SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Welcome to another episode of the FEU podcast. I'm doing this as a very special series of episodes. I've done a bunch of these already. And what I'm doing, and I just explained it to the two amazing guys on this call, but what I'm doing with this series of interviews is I'm taking some of the gym owners that I've worked with over time, and I'm doing a series of interviews with them that showcase their story and showcase their success. And part of it is going to be one, you as a gym owner listening to this can get some inspiration and motivation on what people are doing to have success. But two, full disclosure, I'm taking these interviews and I'm going to be transcribing them into a book that I'm going to use and hand out to people interested in Mastermind and hand out to people maybe on the fence about Mastermind and sending them this book in the mail. So it is twofold. I think you're going to get a ton of value from the great people that we're interviewing, but it's also to take this book. Now, as I say that, hopefully your wheels are turning and be like, oh, that's a really good idea. I should probably do something like that at my gym. And if you're thinking that, yes, you're on the right track for it. So the two great guys I have with me today are Joe Riggio and Dan Goodman from Varsity House Gym in Orangeburg, New York. They have, I know that so clearly because they worked with me shoot, I think since 2018. And we're sitting here recording this in 2025. So it's been a seven-year relationship, seven-year coaching relationship that they've been in the SPF mastermind. They're going to tell you the story of how amazing things are for them right now. And it's it's really an honor to have you guys on this. Really appreciate all the help that you guys give in in the group. You guys are looked at as mentors and leaders and uncle, uncle, uncles in the group of some of the of some of the younger guys, right? But you guys are always so giving with your knowledge and time in the SPF mastermind. So I appreciate you guys doing this doing this podcast. So there's two of them. So we'll put it, I'll leave it up to you guys to fight for that. But the basically the first question is why don't you just give us background? Well, Joe, you start because give us some background on the gym and how it started and all that, and when we'll get into the time when Dan didn't want to sign up for the mastermind.

SPEAKER_00: 2:26

Sure. I mean, Cliff Note Virgin. Yeah, Cliff Note. Typical me head. You know, one to always love training, love fitness, love sports. Opened up my first gym in 06 with zero business skills whatsoever. You know, just wanted to train kids and really mentor young, young athletes. Dan was one of those athletes in 06. We trained together for three years till 09. He was graduating school. It was the cusp of 08-09. He graduated in the winter of 08 going into 09. So like the job marker was trash. I had been asked, I had outstayed my welcome at the gym that I was sharing space with because my business was mostly like me head football players, weights clanging and banging, and they were like a basketball skills and drills play. So, you know, kids would be trying to shoot like three pointers, and you're the weights would be going bonkers and stuff like that. You know, Dan needed a job. I needed to get out. He started pulling me for some help, you know, for some, you know, like a job opportunity. Like, I want to do this, I want to do it. I want to be partnered, great friend and mentor. You know, so we started exploring the idea. Oh, nine, we opened up the second red, we partnered up and opened up the second rendition of Varsity House. And uh, you know, we we were crushing it in terms in our head. We were doing breaks if we were busy, being busy, like typical gym motor. We were just active, like we were doing anything and everything we could, going to football games, track meets, wrestling meets, basketball games to get that word out there. It was all athletes at that time. There was really no adults. And the first two years we were in business, 09 and 010, when we got rid of all of our football players at the end of the summer, we'd be waving everybody out the door, like saying good luck. We might be sweating because like we were almost out of money by October, November. We had a cash runway. But we really had no money management skills. We had no financial acuity. We didn't we we knew how to hustle and we could sell, but we didn't have a marketing plan or a process, right? That happened two years in a row. And at the second year, you know, another mastermind, Vince, again, we you you think we would have learned from the first mistake, but we we had gone out to Louisville. I put six, there was a few thousand, one six thousand dollars. It was like four or five thousand dollars to fly to Louisville. Behind we went to a Pat Rigsby summit, a sales summit with Pat Reigsby. Great guy. Great guy. And and he was very gracious to us. And and in his southern Kentucky Joel, he was like, I think I know what the problem is, boys. You don't know nothing about business. And and he's like, Maybe maybe for every trading book you read, you should read a couple business books. You think? And so, you know, you know, uh kind of like the moment we had at CEO with you, where people thought we were gonna like never we were gonna break up and leave our tail between our legs. Actually, we were actually super relieved on the flight home because we at least we for the first time we had an A point, we had some clarity as to what we needed to work on. So fast forward a few years, all intense purposes. You know, we crush it, we're busy, we're doing our thing. We start training adults. I started our six-week transformation program, they just crushed it for us. And uh, we get to about 2014, 2015. We open up our brand new facility, which is the one you know, and you've been to our headquarters now, right, which is a big 20,000 square foot facility. We did not have the business acumen to scale that fast to that big enough facility with that many employees, without really top-notch money management skills and a real lockdown marketing plans. And we hired Ryan Lee, paid him$10,000 for the day to come in and help us change the pricing model. Or something was still missing. And you got we fast forward a few more years. It's 2017, going into 2018, the fall was when I came, I saw an ad that summer for one of your two-day summits. And I said, you know what, I'm gonna join this mastermind group, uh, or I'm gonna go to this summit, right? That was only a couple hundred bucks, I think, for that summit. And and I remember being at TJ, my my my gym, my gym's, my other gym bromance, right, was there. Uh we can who has literally become one of my absolute best friends. And and we were like, you want to join this thing or do this thing? And and Dan was adverse to it just because like we didn't really have the money. And it was like maybe they don't want to.

