Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Adam Schafer: Mind Pump Co-Founder on The Mindset That Separates Entrepreneurs Who Win | Part 1 | Entrepreneurship | E337

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

Adam Schafer’s childhood was marked by poverty, the tragic loss of his father, and the presence of an abusive stepfather. At just 15 years old, he became an entrepreneur, mowing lawns to afford the life he wanted. By  21, he was already leading a team of fitness trainers despite having less experience. Years later, he co-founded Mind Pump Media, transforming it from a side project into a multi-million-dollar business. In this episode, Adam shares how childhood adversity built his growth mindset and how rejecting a victim mentality fueled Mind Pump’s organic growth and unstoppable success. In this episode, Hala and Adam will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (03:53) From Teen Entrepreneur to Team Leader (09:46) Turning Adversity into Fuel for Success (18:02) How Sports Shaped His Growth Mindset (21:55) Why Vulnerability Drives Business Growth (27:34) The #1 Sales Strategy: Value Selling (31:40) The Key to Monetizing Social Media (35:54) Launching Mind Pump with Total Strangers (42:52) Scaling Mind Pump with Free Content (48:20) The Secret to Lasting Business Partnerships (52:51) Managing Conflict with Partners (57:40) Building Partnerships on Trust and Time Adam Schafer is the co-founder of Mind Pump Media, a multi-million-dollar fitness brand and podcast. Growing up with childhood trauma, including the loss of his biological father to suicide, Adam developed resilience and leadership skills early on. Starting with a lawn-mowing business and later working as a fitness trainer, he co-founded Mind Pump, growing it into one of the top fitness podcasts and companies from the ground up. Sponsored By: Shopify - youngandprofiting.co/shopify Airbnb - airbnb.com/host Rocket Money - rocketmoney.com/profiting Indeed - indeed.com/profiting RobinHood - robinhood.com/gold Factor - factormeals.com/profiting50off Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Resources Mentioned: The Mind Pump Podcast: mindpumppodcast.com Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side Hustle, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth Mindset, Career, Productivity, Careers, Startup, Business Ideas, Growth Hacks, Career Development, Money Management, Opportunities, Professionals, Workplace, Career Podcast.

I've watched both my parents be hauled off by the cops many times, but I thank them and I love them for the drama and the adversity that we went through because I really do believe it is what laid the foundation for the skills that I built later on in life. Adam Schaefer, co-founder of Mind Pump Media and one of the co-hosts of the popular Mind Pump podcast, extraordinary entrepreneur. He had a really traumatic childhood, but he didn't stay the victim. Ain't nobody going to work as hard as I'm going to work at getting good at it or figuring it out, and that's a superpower.

Entrepreneurship is hard, and it's a lot of failure, and you get beat up. When someone makes a decision to buy, it really comes down to two things, value and price. Go prove to your audience first that you have something valuable enough that they'll listen. Mind Pump has multiple eight-figure businesses. How did you guys start Mind Pump? It's kind of wild because... Yeah, fam, what does it take to turn personal adversity into a thriving career in business and media? Today I'm excited to welcome Adam Schaefer, co-founder of Mind Pump Media and one of the co-hosts of the popular Mind Pump podcast.

Now, Adam Schaefer is an extraordinary entrepreneur. I ended up speaking with him for over an hour and 40 minutes. And I do this with anyone who I feel like just has so much information that I need to extract from my listeners. Adam definitely did not disappoint. He gave so much amazing information. And in part one of this episode, we're really focusing on his challenge. challenging childhood. He had so much adversity. His dad committed suicide when he was younger. His mom was in an abusive relationship. And he had a really traumatic childhood, but he didn't

stay the victim. So he discusses how he stopped playing victim and drove towards success. We also discuss how he first started Mind Pump, which is just such an amazing organic story. In part two, we talk about the business of Mind Pump. How do they make their money? How do they deal? having four business partners. How do they all work together? How do they think about social versus email versus podcasts? How do they acquire audiences? What is their marketing messaging like? And we even talk about sponsorship. So this is literally a masterclass for all my creator entrepreneurs out there, for all my content creators and entrepreneurs, which is basically all of us. I'm so excited for this conversation. I think you guys are going to get so much value from it. Here is part one of my conversation

with Adam Schaefer. Adam, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. I'm so excited for this conversation. I can't wait to pick your brain about fitness, about business. And when I was studying for this interview, I found out that you've been an entrepreneur for a really long time.

You started a lawn mowing business before you could even drive. And so I want to know where did this entrepreneurial spirit come from? And why have you always been young improfiting? I don't think it's a very sexy story because it was more out of necessity. I grew up in a home, I'm the oldest of five. My parents weren't very financially successful. We struggled. We moved around a lot.

I lived in nine different homes growing up, and that was because many times we couldn't afford to live in that house or were being evicted. And so if I wanted something as a kid, I had to go get it. It wasn't like I grew up with like this fire to, oh, I want to build a business when I kid older was like, hey, if I want those new sneakers that all my friends have, for the new starter jacket, you know, dating myself a bit there. Like, that was really cool. Like, I better go find a way to make money and do that. And so being 15 years old, one of the things I could do was mow a lawn. You know, I've been mowing my lawn for a very long time. I know there was

people that needed it. And the town I grew up in, there was definitely one side of the tracks, which is where I lived. And then there was like the rich people that lived on the other side of the tracks and where the golf course was. And so my buddy and I, when we were, you know, 15 years old, I had our parents drop us off in the rich neighborhood, and we made little flyers that said A&J lawn mowing, and we went door to door, just knocking on people's door and asking them if they wanted their lawns mode. And it turned into not only mowing lawns, but we ended up being like a little handyman for anybody. I mean, I did staining and painting and, I mean, put fence post up. I mean, whatever they were willing, worked, were willing to give me, I was

willing to take it. And so it started off with that. And back then, the idea of A&J lawn mowing service was so I would be in the front of the yellow pages, which I never even got to, but that was the thought process of, what are we going to name this business? And it was mildly successful. I mean, for my age and what I was doing, it was perfect. I worked the weekends. It gave me enough money in my pocket to keep up with my friends that had wealthier parents and that could buy the sneakers and the stuff. And so that's really how it started for me. The next venture or job that I did was working in a dairy. So I was a bovine mammary extraction technician, which is a fancy term for I milked cows. But I got to work for a couple that had built this business from the

ground up and really got to peer into what I think is like a lot of real entrepreneurship and not the sexy side, the side that is hard work and no vacations and seven days a week, twice a day, you have to milk cows. And I got to know the family really well after four years of working there. And I actually was turned off by entrepreneurship once I found how little they made and how difficult it was for them to have success. They can be considered successful because they built their livelihood. They had a home and a family and fed their family, but they struggle. And they worked really, really hard. And so that kind of turned me off a little bit. bit about entrepreneurs. Man, this is going to be really easy. And it's not one of those things where you

just start a business and you make a lot of money. And that's actually kind of how I was going to school for kinesiology. And I moved to San Jose to go finish my degree, moved in with my grandmother. And I walked across the street to go get a gym membership. And they saw that I was studying for kinesiology, kind of offered me a job in the spot. I was like, no, I'm not looking for a job. I'm actually coming over here just to finish school. They said, oh, well, you can work part time. And you can actually go through our school and we can teach you and educate you and took a part-time job as a personal trainer and actually started to fall in love with entrepreneurship again. Because even though I worked for a company, building your business as a personal trainer is very much so

like building your own business. Now, I had the beautiful luxury of a mega company that paid for advertising and marketing and kept the lead traffic and stuff like that coming through. And so it made building my business easier than would have been by myself. That was the first real taste of leadership and building a business I think that I ever really had. And that's what gave me the skills I'd say that I started to put it into play later on in life was going to work for that company. And they did a really good job.

