, I think it's so, so important. And I think what's cool about your work is there's, it's a weird crossover, but it's a different crossover, but there probably are some crossover. So are there any things from your time and studying, acting that you actually deploy in your current role as a CEO?

Oh, God, yeah. If we back up and just look at it from an instructor lens, because that was my first role, right? was so easy for me to step into that red room because the things that we expect of our instructors are musicality, programming, and performance. Musicality, I had done a musical theater. I know an A count, and I can see a beat drop from like 90 seconds away.

My kids love it. They think it's the coolest thing. But that's just like how my brain works. Performance I spent years doing 13. I was studying at Second City doing improv. And went on to do on camera. work and just really learned how to perform essentially, right? So got to use that tool as well.

And then lastly, programming, it's like when you're an actor, you have to be off books. You have to memorize everything. And that's what we do as instructors. We build very complicated workouts. And then we have to leave it and just remember it and be able to recall. So I would say that from the instructor standpoint was useful. What tools did I earn as like a CEO?

I think, A, as an actor and as a creative, you spend a lot of time. developing soft skills. So you really learn about what it means to have EQ, to be human. You're very in touch with your emotions, like almost in an annoying way, right? You have to learn how to cry on Q. These are like very raw emotional things that you have to become expert at. And I think helped me gain the EQ that I have now, which really like empowers me as a leader. And then additionally, I think the performance piece too, because I still do. teach, right? I do a lot of media for Berries. So that has all kind of served me in that role as well. We will get into Barry's boot camp. We will get into the industry. All that is coming. But a couple questions I do have as a CEO because I do find that stuff so interesting is let's just start with this one. There's a Harvard business case study. And I did see that you went to Harvard Business School, no big deal. But it talked a lot about how majority of CEOs in America for large and mid-sized companies, they did a study and cortisol levels are actually lower within all of these

CEOs. And the idea behind it is like when stress is coming the way of these CEOs, they can keep cortisol levels pretty low and still be able to manage the mayhem and guide the ship and lead the ship. Do you think that applies to you? Do you believe your cortisol levels are lower? Do you think you have a differentiating skill set? Fact, because I do actually perform really well under chaos. And the pandemic is a great example of that. When the world and my organization was losing its mind, I was very centered. I had to meditate a lot, obviously to get there, but was really able to kind of tap back into entrepreneurial roots. And yeah, sometimes I feel calm and chaos. So it might make sense. Okay. The second question I got for you is I always

find it so fascinating how someone can go from literally like one of the entry level positions we'll call it, to literally the CEO, and you did it within 11 years. I always thought, someone I used to work for a large bank, and I worked at the headquarters, and I would watch the bureaucracy of the people that were able to escalate into EVP positions, president positions, board positions, and then CEO positions. It was like an art watching the ability that they had to move internally and externally. How did you do it in 11 years? And someone that is listening to this, that's like, one day I aspire to be the CEO,

But they think it's impossible. What advice do you have for them? Well, in fairness, I think how difficult that is is dependent on how large the company size is. Sure. And so when I joined Barry's, it was two studios. So it was a fairly small organization. How many employees when you joined? I would guess between 40 and 50, maybe.

It was very kind of no frills. It started in 1998. So Barry, I call him the mad scientist. He came up with this thing. There was no boutique fitness. there was, this industry didn't exist, right? And he essentially, like, created it. And I had no ambitions to be a CEO.

Like, that's not what I set out to do. That was never in your foresight. Never. I'm not that title driven. I just really loved the organization. And I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life building berries. That was like my dream. And so what that meant for me is I went from instructor.

I then went into the GM position. So I was essentially, like, operating the day-to-day business. And the way I chose to do that was to actually distance the founders from the business and let them just live their lives and run operations and manage the business. And so I was acting like the CEO from the third or fourth year that I was at Berries. And then I begged them consistently across those years to invest and to actually become a partner in Berries. And it took five years.

And finally, one day I walked into the office and I said, Look, I want to do this with you. You know I love Barry's more than anything else in the world, but I will do it without you. And this is your final chance. And you were thinking about like going on. I was like, I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I was like, please say yes. And that was what it took. Sometimes people just need a nudge.

You got to stand up for yourself and advocate for yourself. What was the result of that? The result was yes. And so I moved to San Diego and I opened, that was my first studio as a, you know, 50% shareholder. So I was investing my own capital at that time. And then I did that again in New York City. And I really became tasked with, there was proof of concept in L.A., but not portability. So I was tasked with proving that this was a portable concept, right?

And so I had to learn quickly how to, I think the main core competencies that served me were building community. So community marketing and just getting the brand out there, creating brand equity, and then finding and training fitness superstars. What is the, in your day-to-day or your annual role, like all the things in hats you wear, what is by far the long shot hardest responsibility you have? I think it's probably what a lot of people say. It's just the people management piece. Okay. And why is that? Because you just, is it finding? It's very reliable. You don't know what to expect of humans, right? They have emotions. They get triggered. And so when you are showing up to a meeting and something is said and you can see a reaction take place, it's just a hard thing to manage, you know, especially when you're, when you have EQ and you're empathetic. Yeah.