That time, 24-Hour Fitness was a multi-billion dollar company, largest health and fitness business in the world at the time. and they had all this data and analytics. And so I worked up my way up as a trainer within a short period of time into management. And so by 21 years old, I was managing a team of 20 trainers that were all more educated, more experienced, and older than I was. And so I was kind of thrust it into this leadership role running this business at a very young age, not really knowing what I'm doing, but passionate about it, loved it,

and had a lot of tools from the company. We had all these daily production reports that came. And so I learned about lead generation and conversion and closing and all the things that really help you develop things as skills that you need to build a successful business. And so I really attribute a lot of my success today off of the school of hard knocks of working for a company like that. I was really blessed. I love your story because first of all, I've realized that a lot of the most successful

entrepreneurs are like you, you've been working since you were a young age. I was the same. I had a job since I was 13 years old. And so by the time I was in my 20s getting my first real job, I had so much more experience than some of the other people. And I was able to like shine because I had sales skills from working at the mall. And even if my intentions for working was just like you to just have cool clothes like everybody else, you learned so many skills doing that. I do want to kind of go back to your childhood a bit and dig into it because I know that you had a lot of adversity and I know that you had a lot of setbacks and other people may have stayed a victim for a very long time, but somehow you were able to kind of heal through a lot of the things that you went through

or maybe you didn't and you poured yourself into work, but I want to hear about it. Tell us if you feel comfortable some of the things that happened in your childhood and then how you were able to not just be a victim for the rest of your life. I'm definitely not somebody who announces like this is what I went through because I don't believe in being a victim and feeling that way. You may feel that way, but that goes nowhere if I focus on that. And I do think that that has a lot to do with the success of me as an adult was the childhood adversity. So my father, when I was seven years old, committed suicide. My mom then remarried into an abusive relationship.

and then we obviously struggled financially also. So that was a typical day in my house was I've watched both my parents be hauled off by the cops many times. I was the oldest, so I was in the middle of a lot of that fighting and went through that a lot of growing up. Now, I look back now and feel blessed because of all that. And I wouldn't change a thing about my childhood as crazy as that it sounds because I really do believe it is what laid the foundation for the skills that I built later on in life. And the main one of those being that entrepreneurship is hard and it's a lot of failure and you get beat up. And I didn't know this was my superpower until I started to get older and then was reflecting on like, what is it that I'm,

why am I doing better than a lot of these, my peers? I think it was the resiliency that I had from all the adversity as a kid just gave me that. And the way I think I looked at it when I was 20 and I hit a hardship or a challenge was like, this is nothing compared to what I dealt as a nine-year-old and a 10-year-old, 12-year-old in my home. My home felt way scarier and more difficult getting through that. So I really think it's what gave me the skills and the practice of adversity and working through it. When you're a kid and you live in that home, you don't have a lot of options. It's not like if you work in a bad job or you do something you don't like as an adult,

you, ah, F it. I don't want to do this anymore. I move on, go somewhere else. I didn't choose the family that I was born into. And until you're 18 years old, you don't got a lot of options as a kid. And so I had to learn to work through it and deal with it. And it was no good staying home and crying and feeling sorry for myself. That definitely was not going to help me anywhere in life.

And I learned that quickly as a kid. And so that same attitude, I think I carried over into adulthood. So when, you know, I'm trying to build my business as a personal trainer and people are telling me no after no, after no. and it's hard and like you have a deal you think you're going to get through and then it doesn't go through and you're working a client at five in the morning and another one at noon and then another one at eight o'clock at night and you're there all day just to make three hours worth the income. Those were all like hard things, but it didn't feel hard for me.

Life is hard. I think I had accepted that life is difficult and it presents all these different challenges and hey, if it didn't kill me, I can get up tomorrow and do it again and figure a better way out. And so I think I was just built different. And I think that really served me in business because, as you know, I mean, 80% of people fail. And even the ones that are successful only make it a few years and then they fail. And then even fewer make it to like the big leagues and making millions of dollars. And so win percentage and the chance of me doing well was very, very slim.

But I felt that way from the start as a kid. Yeah, I think I had a chip on my shoulder. And I was so excited as an adult to actually have control. I think when I was a kid, going through those things, probably the thing that was the most traumatizing or challenging was that I was in this situation that I couldn't control. I woke up and went to school and did my thing every single day in a home that I had to be in. In fact, I didn't even know how much I wasn't in control until I ran away when I was 17 years old. And I ran away when I was 17 years old because my grandmother bought a car from me to help me get to my job that I used to go to at 4 o'clock in the the morning before school and I was grounded for something. I think it was late to coming home from a

curfew or something one time and my parents grounded me and they took my wheels. They took the car, the family car that I had away from me and my grandmother was pissed. My grandma, I cannot believe your parents did that and that's your job and that's so irresponsible to do that to you. And of course, as a young teenage boy, they're like, yeah, right, grandma, right? And so I asked her, I said, hey, I have, I've saved a little bit of money when you come down and co-signed for a car for me to help me get to and from me. So it's my car and my parents can't take it from me and I can go to my own job. Grandma said, yeah, absolutely. And she came down and she bought a car for me and I came home with that car later on that day. And my parents looked at me and said, no, you can't have that.

It's not fair to your siblings, even though none of them were driving yet. You can't have that car. Either you leave and you keep your car or you give your car back and you stay at this home. And as a cocky 17-year-old, I said, okay, pack my bag and I'll go live in my car. Because that is a better situation. I thought it was a better situation, right? They called the cops on me and had me arrested. And I realized that when I'm under 18, I pretty much have no rights at all. And I remember the cop basically lecturing me and I'm crying and telling him, but I bought this and I paid for these things.

And he says, son, until you were 18 years old, none of that shit is yours. In fact, your parents could light it on fire and there's not a damn thing that you can do about it. And that just hit me like a ton of bricks. Like, oh, my God, I have no rights. So I think when I got older and I actually had the power to control the situations I was in, it just, I don't know, nothing felt that hard to me. Even the hardest of things that I went through in business, it's like no one's screaming and yelling and cops and tears.

I mean, no, that was happening. It was like, yeah, sure, it's hard. I got to work longer or I got to get up earlier or I got to go through 20 knows before. I get one yes, but I think that I was just built different because of my childhood adversity. And of course, in my early teens and even early 20s, I probably harbored some animosity and resentment towards my parents. As I got older and more mature, I realized, wow, they gave me a superpower. They didn't even realize they did by putting me through all that shit. And so my relationship with them today is incredible. I mean, I thank them and I love them for the drama and the adversity

that we went through. And my biggest fear as a father today, I have a young son who's five years old, is that he won't have as much adversity as you. So I talk to my wife all the time about, we've got to manufacture adversity in his life. It was so important to my development. I don't want my son to have it so easy. He doesn't build these great characteristics about him, and he doesn't build that armor. We've got to find a way. And so as a father today, I fear not having enough adversity for my son, because I think it was so important to my development as a leader and as an entrepreneur. Something that I just want to stick on here and kind of call out is that we are the stories

that we tell about ourselves, right? Another person might have been like, you know what, I'm weaker because of all this stuff that happens to me. I have a disadvantage. But you decide to kind of reframe your past and then put a positive spin on it. Hey, all this stuff did happen to me. I'm honest about it. I'm not denying the fact that all this stuff happened to me.

But here's my like positive twist on it. And that's the story that you told yourself, which allowed you to just like move forward towards like a positive future. And I think that's really important for anyone tuning in. Like if something bad happened to you, try not to just tell the story in a way that keeps you weak. Try to figure out, okay, what about this is actually positive? And how do I tell this story not only to myself,

but when I tell the story to other people, how do I say this in a way that doesn't position myself as a victim and kind of sets me up for the future. 100%. Whether you think you can or can't, you're probably right. Another thing about your childhood is that you did have one positive influence, and that was sports. So how did sports help you when so many parts of your childhood were kind of upside down? What did sports do for you? The funny part is there's a little bit of parallel there, too.

What I loved about sports so much as far as what it taught me is because I, I wasn't very good, or at least I wasn't naturally really good. But what I quickly found out, just like the work and the adversity thing, and I think the childhood thing played into me actually being pretty good in sports. I wouldn't think I don't think I was great. I definitely don't think I was gifted. But I quickly found too, most people quit. Most people give up.

Most people aren't going to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning and train and practice. Most people are getting told they're not good or they have to ride the bench. And then they just give like, and I was the opposite. I had this attitude of, I can, I will, I'll figure it out. I had to scratch and claw for every playing time minute that I wanted to, which I was that guy in practice that the rest of the teammates couldn't stand because I was running at full speed, everything I had, every single time I was on the court to prove to the coaches that I belonged or that I should play more.

And, you know, and I did. I got to play quite a bit. I wasn't the star player ever. Maybe when I was really young, I was pretty good in soccer. but I don't think I ever felt like I was this great athlete. I loved competition. I loved sports, both watching them and playing them. And so I wanted to.

And that's where all my friends, all the kids that I wanted to hang out with and be friends, they were all athletes, they all played sports, and I wanted to have friends, I wanted to know those things. And so, hey, if I wanted to fit in in school when you're younger, fitting in and the sport group means you've got to play, and you've got to play all right, you've got to be pretty good at it. And I was just willing to do the things that nobody else was willing to do. I was willing to work harder and get back up.

And so it varies, very similar. Those same skill sets serve me there. And I think, again, back to the adversity at home, having a hard practice or failing didn't seem like it was that scary or that bad. It was hard, but it didn't deter me. It was just like, okay, this is, I'm going to have to work harder. I'm going to have to shoot more times. I'm going to have to get up earlier.

I have to work more days. I have to make more sacrifices in my life than the average kid that could probably play video games all day, pick up the ball and just go play, and he was better than everybody. I wasn't that kid. I had to put the work in. And so I really think that was another thing as a child, again, not knowing it when you're going through it. I think at that time it's more survival for me, right? I'm not, I wish I could say that I was that wise that I, the way I'm articulating it right now, I knew. And so I was just, no, I did it. I was, I was just trying to survive. I just wanted to have, I just wanted to have friends. I just wanted to be good at what I did. And the stuff that I think

I cried about and I had a really hard time with at home was way scarier and way different than these obstacles that I was being presented in work and in sports. And so, yeah, I just, I leaned into that. And then I think as I started to get later in my teens and obviously into adulthood, I started to recognize that that was my superpower, was that, okay, I have this level to me that most people don't want to go. And even though I'm not as talented, I'm not as smart. I can lean into that, and that's what I'm going to do. And so it started to slowly build this confidence in me that, oh, okay, like, yeah, this is going to be hard, but ain't nobody going to work as hard as I'm going to work at getting good at it or figuring it out. And that's a superpower.

And I'm going to lean into that. And so sports absolutely gave the same skills or developed that same skill for me. At Yapp, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees. My team is growing every day. We're 60 people all over the world.

And when it comes to hiring, I no longer feel overwhelmed by finding that perfect candidate, even though I'm so picky because when it comes to hiring, indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post noticed. Indeed, sponsor jobs help you stand out and hire fast by boosting your post to the top relevant candidates. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored ones, according to IndyD data worldwide. I'm so glad I found Indeed when I did because hiring is so much easier now.

In fact, in the minute we've been talking, 23 hires were made on Indeed according to Indeed data worldwide. Plus, there's no subscriptions or long-term contracts. You literally just pay for your results. You pay for the people that you hire. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility. at Indeed.com.

Saffiriting. Just go to Indeed.com slash profiting right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash profiting. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, Indeed, is all you need. Hello, young improfitters. Running my own business has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.

But I won't lie to you. In those early days of setting it up, I feel like I was jumping on a cliff with no parachute. I'm not really good at that kind of stuff. I'm really good at marketing, sales, growing a business, offers, but I had so many questions and zero idea where to find the answers when it came to starting an official business. I wish I had known about Northwest Registered Agent back when I was starting Yap Media. And if you're an entrepreneur, you need to know what Northwest

registered agent is. They've been helping small business owners launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They literally make life easy for entrepreneurs. They don't just help you form your business. They give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements and thousands of how-to guides that explain the complicated ends and outs of running a business. And guys, it can get really complicated, but Northwest Registered Agent just makes it all easy and breaks it down for you. So when you want more for your business, more privacy, more guidance, more free resources, Northwest Registered Agent is where you should go.

Don't wait and protect your privacy, build your brand, and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. visit Northwest Registeredagent.com slash Yap free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registered Agent.com slash Yap free. Happy New Year, YAP gang. I just love the unique energy of the new year. It's all about fresh starts. And fresh starts not only feel possible, but also feel encouraged. And if you've been thinking about starting a business, this is your sign. There's no better time than right now.

2026 can be the year that you build something that is truly yours, the year where you take control over your career. And it starts with Shopify. I've built plenty of my own businesses on Shopify, including my LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass. So it's a two-day workshop. People buy their tickets on Shopify. And then my mastermind subscription is also on Shopify. I built my site quickly in just a couple of days, payments were set up super easily. And none of the technical stuff slowed me down like it usually does because Shopify is just so,

intuitive. And this choice of using Shopify helped me scale my masterclass to over $500,000 in revenue in our first year. And I'm launching some new podcast courses and can't wait to launch them on Shopify. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person, just like the millions of entrepreneurs that they power. You can build your dream story using hundreds of beautiful templates and set up as fast with built-in AI tools that help you write product descriptions and edit photos. Plus, marketing is built in so you can create email and social campaigns easily. And as you grow, Shopify can scale right along with your business. In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com

slash profiting. Go to Shopify.com slash profiting. That's Shopify.com slash profiting. Yeah, fam, hear your first. This new year was Shopify by your side. Now, I know that it took you a while to like fully feel confident, even when you were a personal trainer and doing well and fit and everything like that, you still had insecurities from your childhood. What do you think eventually got you over that hump where you were like fully confident? You know, that's a good question because I was even confident when I was young, like fully confident were, I didn't have the same level of confidence. I think insecurities were presented in different ways. Like there's always been things like I was insecure

because I wasn't as smart as everybody else. I was a little insecure because I wasn't as an athlete. but quickly I learned that if I put the extra work in, that I could be as good as anybody else if I were to do that. So I had physical insecurities probably the longest. So I was very skinny growing up. Like you could see my rib cage so skinny. And I'm tall and I get taller and lanky. And so then I got teased like a lot of kids did in school.

Again, none of that really, that didn't like hit me hard, not like how some kids that can be traumatic for them. Again, like the stuff that I went through, that was way harder. So getting teased and a little bit of, I went through people bullied me. I went through all that stuff, but I still didn't think that was that big of a deal. But it did cause a little bit of insecurity.