Because you start to like feel things that people are feeling. Do you know what I'm saying? It's just like very draining. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, you're wearing the emotions of like so many people that are trying to either, you know, move their careers in one direction and or serve for their family or whatever it might be. so I can imagine that. Let's talk a little bit about the business. So the boutique fitness market,

it's valued at $48 billion in 2020-203, projected to grow to $86 billion by 2030. That is massive growth. I want to ask, let's first start from the consumer. Then I will get into the business side. All the people listening that love Bears boot camp, maybe they love some of your competitors. What are some of the things that a consumer needs to be looking at

or considering that they might otherwise not be as they are potentially going to sign up for a membership. I think the first thing you need to ask yourself is what are you looking for, right? Is this a place that you want to go to to feel community and connection with people? Is this a place you want to go to to feel confident and good about yourself? In which case, maybe it's not the hardest thing out there, right? Maybe it's something that you know you can do every day, you know? Or is it about efficacy?

do you actually want, which I feel like is so taboo to talk about now today, but like do you want your body look better in a few months after you're doing this four or five times a week, which is a very normal, I think, reaction. I think so. And what I said, I looked at your arms. I said, I've got to get mine bigger. It's normal. Now I've got to go to Barry's more.

But figuring out, you know, what your objective is, and maybe it's all three of those things, right? And then you have to kind of assess the business and see what the value proposition is, right? Like, what's the cost? Is there a reason, you know, you kind of shop around and you see what. costs more, what costs less. Do I care about these amenities that they're offering? Is it worth the extra $32 a month? Okay. Okay. I think that's good. I will say, I think there's massive price disparity in this market. And I think there are some boutiques that are like just hammering the

consumer. Do you think there's a dollar amount like, hey, all those things to consider that you just said while signing up for a membership? If you're spending over X, you're probably not going get your return. I think that is like very subjective. I don't name names, but like there's a concept out there that I just don't get it. It's so expensive. And it to me is like a very silly workout, but it has a cult following and people swear by it and pay obscene amounts of money for it. But they are being fulfilled by going. You know what I mean? So I think it's a sort of to each its own thing. I don't have like a formulaic, if you're paying more than, you know, $300 a month, it's a waste of money because I think there's real value in some of the more

premium players. Okay. That makes perfect sense. I want to ask, as a business owner, if someone's listening to this and they're thinking about starting a boutique gym, we've seen all the success. Don't do it. First and foremost, don't do it. But, you know, you guys, 90 studios, 15 countries. I know you have a goal of adding 12 more locations this year. That's 13% growth if you get to the 12. We'll talk about that in a second. If your to-do list is getting longer and longer so much it's become greater than your actual workday? Well, the good news is you're busy, and busy is good. But when you are busy, you have to know how to optimize,

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you know, I kind of want to start one. Give me just a roundabout dollar amount. you think someone would have to come up with to be like, this is probably what you would need to get a boutique gym going in like a good place. Yeah. So it's, once again, it's all related to, is it like sort of premium? Is it entry level? I think the lower cost boutique fitness concepts, you could spend under a million dollars.

Like some of them, I think, three to six hundred thousand dollars to get up off the ground. Interesting. Berries is usually over three million. Okay. For one unit. Gotcha. So there's a lot of variability there, and it just depends on what you're looking for. Right.

When you guys are thinking about your locations, because you know, I have 90 studios, I've always wondered from a CEO perspective, like what goes into that as far as like what city you go to, where in the city? Are you looking at other things like either restaurants or grocery stores that are close by? Like, what's the strategy of location setting? Yeah. I love this question because.

It's something that I'm still really close to. I like to walk the neighborhood in the site before signing a lease still. How far will you walk? Probably like three or four blocks. Okay. Yeah. The main considerations are obviously like location, right? You want to be in a good spot that's easily accessible.

Co-tenancy, which is what you were touching upon, like is there a whole food's close by? Is there other fitness? Which is something we actually look for. We like fitness districts. We're fairly differentiated, so we're not afraid of competitive. competitors. Okay. And then the third piece, which is kind of depends on the market, but I'd say like 70% of the markets we're going to do now is parking. Parking?

I cannot overstate how important parking is when it comes to. Yeah, boutique fitness. Okay. That doesn't even, like I, that's just choosing your geographical location. I haven't even touched the surface of like the work that it takes to actually sign a lease because then you have to move into the space and do all this huge assessment on the infrastructure. We have to look at floor load and make sure it can handle all our treadmills and our weights. We have to do crazy sound tests above, below. So it's a lot of work.

It's a very specialized use, and it's a lot of work. It makes sense. You did mention Whole Foods and competitors. Because it always seems like there's certain retailers that, like, it doesn't matter what city, what state, they're always next to each other. Do you have one that you're like, okay, if they're close by, this is pretty good? Like, is Whole Foods a good example? Do you have any consistency? Whole Foods.

Okay. There's a study recently. I actually learned this from our CBRE team today that shows in a post-COVID world, people are traveling. They're less likely to leave their homes. It's about 60% of the time they're spending leaving their homes. And it might be more applicable in, like, suburban, like secondary city areas. But the reason they were saying that is, like, it's become even more important for retailers to cluster around one another. because then you're improving the likelihood.

If you're close to a Whole Foods or you're close to a place that someone's going to go to regularly throughout the week, they're more likely to also visit you. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Okay, so clusters. And I didn't know that, though, that people are leaving their homes less. I didn't either. I would honestly think the opposite.

I would think because we went back. That's what I'm saying. I still haven't been home. I hate going to my house. I'm like, keep me out. Let's go. That's interesting. It's good stuff.

When you think about community, everyone that's listening to this in some capacity, Maybe it's on their social media. Maybe it's in their hometowns, whatever it is. You need community to lead today to create influence, to create power. Whatever you're doing in business, you have to have community. It's like it is such an important part of the game. I think based on my observation, one thing Barry's boot camp has done so well is they've created that community that people are so engaged to it. Like I can bring up Barry's boot camp and people light up.

I'm obsessed. Oh, my God. I go, I know my instructor. What is it from the marketing perspective you think that Barry's has done in your level? years that has really allowed you guys to build community and in that, like, what's one big mistake that you guys made along the way? So I'd say that the secret to our success in terms of the global community piece is how we marketed.