And it did drive me to fitness. It was just like, okay, again, I can solve this. I can figure this out. Like I'm skinny. People are making fun of me for that. Okay, well, what can I do? Oh, I can go to the gym and start lifting weights and build muscle. Oh, wow, this is really hard.

Takes a long time. That's okay. That's my superpower leaning into that. It took a while before I think I started to build the confidence about what I looked like. I think that probably of all the things that I was insecure about as a kid, that one probably hung around the longest, which by the way has probably what fed a lot of the success in the business that we're currently in right now. My co-hosts openly talk about this too, right? We're very authentic and transparent and we lead with those things, right? So when we built the podcast, a lot of the

conversations, we didn't share from a place of authority like we're telling you what to do. It was more like a sharing from, hey, I too know what it's like to be insecure about our body. And it drove a lot of the behaviors and the mistakes that I made in my 20s. And here's what I've learned through that process. And I'm still learning through that process. So we really presented our information on the podcast from that. Even though we all had the national certs and education and experience to say to people, hey, you should do this, don't do that. We didn't lead with that. We led with vulnerability. And this is where we struggle. This is where we were. week. This is how I'm working on those things. I don't even know if I think we even did that

strategically. I think it kind of organically happened and we, that's just kind of who all of us are character-wise. I think we learn that as personal trainers. And so that conversation of being vulnerable with people, it really serves you as a personal trainer. Like if you, if you work with people, and we've been doing this for over two decades where I work with people one-on-one, and most people that hire you as a personal trainer are very insecure about their bodies. 40, 50 pounds overweight or they're skinny or whatever it is, but most of them are insecure about how they look. And that's what initially drove them to try and fix that in the gym and then ultimately hire you. And then here you are, this fit, young buff trainer. Like,

that just makes them shell up even more. And so over trial and error, I realize like, man, I have to really, I have to be very vulnerable with these people and humanize myself because they think, even though I don't think I'm some super, I'm a superhuman or what? They, think of you like that or they see you like that and they'll hold in a lot of this personal stuff and a lot of the stuff that's going on inside them, which you need to learn how to solve as a good trainer. And if I wasn't going to get that out of them, I too needed to be vulnerable. They needed to see that I too have struggled and have insecurities and didn't have it easy. And so I think I learned that skill as a person as developing my skills as a personal trainer. And I think you hear that

in the podcast when we communicate to the masses because that was how we talked to our was we had to learn to, and I do think that this is what hurts even some of the smartest trainers that are out there on social media and on podcast is the, when you come off as this authority where you know all and you're so smart and your touting study after study to prove to people how much you know, you don't make that connection with those people. And if you want behavioral change to happen in a client, you've got to make a connection with them. And that becomes more important than how many studies you can regurgitate.

And we learn that as personal trainers. And so I think that part of me, like I'm always looking for my insecurities. I'm always looking for my vulnerability, not only to share, but also that's how I work through it. So working through it is being okay, confident in talking about these things that I too, I'm weak in and together trying to solve that and coming from that perspective. And so, I mean, I don't think I've solved every insecurity, but the body one was probably the last one. And again, that's probably

the communicating of that on the show is probably what has resonated with a lot of people. I love that you've tied that into kind of the sales experience that you gained as a trainer. And we had another fitness expert turned entrepreneur, Alex Ramosey on the show. And it reminds me

a lot of what he was telling me, how he learned about value creation and making sure that you're speaking in outcomes to sell your fitness clients. He learned about how having to understand their challenges and their objections. And he learned about offering discounts and bundles and offer development.

So he learned so much and then became this like incredible entrepreneur. I'd love to hear some of your experiences in terms of like sales, even leadership and what you learned as a trainer that you've now brought into entrepreneurship. Someone told me that when someone makes a decision to buy, it really comes down to two things, always. Value and price. Everyone will have excuses. Oh, I can't afford it.

or on baking, all these, that's all noise. It really comes down to how much they value that thing and what the price is in relation to that thing. And that resonated so much with me because I began looking at every deal that I didn't close or every client that didn't resign as I didn't provide enough value. They decided that I wasn't worth that investment to them, and that falls on me.

It's not because something came up financially. No, if I was so valuable, they would find, a way to pay for. And that was that had been confirmed me to that. I had watched clients take a he lock out on their home just so they could pay for their personal training with me. Like when you figure that piece out again reframing this every time I went into any sort of sales deal of adamant always comes down to two things value and price. They didn't buy. Okay. I'm not going to listen to their excuse. It goes falls back on me that I didn't provide enough value. And it's literally how we built this was when we came out like none of us had any sort of media experience. So

So none of us were like, oh, we're going to be so great at podcasting and talking on YouTube. Like, I was terrified of all that stuff. It's definitely out of character for me. It's not something I wanted to do. I don't think it's natural at all. I still, to this day, can't stand making YouTube videos, even after doing it for over a decade, don't like it. What I do know is that my, or what my goal is, is to provide value. All I think about whenever we're creating content or whenever we're helping people is value, value, value.

And if they don't become customers, I didn't find a way to provide enough. value to that. Now, that becomes a little more unique when you're talking about you're communicating to a million people and like, how do you give them all value? Well, that's, you know, that's learning how to speak to each platform and content creation for your exact demographic or your target that you're going for. And there's, there's a little bit of a learning curve to that too. But really comes down to providing value. And then always looking back at yourself for, I mean, just like the other stuff that we talked about, people are so quick to point the finger at the other people, right? the victim like, oh, well, they can't afford, oh, they're not the right customer. Oh, it's like,

no, we, none of us ever look at that like that. Like, if something is not working in the business or we're not being successful, it's like, what are we doing? What are we not doing to give that customer enough value that they don't even hesitate to spend that? That's when we started the podcast, we actually had the product ready to sell. So Maps Fitness Products is the foundation of what scaled and built this business originally. That's what brought us into the millions of dollars was the digital programs that we sell online. And we had that before the podcast even started. But we agreed not to sell it until people were begging for something from us.

We didn't want to go in and already try and monetize. It was like, let's go first, since we're not media guys, let's go first prove that we can provide so much value on this podcast that it organically grows. We didn't want to spend any money on advertising. We weren't trying to do all the Instagram, social media hacks. It was like, lean into the value thing. let's go put out something that is so valuable that people are willing to share it. And listen, if I can't prove that before I'm even trying to sell anything,

I would be a fool to try and sell something first. This is what I give advice to coaches and trainers that are trying to duplicate what we've done. It's like you're already trying to think about the product or the thing you want to sell. You haven't even proven that people want to hear what you want to give them for free. Go prove to your audience first that you have something valuable enough that they'll listen or and or share with other people, go solve that equation before you figure out your price point of your product or your thing you want to sell and allow them to dictate what product or what service you come up with.

But that's the first problem in this equation that you need to solve is, can I provide enough value to a specific audience that they're going to listen? And what's beautiful in this day and age is that the entry or the level of entry or money to come into podcasting, YouTube, Instagram is so low that anybody can do it. And so it's so nice that you don't have to invest all this money to try what you believe to be valuable. Go do it and keep practicing it until they do that. Then once you start to prove that, okay, now you potentially have a business on your hand.

And so what we waited for was over a year. We had done over 240 episodes already of podcast episodes, which is a lot. and I don't know how many hundreds of YouTube videos we'd already created by that time with the product just sitting there. And we kept telling each other like, we're not going to sell, we're not going to sell until we feel like we have to

or we need to or people are begging for it. And I remember the day like yesterday, we came into the studio. This was our very first studio we were in, this little tiny 400 square foot room that we were renting, not making any money. We're all still working full time and other jobs. We're hustling this on the side.

We believe in it. The guys all come in and everybody had like a story to tell. about somebody reaching out to them. So I think Sal was just like, dude, I got two DMs of people that are trying to just give me money. They're like, what can I buy from you because you guys have helped me so much?

I'm like, oh, that's crazy. I got an email. Someone asking me about Patreon and do we have it because they want to give us money and support our cause. I don't even know what Patreon is. Justin, same thing.

So all of us were starting to get bombarded with people just trying to give us money. We had already given them so much free, valuable content that we were already starting to create this loyal fan base of people that are going like, man, I took that your advice and it changed my life and I lost all this weight and it helped my

marriage. It was like, this stuff was starting to pour in. And then we all looked at each other and said, okay, I think it's time. I think it's time now to present to everybody that we have this digital fitness program to help them out. And it didn't sell thousands right away. We sold probably a couple hundred, which was really good for us. And then we were doing nothing before. And the thing that I think that stuck with me the most was that a good portion of those people bought it and said things like, I'm already following another program, but I just wanted to support what you guys are doing. Or I don't even need it. I've been wanting to give you guys. That was like half of the people were just, they weren't buying it because they thought, you know, I think we're incredible

program writers. I think that's part of our expertise. But what I realized was the power of community, building a relationship, staying authentic, all those things really all came to full circle for me. And to see that in the digital world was a really powerful moment. Like, oh wow, like that is more important than even the product that you're going to deliver is can you build a relationship with your audience and your potential customers that is so powerful that the value is here. So anything that you drop in their price was they're they were going to buy. That is really what set the tone because we made so many business mistakes and didn't know what we were doing in media for so long. We stumbled to all that success. But what we

did know because we'd been building businesses, all of us, our whole lives, was, hey, we at value price thing. That was it. That was kind of like our North Star was keep putting out stuff until it's so valuable that people are willing to spend X amount of dollars with us. And that was, that was the beginning. That was the beginning of the rocket ship. And then it hasn't stopped for 10 years. It's been a ride. It makes me feel excited just hearing about it. And I feel like you guys approached it in such a smart way, the fact that you just gave and gave value. And it's the law have reciprocity. You give and you give and you give and people feel like they owe you. And to your point, people wanted to buy it even though they didn't need it. And the other thing is that the more value

you give and the longer you wait, like I did the same thing. I'm like one of the top influencers on LinkedIn and I waited like three years before I ever put out a course. And I just wanted to help people because I had no intention of even putting out a course, but eventually so many people ask you. and then you can make a bigger ask where other people put out a $30 course I got to put out a $2,000 course that people bought. And because they were clamoring for it, I didn't have to do much promotion.

I put out a post and everybody bought. I put out some DMs everybody bought. But then as time goes on, you need to get more creative with your lead gens and pulling in new audience members and warming them up. So I definitely want to talk to you about how you get customers now.

But before we do that, what's the origin story? Like first of all, how did you guys start mind How did you meet your co-hosts? It's kind of wild because the four of us collectively didn't know each other. So Justin, okay, was a kid that I hired straight out of college. This was when I told you I was managing trainers at the gym, 24-hour fitness.

I hired him fresh out of college out of his kinesiology degree to work for me as a personal trainer. And what's unique about our relationship was we're so different. He represents a really important time in leadership for me when I was still at that time in my career looking for more me's, I thought the key would be, man, if I could just find 10 more of me, we're going to be hell of successful. And so I was on this mission to find that. And he was like not. He was nothing like me. We were so different. He's very introverted, his style of training, his way he communicates. But boy, we paired really well. And he was really successful as being and it really opened my eyes to maybe this is not what I want. Maybe I don't want to look for me.

Maybe I need to look for people that fill the gaps and has strengths where my weaknesses are. right? And so we're very different that way. So he quickly became my right-hand man, my assistant, and he was for several years. And then he went off to do other things, but we always remained in contact. We became good friends. And so, and he would always come knocking at my door every few years trying to get me to do something with him. He's, oh, Adam, I'm building this thing, I'm building this app, or I'm doing this business, come work with me. And I was always busy doing something myself. And then finally this opportunity presented itself for us to develop this fitness app together. And I was kind of the finances behind it. He was the brains and the one who was cordial.

like all the designer app developer and all that stuff. And so we began kind of like actually intentionally working together to build this app. So we're kind of doing that on the side communicating while we're all doing our own businesses. Sal is a personal trainer, has his own studio. And Doug, our producer, is a client of his. So he's training him. So at the same time, Justin and I, and now mind you, we don't all know each other at this time. We just, this is what we're doing in our lives at that time.

And Sal and I, we have a lot of mutual. friends and because we came from the same company. We all worked, but 24 fitness was huge, right? Thousands and thousands of employees. So we had never met each other, but we had a lot of friends that would always talk to us, mutual friends that which we didn't find this out until later, by the way. This was something that we found out after we got connected was we had these friends that would be like, man, you got to meet Sal. Have you ever met Sal? You and him would just, you guys got to meet each other. You guys got meet each other. You're great, you're great. And he would hear the same thing about me. And we didn't, and this was for like years before, not knowing it.

Now, we are both top performers at 24R Fitness. So I seen his name, right? So in his rank, because you get ranked and you used to get trophies. And so if you were like a top producer, you won all the Hawaii trips and he'd done stuff like that. And so I'd seen him like in passing and like knew of his name on like the production report, but we never even had said high to each other. So we didn't know each other. Him and Doug, his client, start working on a digital product. They start working on Maps Fitness products, which is our product I was telling you that we already had.

The reason why we already had it was they built it before we even met. And Doug has a background in, he used to sell insurance and he was getting into digital marketing. He was kind of a hobby, not like he was professional in it whatsoever. It was like a hobby. He was interested in the space. So he had like the equipment and he had done to some of the seminars and he had done stuff like that.

And he kept telling Sal like, man, you were made for this. You like, you should think about making a digital product. And Sal was like, okay, well, I mean, if you lead the way, because Sal's like me, we can barely turn our computer on. So he's like, I'm good at communicating health and fitness, but I don't know anything about the digital marketing side at all. And Doug's like, well, I can do that. I'll do that for you.

So they had built that together or we're working on it. Justin and I are kind of working on this app. Sal and I have these mutual friends all we're talking about. Sal finishes his digital product. And because so many people had told him about me and like my business acumen, he's like, you know what? And we had like passed each other on Facebook one time. We had just added each other on Facebook and we were following each other.

he slides into my DMs and it's like, hey, blah, blah, blah, blah, kind of reintroduces who he is. I'm like, yeah, I know who you are. And he's just like, I wanted to show you something. I've heard so much about you and your business acumen. I want to know what you think about this product, this thing. And he sends me over kind of the sizzle reel to this digital product they make. And it was interesting because at that time we're building this app up.

And I know that Justin and I are about to finish this fitness app. And I don't have anybody to sell it to. I don't have Instagram. I mean, I have Facebook, but it's like family, friends. I'm not doing anything on it, right? I'm not actively building a social media platform. But I realize that I'm going to have to move in that direction at some point. He sends that over to me, and I'm like, oh, let's meet.

I like to talk to you. And I'm big, you know, one of the things I know we haven't talked about, but if I were to hang my hat on one of the most important things in being successful for me, it's been relationships. So I'm the guy. My wife still teased me to this day where no matter how busy I'm saying, I'll take a cup of coffee with somebody for a. meeting for a potential new relationship. And I mean, I waste a lot of hours doing that, a lot.