And up until maybe four or five years ago, we had no budget for paid media. All our marketing was organic. We didn't rely on people to just. We didn't just expect our clients to, through word of mouth, bring their friends, but they did. But we figured out a lever to pull and to make that happen even more frequently, which we have these referral campaigns. They're called Friends with Benefits. Yeah. Good marketing flavor.

Got to make it berries, you know. And it's basically, it's worked differently depending on the campaign. But it's usually something like if you bring a friend and you both come together and you take a class, you both get a free class. something simple. Sure. There are other ways that we invite our clients to acquire, you know, to use them as acquisition tools. But that's been like, I think, how we've grown the community so organically. And the biggest mistake, I think, is when we started investing a lot in paid media. Interesting. Because our conversion rates are, you know, 30, 40% when it's organic. When you bring a friend, they're 30 or 40% more likely to come again. When they come on paid media,

it's like in the single digits. Oh, wow. Under 10%. But it makes sense because the thing that people love most about Berries, and I would argue like, Berries is about efficacy. That shit works. Yeah. You love to swear. Oh yeah. It really works, like really well. But people come for the community.

They come back for the community. And so when you are going with a friend or when you know someone who's there, it just makes the whole experience better. This one blew me away. So 13% growth here. You guys are talking about opening 12 locations, and you already have 90, and then you are debuting new international locations in Madrid, Athens, and Dublin, which I found just fascinating. Obviously, if you're talking about $3 million, a pop for each one, you're going to need financing because that's a lot of money for 12 of them.

You're talking $36 million, and it looks like you source new funding with Princeton Equity Group to help fuel this global expansion. We've had a lot of people come on, and either they exited their companies through private equity worked with private equity, we just did an interview with a veterinary clinic that was acquired by PE. How has the PE process been as a CEO? Yeah, so this was actually our second turn. Second time, okay. 2015 is when we did our first private equity transaction.

That's when I was appointed to Global CEO. Got it. So I mentioned I wasn't that title driven. It took someone else coming in and being like, you're the CEO. Yeah, what do we do it? I know. You're like, fine, I'll take it. I don't care.

But they were, their name is Northcastle Partners. Okay. That was your first piece. They are pretty expert in fitness, which was hard to find, especially back then. But they had brought Equinox from under 10 units in the 40s. By far and away, the most sort of intelligent conversations I had as I went through that process of finding a partner. And ended up being my best friends, like the most incredible humans ever. We faced COVID together, which is like the business was so successful.

And it was doing so well that, like, you don't really find out what partnership means until times get really hard. Yeah. And that's when I, like, you know, grew to love them exponentially more, like, because they were just the most incredible people. And their, like, belief is that you can drive value through values. And they lived that truth. This is not what you were expecting. No, not at all. No one has this story.

Yeah, I was going to say no one has the man. Yeah. And he still is one of my best friends. He exited, obviously. January and we teamed up with PEG, which is Princeton Equity Group. But, you know, that whole process of when you're looking for an investor and a partner, we're a very, I haven't even mentioned it yet, but we're very mission vision values business, right? And that's something you learn in, you know, business school. You do your mission, vision values. And I think every

organization has them, but they are like front and center for us. It's the first page of every deck. We have every employee have a copy of it. It's really important for us. It's part of onboarding. It's part of how people are reviewed. And so when we look for a private equity partner, we really try to find someone that's values aligned. Okay. And there are ways to do that, by the way. Like, one of the tricks I would have is like, I would call front desk because they like to take classes to check out the studio. And I'd be like, what are they like? And I would get real-time feedback. Like, they're kind of rude or, oh my gosh, they were so nice. That like really mattered.

Of course, it should, right? So that's a good one. I like that. All right, with the new international locations, Madrid, Athens, and Dublin, from the United States perspective, We understand kind of some of our culture and our practices around just fitness. Is anything drastically different? No, I think when we launched Milan, the fuel bar, which is our shake bar, essentially a protein shake bar, we had to rework a lot of the recipes because they don't have the same sort of like sweet taste profile. Europeans don't love ice, so we had to change like the recipes on how much ice went into a shake. I would say that we're willing to adapt and change almost.

almost anything, because we don't ever want to have the reputation of being this American company that just rolls in and does things the way we do them, right? That is so, I think, contradictory to who we try to be. Like, we are, even here in the States, like, if you go to Barry's NoHo, it looks different than Barry's Upper East Side. You know, we really try to embrace local nuance and feel the vibe of the neighborhood. It makes sense. So what I was saying is, like, we'll experiment and do things differently everywhere except for in the red room. And no matter where you go in the world, that red room feels the same. That's it.

That's a consistent. That's like the McDonald's touch. Wherever you get those fries, it's going to be the same. That's the red room. But not. But not. But the opposite. But the opposite.

But the opposite. I like that. Talk to me about this. How and why and what does it look like to be able to grow your business 13% in just one year? And what's sparking all that? I think, you know, It's actually when you look at the size of berries up against our competitors, we're really not that big.

90 studios for a company that's 26 years old. Many of our competitors are in the thousands, right? And they're in 50 countries. Our growth strategy has always been, we don't want to be the biggest. We strive to be the best. Opening 12 studios a year is like around one a month. That's not that challenging for us. We have the resources to execute that.

One of the things I did want to highlight for you is that our international studios are franchised. So that does take some of the burden off of us. With two exceptions. So the US, Canada, and the UK are all owned and operated by Barry's corporate. The rest is all franchised. Interesting. I don't know if you could share this.

Can you share what it costs to get into a franchise internationally? It's a little bit complicated. The country deals are all very different. there's usually like a couple different fees associated. There's like a get in now fee that's related to your whole territory deal. And then you pay basically a per studio fee. And there's obviously a percentage of revenue there. Sure.

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Just visit rula.com slash trading secrets to get started. After you sign up, you'll be asked how you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know we sent you. That's Rula, R-U-L-A dot com slash trading secrets. You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget. When you, and not a franchise model, but when you open a new studio, let's call in the States, Do you have, what is your projection of how long it will take to recoup the costs? Yeah.

So every lease that we sign has an underwriting model attached to it. Yeah. And that underwriting model has historically always had the goal of payback within at least 48 months, but we like to see under 36 months. That's impressive. That's impressive. Have you ever opened a studio and it fell apart or failed? Not until COVID. Okay.

Gotcha. But we opened about three or four studios. in COVID that were dying on the vine. And we really have gotten good at sort of breathing life into anemic studios. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we brought them back. You know, there was a time where, you know, there was one we were even considering closing, which we'd never done in 26 years.

And so happy to say like every single studio in our system is profitable. Yeah. But it wasn't always that way. And COVID really took away a lot of the tools that we needed for success. Okay. Interesting. One thing, just as a consumer of your product, I've always been interested in, the fitness instructors are so great, they're so motivational. Like you said, from a performance perspective, like they're incredible. But I've always wondered to some, my brain operates on the money side.

Are they incentivized by, like, performance? Do they get bonus and commissioned out based on how many people are in the class? Yes. Okay. And in addition to that, over the last Barry's has become a very sophisticated boutique fitness concept. I think there are very few that are doing it the way we do it. Instructors actually have access to a dashboard where they get to track their KPI's. Oh, wow.

And so not only are they paid hourly plus per head, they're also bonusing on acquisition, right? Because we want them out there sharing their black card and bringing people in. They're bonus on their conversion rates. And they're bonused on how many classes they teach. Interesting. And they'll have a whole dashboard in which they can see their KPI's all the time. That's pretty cool. Which mirrors also how our like GMs and AGMs bonus as well.

Yeah. And it's how the leadership team views. That's essentially the life cycle, the customer, right? We look at acquisition, we look at conversion, then we look at frequency. And that's, you know, our paid attendance on a weekly basis is how we define success. So we've aligned across management, talent, and leadership, all the same KPI. So interesting. All right.

Talk to me about five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now. We're seeing change move at just the only kind of. constant right now is change. We're seeing technology and AI in every industry. They're saying will not look the same in five years and will not look the same in 10 years and 15 years. But it feels like there's only so much integration you can do in a boutique gym like this. When you're envisioning growth and change, what do you think Barry's looks like, five, 10, 15 years down the road? Yeah, I think, so first of all, the five-year plan is about as far as I can go without having a panic attack. I don't. I don't plan 10, 20 years. I know. I can sit

here and lie and pretend that I do, but I really don't. Five years is plenty for me. We have the goal of opening 60 corporately owned and operated studios in the U.K., Canada, and the U.S., and 20 franchise studios globally. That's our studio account. In terms of how I think AI will impact our business, we ventured into at-home workout, digital workouts, and we have an app now called Barry's X, and it has content and our clients can subscribe to that. But we did learn through COVID, that, like, our core competency and what we do best is in-person experience. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's so important for the soul to see people and touch people and interact with people. And I think there's less and less of that happening, evidenced by people

leaving their home less often, right? Also evidenced by this whole, like, work from home culture we haven't really bounced back from. Sure. Right. Which you can see the studies. A lot of people who work from home are seriously depressed. They're not interacting with humans. So I think AI for us, we need to get better at integrating it into our business practices. So, like, into, you know, our marketing efforts into, yeah, there's so many tools now that we're not using that could make things so much easier for us. And that's more from business operations, not from a consumer going there. Yeah, I think that makes perfect sense. All right, talk to me about this. You're a fitness instructor. You're now the CEO. You do kind of hold a responsibility to, you know,

make sure that your nutrition and your fitness is first. I feel like, talk to me a little bit about some nutritional hacks from an instructor and CEO of a bear's boot camp, anything specifically or trading secrets from a nutritional perspective. You either do, you don't do, you recommend. I think it's different for everyone. I am like a big experimenter, so I go through different phases. A few years ago, I was really into like intermittent fasting. I would do prolon, which is that mimicking fast for five days. It's, yeah. That's tough. That's tough. It's like bone broth for five days. Yes. It's like, don't show me one of those packets.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But like cellular autophagy, there's so, you know, there's a lot of upside to doing that. Now for the past, pretty consistently for the past three years, I've been working with concentric consulting, which is essentially like nutritionist. Okay. And they plan out all my meals. No way. And it's very different than how I've ever eaten. Like I eat way more than I used to. It's more of a bodybuilding program. But my thing to them was like, are you going to compete? And I was like, no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because also I think. I think the end of that is crazy. Do you know how they, you know how they, it's like, oh yeah, that's what goes on.

Yeah, and so the dehydration like, yeah, it's a lot. Your skin, water pills, suck to your shit, yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, I've been, I've been so happy with the results. Do you ever do cheat meals? Oh, yeah. And what you go to cheat meal? Nachos. Oh, nachos, that's a curveball.

What do you throw on there? Either chicken or beef. Oh, that sounds great. Yeah, hungry. I like to make them at home too. I like to make them at home too. I like it. I like it.

And then your workout routine outside of doing a bear type workout. Do you do anything else? Yeah. So I do five days of cardio, which will usually for me be berries, unless I'm in a place that doesn't have it. And six days of lifting, which is around depending on the body part 60 to 90 minutes. So you're doing double sessions almost every day? I'm doing like two hours. I mean, damn. Yeah, like 12 hours a week of working out. Wow. But I love working out. I mean, the CEO of Barry should. I think that's a good fit. No, but people listening who think That's crazy. You have to understand, like, I, it's my favorite part. Like, I love it.