But every once in a while, it ends up being a mass. And so it was kind of one of those situations. I was busy doing this stuff about, but saw what he was doing, interested. I'd heard enough people talking about like, greaters. I'm like, I need to meet with this guy. And let's just see, no expectations of what we're going to do. And he says, hey, can I bring my buddy Doug? And I'm like, sure, I wanted to bring my buddy Justin. We all get together. So we all just first time meet each other. We get in my living room. And we like didn't shut up. for like four hours. And it was like lots of passion and energy and talking about what we think is wrong with the space and where we think this whole digital media thing is going. This is like 12

years ago. So we're talking about YouTube and Instagram and the podcast space and like all these things that we're paying attention to and we're curious about and we're all these brick and mortar business guys and but we're curious about where social media is going and where the future of health and fitness is. And it was like, I don't know, like almost four hours of nonstop talking. My wife who was my girlfriend at the time, Katrina was in the kitchen. And I didn't even know this, but she actually hit record and recorded a lot of the conversation. And after we were all done basically meeting each other and realizing, oh, we all really liked each other, she goes, that was an incredible conversation to listen to. And I was like, really? She's like, oh, my God,

that was so interesting. And that was so good. And so we ended up meeting a second time. And the second time we met, Doug was the one who piped in and said, like, hey, why don't we put this on a podcast? The stuff that we're talking about together, why don't we just put it out there and see if somebody wants to listen to it? The rest of us have no idea what that looks like. I'm like, do we have to get like a radio sponsor or like, how does that work?

And Doug's like, no, it's really easy. Like we can record it in our home. We could put it out there. It costs us virtually nothing to do it. All of us were like, okay, let's go do it. Let's go put this out there. And again, this is, it was started on the foundation of, my girlfriend or my wife,

or my girlfriend at the time, my wife now was like, oh, it was so incredibly awesome. We love the dynamic of the conversation. We know we had a lot of good information to provide people. One of the things we all agreed upon at that time, no disrespect to any of the OG trainers or fitness people that were blowing up back on social media.

But we really felt like the most popular people on social media at that time really got there for not necessarily the right reasons. And what I mean by that, they were just first adopters, they were really attractive. They did a lot of the before and after and look how sexy I look type of stuff or they were just cool or they really understood algorithms

and how to hack. And so a lot of these young kids were making millions of dollars already on YouTube and Instagram and we were going like, listen, I may not be as good looking or as talented as some of these kids that are at the top of the fitness space,

but I definitely know the information I have to provide is way better. Because I used to think like that too when I was 24, but I've learned over decades of training people like, that's not the best way to communicate that. I've learned that already through being in the trenches for so long. And we all agreed that. Oh, yeah, I can't believe this person and that person is doing so. It's like, man, that's not right. They should be saying this and say, hey, let's go

put it on the pocket. If we really believe that, we really believe we're that smart and we have that much better information. We have that much more value to give than these people that are making millions dollars. Let's go prove it. And that was literally how we started it was, let's put this podcast together. Let's go give all this information that we believe is better information than the top people in fitness were at that time and just give it for free and prove that's as good and as valuable as we say it is. And that was the first litmus test to do we have a business. We didn't overcomplicate whose role is what. What's the partnership look like? What's the financial split? What we're going to sell you? None of that. It was we really believe the information we had to give to people was better than

what was out there. And so let's go prove that first. And then we started recording the podcast. And our strategy, the only strategy we had that time was kind of going back to my childhood, this is what I love about Justin and Salas. This is probably the thing that, and even Doug, we all have in common. We all kind of have that attitude of we will outwork the next guy. We will just bury somebody in work ethic. And we don't, none of us are cocky and think we're the most talented at anything, but we do believe that's a superpower that we all have. So that was a very important thing that connected all of us. And so that was the strategy was like, let's just drop podcasts every day. Let's just put out so much and just keep reinventing ourselves as it comes back.

Oh, only 10 people listen. What do they like about that? Oh, wow, this one got 20 people listening. What are we doing? What do we do different in that? And then unpacking it and going, okay, they want more of this or what are we doing? And reading the comments and not getting offended by all the negative stuff that you're going to attract when you first start. And instead going like, and listening. Like, well, a lot of people think this is a terrible idea. So why are we continuing to do it? Let's shift this way. And so that was like really the impetus of the podcast was just the four of us getting together, having belief that we had more valuable information to give and then starting with the business plan of let's go prove it. Let's go see if we can give so much free

valuable content that it grows. And I think when we knew that was, I don't remember how many episodes deep we were, but it was for sure in the first eight weeks, because in the first eight weeks of podcasting, you have an opportunity to fall in what's called the new and noteworthy category, the first eight weeks. And in the first eight weeks, you were only competing against other people that are in their first eight weeks. And it gives you an opportunity on iTunes to get populated right there on the front screen. If you can just, and we also saw that as a huge advantage. Doug had read this. He knew that going into it. We're like, okay, let's go. We're not competing against the Joe Rogan who's been there forever.

We're competing against other people are starting right now, and we believed in ourselves and our work ethic and what we had to give was like, let's go do that. And I remember when we reached, you know, number one and new and noteworthy, and we were there for several weeks of the first eight weeks, and that really catapulted the first initial wave of people. That paired with what I was doing at Orange Theory,

which is a whole other side story we can get into some time, is like I was out there on the ground, getting, building community in person. that was what I was like, I know I can control that. I didn't know if I could control the new and noteworthy thing and get popular on social media. But I knew I was good at what I did and I could build community in person.

And if I could just get a few hundred people in my community in person, I would have a couple hundred listeners that would listen to my podcast and then maybe it would grow from there. So I was kind of simultaneously also doing that. And so I think the combination of we were actually doing okay on the podcast and got ranked and new and noteworthy combined with what I was doing in person

with community really gave us the first foundation of the first few hundred or thousand listeners, it just snowballed. What's up, Yap, gang? If you're a serious entrepreneur like me, you know your website is one of the first touch points every single cold customer has with your brand. Think about that for a second. When people are searching on Google, everybody who interacts with your brand first is seeing your dot-com initially.

But here's a problem. Too many companies treat their website like a formality instead of the gross tool that it should be. At Yap Media, we are guilty of this. I am really due for an upgrade from my website, and I'm planning on doing that with Framer this year. Because small changes can take days with my other platform, and simple updates require tickets. And suddenly, we're just leaving so much opportunity on the table. And that's why so many teams, including mine, are turning to Framer. It's built for teams who refuse to let their website slow them down. Your designers and marketers get full ownership with real-time collaboration, everything you need for SEO and analytics,

with integrated A-B testing. I love that. I love testing and making sure that we've got the best performing assets on the page. You make a change, hit publish, and it's live in seconds. Whether you're launching a new site, testing landing pages,

or migrating your full.com, Framer makes going from idea to live site fast and simple. Learn how you can get more out of your dot com from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com slash profiting for 30% off a Framer pro annual plan.

That's 30% off in 2026. Again, that's framer.com slash profiting for 30% off. Framer.com slash profiting. Rules and restrictions apply. Young and profiters. I know there's so many people tuning in right now that end their workday wondering why certain tasks take forever, why they're procrastinating certain things, why they don't feel confident in their work, why they feel drained and frustrated and unfulfilled.

But here's the thing you need to know. It's not a character flaw that you're feeling this way. It's actually your natural wiring. And here's the thing. When it comes to burnout, it's really about the type of work that you're doing. Some work gives you energy and some work simply drains you. So it's key to understand your six types of working genius. The working genius assessment or the six types of working genius framework was created by Patrick

Lensione and he is a business influencer and author. And the working genius framework helps you identify what you're actually built for and the work that you're not. Now, let me tell you a story. Before I uncovered my working genius, which is galvanizing and invention, so I like to rally people and I like to invent new things, I used to be really shameful and had a lot of guilt around the fact that I didn't like enablement, which is one of my working frustrations. So I actually don't like to support people one-on-one. I don't like it when people slow me down.