I have so much joy in working. Are you a morning or late night workout? Morning. Always, huh? No, I didn't used to be. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. You can switch for me. When you have kids, you just have to, like, change your habits a lot. I totally, I mean, one day, you know, maybe one day. Let me ask you about your MBA. So you go to Harvard business school. It was an OPM. OPM. Okay. So OPM at Harvard. What are your, I mean, what are your thoughts? Like, do you see the return in that people right now that are thinking about me? maybe going to get an OPM or going to get a master's or going to get an MBA at like a big school?

Just what's your take? Do you think that's necessary to be a CEO of your nature? I think it depends on what your path is, right? So my program OPM is actually designed for my exact archetype. So it's someone who doesn't have an MBA and who had no business running a business, but somehow ended up there who wants to equip themselves with a lot of the skills that maybe their peers in the workplace might have, that makes sense. There's also this like moment where you have to accept like, okay, the skills that got me from

zero to 50 stores are very different than the skills I need to get from 50 to 100. So that's why I enrolled in that program and it was incredibly enriching and I loved it. And you feel like you've seen the return with it. Oh yeah. In big ways. And you know, they actually block it out for you, but they say that over 50% of the value in a program like that is actually the networking and the people that you meet. Yeah, I think that makes sense.

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sign up at square dot com backslash go back slash trading secrets that's sq u a r e dot com slash go slash trading secrets visit square to get started because the right tools make all the difference Talk to me about this. If I want to start a, I want to build an at-home gym, from when I can't go to Barry's, what type of equipment do you recommend or endorse? Number one thing would be a woodway treadmill. Okay. Because they are the best of the best. Okay. Are you familiar with woodways?

Not really. They look like a tank. Okay. They have like strips of rubber. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It feels like you're running on the road. Yes.

I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. They eliminated the sort of belt and deck of a treadmill. So usually there's like a piece of nylon that goes around the deck and just moves. Okay. It's really bad on your joints. So every time your foot hits that belt, there's a little bit of slippage in your knee and your ankle. So your body's kind of moving forward.

Explains a lot. A woodway has like strips of steel covered in like cloud like rubber where you just kind of like bounce a little bit. Okay. They're very expensive. How much are they? They're over $10,000. Wow. Okay.

Around $12,000. Okay. So Woodway treadmill, what else would you say? So like any of those, I mean, obviously you guys like it from a dumbbell perspective, what dumbbells are you? I love dumbbells because it's a very easy way to ensure that you're working out both sides with the same sort of force. So if you have a barbell, an 80-pound barbell and you're pressing it or curling it, you might be favoring your right side. I do love that piece of dumbbells. You also, I think, need to engage a lot of your secondary muscles more with dumbbells than like machines.

But I would definitely have dumbbells and probably a squat rack. and then I love cables. You can do so many things with cables. Okay. All right. There you go. You guys got enough information to now build your at-home gym, but still keep your Barry's membership.

Don't lose that. I'm just curious, just from a CEO perspective, what is one trading secret thing behind the scenes with Barry's boot camp that we would never know internally that maybe you think that we'd find interesting or fascinating, maybe about the business, the marketing, the growth management, just something about Barry's we wouldn't know unless we heard it from you. I mean, I have a funny story.

that kind of like changed our business. So we use the woodways. Okay. And the woodways are, you know, when you're talking $12,000 a unit, 20 to 25 of them, compared to what we used to use, which was like a $2,000 treadmill. Yeah. So it's a $10,000 delta per machine. Sure.

You know that. It's like easy math. And that was a very big switch for us. It's a big line item number. Totally. And the reason why it happened, which is a story I've not told often, is that one of my best friends is Justin. Timberlake.

No way. And he was giving me a tour of the new house that they had just built and brought me in the gym and showed me the woodway. And I was like, what's this? And he's like, dude, you run a running company? You don't know what a woodway is? I was like, no, I don't. But I'd love to learn.

So he schooled me and taught me all about it and, you know, explain that it was proprietary and that it was amazing. And I used it and fell in love with it. And I pitched it to my three other, the three other Barry's founders. and I thought for sure they were going to be like, you are nuts and they loved it. Really? We should do this.

And that was really, the reason why I think that is like a significant story is that that was the beginning of us premiumizing the business. Because Berries used to be like a hole in the wall, no frills. Barry's Chelsea, which is probably my favorite studio because it's just so sentimental for me every time I walk in, was the first sort of new prototype of Barry's.

It had woodway treadmills. We never had locker rooms or showers. We found a great sort of amenities partner and brought them in. It was the first time we had fuel bar. So we really stepped the business up and then sort of retroactively, you know, retrofitted the other studios. And everything we built from then on was that model. Thanks to Justin Timber. I mean, the term part.

The fuel bar was thanks to my husband. Okay, got it. All right. All right. Everyone played into it. Yeah. How does someone become best friends with Justin? We're like, how does that happen?

That sounds cool. That sounds cool. Yeah, it's a long story. It's just mutual friends. It was actually Jess. Jess was the first one I met. She's the best human on her. The best mom, the best.

They're both unbelievable. If you ask me, like, top five crushes, she's on there. And it's absolutely beautiful. She gets out of the pool. She's like, perfect. It's like, oh, Jess, she's so hard to be you. The impact of. Justin, I'm Barry's.

I'm never looking at those treadmills the same. I love it. That is awesome. All right. Well, I do want to wrap with a trading secrets. So it's something specific to Barry's, it could be specific to your career track as a CEO, it could be something financial advice, personal advice, professional advice, whatever it might be. That is, people can only learn from you, from your track, not from a textbook or TikTok tutorial

or even in getting an OPM at Harvard Business School. What can you leave us with? I think a lot of people ask about balance. How do you find balance? Because running a global company and having two very young, active kids and wanting to be really connected and committed to my family, it's tricky. And my answer is always, you don't find balance, you create it. And the way I like to think about it is I focus on four things, friends, family, faith, and fulfillment.

Okay. The four Fs. The four Fs. And I feel like if you aren't engaged with all four of those things, you're not living your full potential. And just to dive in a little bit, like friends and family, that one's kind of obvious, right? Because it goes back to love and you know that's, I'm a love guy. Yeah, yeah.

It's also like been shown, it's proof that it gives people the will to live. It's like the number one thing they did a study recently that showed like if people have friends and family that they love around them, their will to live is greater. Okay. Which I think is really interesting. Yeah. The faith piece is like it can mean different things to different people. Like it can be religion, but I think to people who aren't religious, who are more spiritual, it can also be,

meditation. It can be, I think of it almost as like the recognition that you are a very small piece of a massive puzzle. Okay. And that really humbles people and that's an important part of balance, I think. Yeah. And then the last would be fulfillment, which I think most people think of as work and job. Yeah. But you have to remember, like, you don't work for your first 15 years and you don't work potentially for your last 20 years, sometimes more. Sure. So you have to have some fulfillment in your life. It should either be a job that you love or you should have, you know, hobbies that you love. That's the way I think of it. I think it's really good. With the time management and just balancing, I was thinking I was just

doing a little math in my head, but you got 168 hours in a week. You do 12, you know, working out. You do 56 sleeping. You're down to 100 hours. And you're the CEO of a massively growing company. So how, like, like where are you, you said you create that, but how do you create it? Are you carving out in your schedule, certain time blocks? Like, how are you actually creating it? Because it always feels like to me, and I know a lot of people that listen to this show, that just not enough time. So, like, how are you creating it? You have to make tough decisions, and you have to, like, I think you're the only one who

knows the answer to that, right? There are oftentimes where I can't go to a meeting at work that's really important because my kid is doing some kind of presentation. And when you give me those two choices, it's obvious to me, right? Someone might have a different reaction to that based on how they view balance, but I really want to be an active participant in my kids' life. I also have a funny line I always use that there is

almost no such thing is balanced. There's only disappointing someone. Do you know what I mean? Because that's essentially what is. That might be the trading secret right there. You have to pick and choose. That's why I suck at balance because I don't like to disappoint people. Damn, all right. You just gave me a lot.

Oh, big time. Oh, big time. Yeah. I got pulled in a lot and then I say yes to too much and then I don't have time for anything. And then the only person that impacts negative place me. So, yeah, I think that's a really, really good one. I think one of my trading secrets is there's oftentimes I do presentations, like I'll speak at TikTok headquarters and I'll speak to brands. And I'll talk about, especially from a talent management perspective when we're managing talent,

I'll tell them to think about someone that they look up to, like a celebrity author, whoever it is, like actor, actress, Justin, or like, and you could define their brand in three words. And most people, when you ask them, who is their favorite person they look up to, they can list off like 50 words that define their brand and have no trouble finding three words that define their brand. I'll instantly pivot to them and I'll say, okay, what's your brand and your company? And everyone falls apart and struggles. And I think we struggle so much understanding ourselves and our brand and like what we represent, but also what we want to

represent. And I thought it was really cool that you said love a lot. And love actually is like the one of the biggest reasons that Barry's continues to have the brand equity. It does, success and growth. And I think that's a cool exercise, like thinking about either your business, your brand, or what it is, like, what do you want to represent? What do you think it represents? And where do you want to go with it? And just one word. And like, that is a good directional place to be when you're trying to navigate the craziness of life. I love that. Yeah, that's a trick secret I got out of it. I actually think you can take a lot of learnings from the business place and apply them at home. Are you familiar with

OKRs? It's like mostly, it's mostly in the tech world, but a lot of companies use OKRs. It's objectives and key results. And you have your leadership team and everyone below them create an objective so it might be like to drive same sort of stales in 2025 over 2024 but then the key results

are things you can actually accomplish. I actually did that. It didn't end up working. It was too stressful for me to track but I did it with my family balance. I had objectives and then I had like spend

five days traveling a month. Do you know what I'm saying? And then I tracked it from it. So you do something like that. The other thing that I did do is we created mission vision values for our home which I think is so cool for our kids to learn about the values that we value most.

Yeah. I think it's really good. Yeah. I think it's really, especially we had a guy Sehill Bloom on and he talked a lot about like the value of time versus the value of money and how like based on your age, you are billionaire in seconds and like making sure you take that. And he's like, you know, put me in the corner. He's like, Warren Buffett's got, you know, X amount of billions of dollars.

Would you trade places with him right now? And the answer is clearly no, right? I wouldn't because of our time and age and everything else. And so he's like valuing that and then he got a little bit morbid, but also a wake-up call talking about like, you know, you don't live in the same city as your parents. Your parents are 60s and how old are your parents, how often you can see them. Okay, so now you have three more rounds of golf with your dad and 14 more visits, like on average. And like it's like, whoa. And I think the idea of doing the OKR, the objective and key results, is a good way to be like, I'm going to see my parents four times the next three months, no matter what.

I will prioritize, and I think that's another good takeaway. So a lot of takeaways here, a lot of trading secrets. We'll wrap it up. Joey, where can everyone find everything you have going on? Where can they find Berries, all the information they want? Give us the plug. Yeah, I'm just Joey Gonzalez on Instagram. So Joey Gonzalez, G-O-N-Z-A-L-Z.