I don't like handholding. I like to move fast, invent, rally people, inspire. But what I do need to do is ensure that somebody else can fill that enablement role, which I do have, K on my team. So working genius helps you uncover these genius gaps, helps you work better with your team, helps you reduce friction, helps you collaborate better, understand why people are the way that they are. It's helped me restructure my team, put people in the spots that they're going to really excel, and it's also helped me in hiring.

Working genius is absolutely amazing. I'm obsessed with this model. So if you guys want to take the working genius assessment and get 20% off, you can use code profiting. Go to workinggenius.com. Again, that's working genius.com. Stop guessing. Start working in your genius. What's up, young and profitors?

I remember when I first started Yap, I used to dread missing important calls. I remember I lost a huge potential partnership because the follow-up thread got completely lost in my messy communication system. Well, this year, I'm focused on not missing any opportunities, and that starts with your business communications. A missed call is money and growth out the door. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled QUO, the smarter way to run your business communications.

Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2, and it works right from an app on your phone or computer. The way Quo works is magic for team alignment. Your whole team can handle calls and text from one shared number, and everyone sees the full conversation. It's like having access to a shared email inbox, but on a phone. And also, Quo's AI can even qualify leads or respond after hours, ensuring your business stays responsive, even when you finally logged off. It makes doing business so much easier.

Make this the year where no opportunity and no customers, slips away. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash profiting. That's QUO.com slash profiting. Quo. No missed calls, no missed customers. So I started as an entrepreneur. Now I have a business that's about to hit eight figures next year. I run YAP Media. It's a social agency. I have a podcast network. It's the number one business podcast network. When I first started my business, I was 100% owner. And it was great. I had a team. but it gets lonely. And now you just met one of my business partners, Jason.

He's got 20% of the business. And he's my best friend. And it is so much more fun. And like just work is so much more fun. It's so much better to like have somebody to lean on. And so what is your advice to people who are kind of like holding their equity to their belt and just they don't have a partner? Like what's your perspective on that? Yeah, this is an interesting conversation because I would tell you that.

My advice normally is to people is don't get a partnership. Don't do it. And I think a lot of that is because I recognize how blessed I am to have met three other guys that align so much with each other. It's probably the most interesting thing about this. I mean, we haven't got into all the things that we've built, but we've got multiple seven, eight-figure businesses. We invest in real estate together.

We own 15 homes together, even partnership. We have angel investing together. We have a stock portfolio together, and we are evenly split on everything. We do think Sal wrote a book. He was published by Hachette and wrote a book. I made royalties from that book. I didn't spend a single minute doing anything to do that book, but I make royalties. I do business coaching for people on the side on my own time at home with that.

I give that portion to my, it goes right into the pot. We have just agreed that everything we build and we do together is an equal four-way split, no matter what time and effort each guy puts into. And that is freaking very, very unique and very, very special. And I'm very, very blessed that we had that. A lot of that has to do with ego. And this is the other thing that probably connects us really well. We all have that kind of work ethic thing. And the other thing is that we all met each other at a place in our life where we had the opportunity to all be leaders and to work with teams long enough to know like the power of team over the individual and we all are so competitive that we want to win more than any of us

care about any sort of individual accolades or who gets the credit or who gets more money or a split that way. And ultimately we know if we positioned, we knew if we positioned ourselves that way in the business like that, that we would have abundance everywhere. And everybody in the business makes way more money than I think they ever dreamed or thought they would make. And so it's easy now. Like at this point, it's like the revenue has got two places where everybody's so comfortable and so like that. It's actually not that big of a deal.

But early on, that was really unique and special to have four guys like that. And I think it's different. So we talk about it a lot that it's marriage. I honestly think that I think my marriage is easier than my business partnership. I think being in a business, because you love that person, right? You love that person. You're attracted to that person. You sleep together every day.

You chose that person to do life with. So I actually think marriage is easier than business partnerships. I think business partnerships are like a lot of people get into them because they see like, oh, you're talented in this. I'm talented in that. We would make a good team. Let's go build this business. But it's like being married.

So you better have, you better be on the same page and a lot more than just, oh, you have that skill. I have this skill. And that makes a good business idea. I know you need to court people. If you're going to go into business with someone, you need to court them as if you were going to marry them. Because it gets, I think, arguably, more ugly. When you get hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars involved and you have this split, I mean, that

really puts an added pressure to the relationship. Aside from you got to work with them, you have to steer a company or companies towards these core values. Do all of your core values aligned as your ideologies align? These things all really matter in partnership. And so that's the only way I ever recommended to someone is if you feel like you've really really vetted the person you're potentially going to go partnership, like you were going to marry them and you could be okay with living with them for the rest of your life. I just think that's so important. And I think we are such a, we're such a bad example of, I think four individual partners. I mean, name me another company where you know that, where there's an even 25 split in all aspects

of all investments of all businesses that were like an anomaly. So I never give people that advice of like, oh, try and find three other dudes that you're like, that's probably. I mean, this is like we all, we believe that there's something greater going on besides us, that we weren't in control of this. It was very serendipitous the way it all played out. And so the advice I normally give is that do not underestimate the stress and the challenge of partnership. And so if you're going to do a partnership, you need to vet that person as if you were

going to be marrying that person because you are. You're marrying them in business. And let me tell you, we have all out fights. In fact, we just had one two days ago, and I should read the text to you, and I said back to the guys because there was two different things that we got into in the same morning. Like it was like, it wasn't even 10 o'clock, and we had already like fought each other, we're yelling at each other back and forth. And I sent a text later on that night, oh, here we go.

I was just reflecting on today and how much I love you guys. From the jump, getting frustrated at Doug to fighting with Sal over copy on a landing page, makes me chuckle out loud. There's no one else in the world I'd rather fight with. It's very special. We can do that in a day and never break stride

in our mission. Pretty fucking cool. And that is like, we have this ability to, I mean, get into it. Like, really get into it. But ego's never involved. It's never,

I'm fighting with Sal because I want to be more right. I believe with all of my heart, this is the right direction for the business. And if he's fighting with me, it's not ego for him either. He believes this is the right direction

for the business. And it's ultimately not about us. That's the secret sauce to that dynamic of being able to fight like that where it's healthy. It's not about ego. It's not about being more. I don't care about being more right. I care about what's best for the business. And if I'm passionate about it and I believe I'm right, I'm going to fight to that.

And we encourage that. And we encourage that with our team too. Like, listen, just because I'm the boss, if you think I'm wrong about something we should do and you passionately feel that, you better speak up. You better step to me. You better argue with me and bring your best argument. and I want you to do that because that's where the best stuff comes out. And then whatever we decide on and agree on, we all decide.

So if Sal and I are getting into about the copy and we're both passionate and we're right and we decide, okay, we're going to try your way and we'll see. I'm not sitting back now measuring, oh, was it bad and mine was more? See, I told you I was, no. It's now my idea. If we decide to go with your idea, I no longer look at it as my idea. It's our idea. And I'm all bought it and I'm going to do everything I can.

can to make sure you're right or we're right in that situation because ultimately it's about winning as a team and that's what we care about. That's special. It's so special to find one other person that's like that, much less three other people that are like that. And we have that in this team where and nobody, none of us too, like, I think it's unique when you get into this space where media and kind of the attention and fame comes. Like none of us want that. Like one of the things that we were all, we were all very reluctant, resistant to the fame part of this. Like, none of us are thirsty for that. None of us want that.