That's my main platform where I engage and interact in post-content. Berries is Berries.com. Cool. And it's Berries on Instagram. I love it. Follow everything they got going on. Reach out to Joey. And Joey Gonzalez, thank you for.

being on this episode of Traying Secrets. Thank you. Appreciate it. Ding, dig, ding. It was good to be in the intro with the one and only Curious Canadian, but it's better to even be back home in the recaps for the first time in 2026. Joey Gonzalez, CEO of Barry's boot camp. David, what you think of the episode? I mean, I needed it. I needed it to just sharpen my mind a little bit for the business side of it. And I needed it to just talk about treadmills and dummies and eating right and all the things that all of us need to hear no matter what. I loved some words in there. We talked about balance. We talked about exercise. We talked about nutrition. We talked about some motivating tactics as we really, all of us professionally want to be motivated for standing up for ourselves, which he did

for himself in his career. So all in all, I think it touched the necessary buckets to start 2026 with. I love it. It's a perfect episode as we start this year. You know, you talked about some of the high level takeaways you had. What would you say either quotes or lessons or things you learn from Joey that you'll be bringing into 2026. Yeah, the biggest one that he talked about his first partner that he did with one of the private equity deals. He says you don't really find out what a partnership means until you go through the hard times. He talked about that going through COVID and really had to like all their gyms were profitable and this really put a couple of them kind of in question. And to hear that, I always relate that back to to

relationships and marriages. I always said when someone asked me why Ashley, I I always said that she's the first person in my life I ever wanted to go through the hard times with. I knew that if I got sick or she got sick or we lost a family member that she would be right there to support me. So from a business side and a life side, that one really, really, really resonated with me.

I love that. I think that's such a beautiful takeaway, and that's bang on. The other thing, too, I don't know about you. Have you ever done a Barry's boot camp class? I have never done a Barry's boot camp. It will beat your ass. I say that because they're, like,

I mean, it's just, He said it perfectly. Like, it's as hard as you want it to be. You know, you can kind of control it. But, man, you know, the competitive side comes out. You look left and right. You see the people going faster. You go faster.

It grinds it. I actually, for the first time ever, David, I bought something called this. It's an app called the Class Pass. And you get access to credits where you can just take all these classes. This is actually something I'm doing in January. I will be going to Barry's boot camp. But also just trying all classes. Like, I'm going to try boxing, jujitsu, like all this stuff.

then see of all these days. Dude, I did Pilates the other day. I want to do Pilates so bad. No, you don't. It is the most humbling athletic experience I've ever had in my life, ever. Like, I've never felt so out of place ever in an athletic, foundational place ever. Like, I'll be, I'll be so bad. Did you get the shakes?

I love seeing, like, the simplest poses you see people like shake like crazy. You started off, you know, if you do, to go to the gym and I, I do four sets of planks for a minute, that's a big deal. You start off in like a six minute plank, and I'm looking left and right, and it's all women in there, and they're all like, not even flinching, I'm over there shaking the wheel. Like, it's unbelievable. My stomach, my abs right now, I'm killing me. I love it.

I love it. I do love that you're doing a little sample platter of all these different classes, though, because I think that that's what, you know, that's what the new year is supposed to bring us. It's supposed to bring us. The other thing, too, is I'm doing dry January right now. We didn't talk about that in the intro, but dry January. January. I'm fascinated every day. Well, and also, like, a little spoiler alert, I'm doing a, we're doing a campaign actually with Tommy John, and Tommy John is making a really nice contribution to wags and

walks, and the dogs will be in it. But one of the photos, you know, Catherine says to be in the pajamas. There's what I have to do, like, solo stuff. And then we're also having the CEO of Tommy John on and stuff, so that'll be a cool one. But yeah, I got to be in, some kind of undergermint, apparently so I better I got to tighten it up you know the Buffalo I bet a lot of buffalo wings in December a lot of beers a lot of wines like January I got to I got to tighten this up Jay I had 2025 was the best healthier I've had in since I was playing like college hockey 15 years ago I got under 200 pounds and I didn't look back and then this longest break ever happened and I'm like 210 right now and I got to get down so I feel you on that my goal is

JTA 2025 or 24 from last year because we do that in the studio and it's on video I can't even look at those. I had to delete them off my Instagram. My face was so bloated and gross. So I'm looking forward to this year's JTA where I can hopefully just be able to look at myself. So I feel

that. I'm glad I don't have to be Tommy John underwear style. But that's okay guys. If you're listening and you're in the same situation, guys and girls, this is okay. This is where we're at. We're all in it together. Some of the things I only leave for the recap, the true money mafia, the true group over here that I throw out there.

So we'll see. But, David, once we set that JTA date, which we know it's coming up soon, you'll have some time to prepare. So, you know, doing that, we'll see what happens and onward it goes. I will talk, you know, real quickly, we're in this health conversation this week. I've had some weird health things this year. I broke my finger. My back's all screwed up.

I'm going tomorrow to get a nerve test, which is crazy. They, like, stick needles in your leg, and then they stick, like, I don't know, like nerve, you know like when you get um you know when you get um oh my god stims like stims and then okay they shock your nerve like intentionally to see which nerves are responding and how i'm like oh this will be great anyway that's tomorrow me with the neurosurgeon on the sixth let's get out of our health and get back into joey gonzalez though any other big takeaways or things you want to make sure we can hit on the recap yeah we said in the intro i said i would reference in the recap his trading secret was all about balance the two things i'm going to say are i loved his line he says

I always say that there's no such thing as balanced. There's only disappointing someone. I think that that is so true in so much sense because if you're trying to balance, it means you're cutting something off that you feel like you should do more. Is it work? Is it something at home?

Is it something for you that you're trying to get more balance? So you're not doing that as much? I thought that that was a really interesting line that he said is there's no such thing as balance. There's only disappointing someone. And then when he did talk about it. Which like I'm good, like in my, like where I'm at with myself and just, like, growth and stuff, I can't, I'm okay with disappointing someone, you know what I mean?

Yeah. You can't, I can't make, no is a full sentence. Like, you can't fill everyone else's cup up. You can't take care of everything and everything. Otherwise, there's nothing left at the home front. You know what I mean? Well, as someone who's done that for like, you know, a lot of my years working, like, forever, my whole life. I've been, you know, if I played hockey, I played in six teams.

Like, I never did anything with balance. Well, he said it in his trading secret to do it. He goes, you don't find balance. You create it. Yeah. Oh, there we go. There we go. There's my quote. His way of doing it was the folks on the four Fs, he said, family, faith, fulfillment, and fun.

So I think that that was a really interesting way to take on it. I think it just, like, if he has his four foundational things for balance and it's those things, you know, I've said mine before recently, like for my life to be fulfilled, do something you love, do it the best your ability, treat people right along the way. Like, I really think those things are really important for people to have as there's like a foundation. reset to make sure that you are able to find balance or have a foundation or be able to feel secure when life gets crazy because 2026 we can say all the good things we want. It's going to get crazy for all of us listening at some point. So what are we doing to center ourselves so we can actually be able to evaluate where we're at and what we're doing? Yeah. And I think

addition by subtraction is a big one too, especially as you continue to grow. Like you think about, I think about like my life and my friendships and my family and just all areas. And, And, like, think about your nuances and the people in your social network, like a target symbol. And, like, those people in your, the smallest pinpoint of that target, your safest place, like, those are people that you need to make sure you're protecting that circle, like, with the utmost respect for yourself. Like, if you let any bit of toxicity into that pinpoint target, you are, like, putting yourself in a really tough position. The people in your pinpoint target, you should feel safe with, they should be rooting for you. rooting for them. Their successes should be celebrated, like all the good things. And I think addition by subtraction is a big one that's been a big part of my 2025 to get

where I am today. I love it. I love that for you. Listen, come on JTA. JTA 2025 is going to, I feel like it's going to be, we're still going to put you in the hot seat for some financials, but I feel like the outlook. I'm feeling warmer. I'm feeling warmer for Jason. I feel like I'm not going to have to grill him as much. I think we're going to, I think we're going to talk more about, like you talked about in the intro, the review mirror or the windshield. I think we're really going to talk about the windshield. We're going to feel good about it. I'm excited for JTA this year. I'm excited. I think in 2026, one more theme I want to say. And I think it's like, it's just like, I want to be feeling good,

right? So if like suppose you want to go have your chicken wing night and your taco, like don't be your, you want to feel good doing that, do it. But then also I want to make better decisions with my eating, my sleeping, my drinking, all that, because I just want to show up. and feel better. I saw something with Tom Brady and he was talking about when him and Eli Manning, no, it wasn't Eli. It was. No, it was Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. You saw something about the breakfast order? Well, you saw something about Tom Brady in the news this week. He's not about Alex Earl. Yeah. Oh, yeah. St. Parks seems like wild, huh? Do you see, you see Bethany Frankl's breakdown of it? She's like, it's like the hunger games out there.

It's amazing. Yeah. It's like Aspen or St. Barts. well aspen i feel like now is like for the influencers and st barts are like for the wealthy it's like well st barts new year's eve i mean you heard the travel of living that's like the that's like the big big big boy yeah yeah yeah there's no joke around there i went saint bart's once wild wild experience it was off season anyway um tom brady says he's ordering uh breakfast he's training with peyton manning and paid manning chef or whatever comes over and orders and he's like yeah i'll have granola and fruit and um that's all and and uh Peyton gets, he sells the order. It's like 10 eggs, four slabs of bacon, three pancakes. And

Tom was like, are you fucking serious? And he's like, why are you eating like that? He's like, why wouldn't I? We just worked out. He's like, and he's like, why are you eating like that? He goes, I eat like this, not because I want to because I want to feel good. Like, if I ate what you ate after, I have to sleep for four hours. So I think that's a theme. Just make the decision that's going to feel good for your future self. I love that. Again, goes back to balance. As long as you're putting in the work and you can make those decisions and you want to be accountable for the choices that you make, back to choices, you could own the moments to make sure that we look back on the year and say, this is a great year. And I think to do all the

little things. To bring it all back to Joy Gonzalez, this is the guy that exemplifies that. I was in the room with him. I talked to him. He exudes positive energy. You could tell he's healthy. You could tell he feels good. You could tell he's got a positive outlook on life. And that all comes down to just who he is at the core. And I thought it was a fun episode and a really good one for 2026. So David, anything before we wrap? No. It was a great episode. A fun little intro. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to the year. I'm looking forward to JTA. I'm looking forward to another year of the podcast. Thank you for listening. You've made it this far. 26. Hope you're with us. Hope you're riding along with us. A lot of good. A lot of fun.

A lot of inspiration. A lot of good vibes coming in the future. Good vibes coming. Let us know the questions you want David to ask me in JTA. And let us know we a little different format here, a little intro, a little recap, a little bop-pop-pop. How do you do? So let us know what you guys think. I hope you thought this was a great episode. I know we did. And most importantly, I hope you have the best year of your life yet. Hopefully this was another episode of Trink Secrets, one you couldn't afford to miss. Making that money, living that dream.