And so it's kind of neat that nobody wants to be the guy. Nobody cares to say, like, I do this or blah, blah, blah, or want to be in the front front of everything like that. We both are all like, ah, do you want to do it? I don't want to do it. You do it? We have that kind of attitude with the limelight, too. And I think that's so important.

Like, nobody is thirsty for the attention from anybody at all. It's ultimately about the business, And if you're the right guy or girl for the job in that situation, I don't care where are you rank in superiority or whatever. It's like you're the right guy or girl for the job. Go do it. Go get it done. Go make it happen. And so that's special.

That's unique. I don't think it happens to a lot of people. And so I think most people are probably better off building a business themselves and having like kind of full control of relationships and partnership with that. But if you do, it's a very special thing because then now you have four of us that became another superpowers. is that we can divide and conquer. But it took a while to learn that too, though, because early on, you know, we were so tight, we were so close. And there wasn't a lot going on when we only had a few thousand listeners.

We had one product. So it was like every, every decision in the business was all four of us talking, everything we did. I think it was about year three when we were really starting to like catch our stride and revenue was really cranking by that time. We started to realize what are we doing? Why are we trust each other like family? by this time and we're making decisions together,

and it is literally hurting us. What we thought might have been our superpower in the past where you have four great minds, collectively arguing over our ideas, then we decided and go. Now it was slowing us down. Now it was getting to a point where it was bogging the business.

We had too many things going on that we need to let go of stuff. And so that probably presented a probably year transition of challenge for us was, okay, now that we've got this place where we're all married together, we all like each other, We all see, oh, the benefits of all four of us arguing and debate.

Okay, that's great. But now how is it also hurting us? Oh, shit, it's slowing us down when we need to make decisions. And speed is very important, I think, in business, right? To go test your ideas. And if we have to meet every time we want to try something or do something in business this big, this is killing us. And so it took about a year to like everyone kind of fall into their actual. In fact, by that time, we still hadn't decided our positions.

Like we had never sat down and had a formal meeting of, Adam, you're going to be the CEO, Sal, you're going to be the CMO, Justin, you're going to be the CTO. Like, that didn't happen until a year four. And we had already been, I remember we're cranking in the millions of dollars and we don't even have a structure.

We don't even have a structure to who's in what position, but I really didn't think it was that necessary until we had so many different revenue streams and departments and building a staff underneath us. Then it presented itself and we realized that it was a bit of growing pains for about, a year, and then everybody kind of naturally fell into these positions. And because we have that solid foundation, the relationship, marriage part, like, nobody, and this is, I think this is so

important in a marriage. Like, if your marriage is not going to last very long, if you are constantly measuring what you bring to the table, to what they bring to the table, and the time you spent on a thing compared to that, like, that marriage ain't going nowhere. If you're, you and your wife are arguing over who did more of what, that's quick recipe for that relationship. And the same thing goes in business. So I can't sit there and go like, I worked seven days this week and I didn't get any breaks and this and that. And Justin, all you did was that one day, like, nobody, nobody even measures that. It's like, you're the best at that.

You like doing that. Lean into that. Go handle that. Like, you like doing that. You're the best of that. Go handle that. Oh, that stuff. You're terrible.

Don't even worry about it. I got it. Like, that's how everything kind of unfolded and the positions that everybody in is we fell into the things that were our strengths and we doubled down on it. And the things that we recognize that were weaknesses in each other. We let go of those things. So your example of partnerships, like you just said, very unusual. You don't really recommend it. You feel like it was just like a magical, serendipitous thing. I'll give a quick example to the listeners of how I found my business partners, right? So I have one girl, Kate who has 10%, Jason is 20%. Kate started as an intern when I first started my company. She was basically a volunteer who worked for free for a couple years. And then she was by far like, for her age especially, she was just such a rock. star and it was so obvious that she was special. And she got to work for me and basically became

a mini-me. So she ended up getting 10% of the business as one of my business partners. Jason was an aqua-hire. He had his own production company. I couldn't focus on production anymore. So I brought him in. He turned the whole team around. He ended up, he was already entrepreneurial. He was an entrepreneur. And after like two years of working together, I then decided to put him on a investment. So it's not just like, boom, oh, I met you at a coffee shop, want to do a 50-50 split. Like, you know, it's not that. You've got to really get to know somebody and decide, like, do I want to work with this person maybe forever until I retire? You quartered them. You quartered them for two years before you even consider doing that. I mean, that to me, that's so important. Like, that's why it's like,

it's not fair for me to tell people don't do it. But I think a lot of people think it's going to be easier. I think the fear, because it's scary, right? Most people fail. And so nobody wants to fail and nobody wants to fail all by themselves. And so I think most people make the decision of a partnership out of this fear of failing by themselves. And then so they just search for somebody, oh, this person can bring, it's like, that's the wrong reason to do it. I think that's what you've got to be very careful of. But I think that's a great strategy. I mean, we've done that now where because there's so many different businesses and revenue streams, we've had people that just like that have been started off as an intern, worked their way up to a position, worked their way up to a

leadership position, now get 10% of a revenue stream. So we've had people in the business where we've brought in kind of an equity split or a rev split on some things because they've earned that right to be, you know, more than just an employee. And we really want to do that for most people. But I think that looking for that right out the gates, I think that's the mistake that most people make when it comes to like partnership. So totally agree.

Totally. Well, Yap, gang, that's the end of part one of my conversation with Adam Schaefer. There were so many pieces of his story and his entrepreneurial journey that really resonated with me. And the first was the value of starting to work at a young age. You've really got to get those reps in early when you're in your teens and 20s. And a lot of us may not be in our teens and 20s anymore. But if you are, don't underestimate the value of working in retail or service jobs. You might be surprised about how many skills you take later with you in life, and you may not be getting paid a lot now, but those skills will pay you a lot later from those experiences.

And next, I really loved his thoughts about the importance of adversity and what you do with that adversity. Like Adam, you might have had a challenging childhood, but you can choose whether you let that experience be destructive or empowering. You can reframe your past and embrace the stronger, more resilient version of yourself that emerged from it. And finally, it was so inspiring to hear how it was Adam's insecurities and his vulnerabilities and his willingness to confront them that really vaulted him ahead as a trainer, an entrepreneur, and as a content creator. His own insecurity about his body and self-image drove his expertise forward, and it also made it easier for him to relate to his clients as a trainer and later as an entrepreneur. Whether or not you have muscles as big as

Adams, if you don't showcase your vulnerabilities as well, your clients or audience may only see your polished version, and that will make it harder to connect with them. But there's something else that Adam told me that was so eye-opening. It's what he and his mind-pump co-founders leaned into that really catapulted their business forward. And we'll get into all that juicy stuff in part two of our conversation. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young Improfiting Podcast. If you listen learned and profited from this conference, with the super fit Adam Schaefer, then please share this episode with your friends and family. And if you enjoy this show and you learn something, then drop us a five-star review on Apple

podcast, Spotify, CastBox, Player FM, wherever you listen to this show, I love to hear from you and your reviews mean so much to me. And if you want to watch our podcast as videos, my YouTube channel is growing really fast. My videos have been going viral lately and it's really fun to witness it all. If you want to check us out on YouTube, you can go to Young and Profiting on YouTube. You can also find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search my name. It's Hala Taha.

I got to say thanks to my Yap production team. You guys are amazing. Thank you for all that you do. This is your host, Hala Taha, aka the podcast Princess, signing off.