SPEAKER_02: 6:21

Why wouldn't Dan why didn't Dan, yeah? So basically, Joe's talking about a seminar I had many years ago. And you why didn't Dan go? Like, why'd you go by yourself? You guys were business partners.

SPEAKER_00: 6:32

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I think it was the money, honestly. I think we just work and he was working, and like I left him, it was a weekend, so back then we were open seven days a week. So like somebody had to work. So I went to this thing, and then when I told him, hey man, I I think this guy can help, he's got some really great points, he's a local guy. Part of the reason why Joe and you is because I don't know, I saw a lot of us in you because you're a Jersey guy, so yeah, you you knew all the Jersey slang, you know all the Jersey people. You even though like me and you had not known each other prior to this, it seemed like we knew all the same people and come through a lot of the same circles. And and I knew that if I had a problem in from your mouth to my ears, you were like, hey man, you're right up the parkway. If you ever have an issue, you come down here, shadow the gym, stuff like that. So I was like, that made a big difference to me because I didn't want to hire, like, again, the reason why I didn't stick with Pat was because he only works out of Louisville now. It's like I can't be flying back and forth to Louisville, you know, 10 times a year, right? So, and and there's no direct flights to Louisville, so that's a shit show getting there. You know, I put the money on my credit card, my personal credit card for myself. And then obviously I came home with a pile of marketing ideas, blueprints, and plans, and reinception of changing to small group. We immediately started changing them out to small group personal training and started making money. And that's when, you know, kind of the light bulb went off after I was in it for a year. Joined Dan joined when you came into CEO. And when you allowed, you know, when we when you opened the CEO mastermind and it was Jin's, you know, partners could come. I was like, dude, you have to do this. I know it's a lot more money, but like, you know, we're we're really starting to get some traction here. And the realization and part of your teaching and like being around the night people that were in that mastermind at that time, like there was a few other key players in there as well that I had become friendly with. You know, the the underlying tone of it is that the skills and the mindset that got you to 500k a million won't get you to two, three, five. It's just not gonna happen. And, you know, and and you know, you know what you know. There was a lot of things that Dan and I didn't know. We were great coaches, you had lots of hustle, tons of passion. We had all the intangibles that we needed. We just didn't have a we just didn't have a lot of direction. And you know, your group, specifically some of the things that you do, I think your superpower bins is really just keeping keeping people on a on a uh I always think of those fidelity commercials, you know, just follow the path, the little green path. You know what I'm saying? You ever you know what I'm talking about? Those financial commercials, right? Where it's like, just follow the path, just follow the path, right? You do a great job of laying out a path. And when we're in our meetings together, especially our CEO meetings, it is directing those meetings in a way that keeps people keep the conversation moving forward for each business. And that's really helped us stay focused on our goals, get really granular on what we need to work on and stay on that and not get distracted. I mean, you've called us out how many times have you pulled us out in the last 70 years and be like, guys, is this just like shiny object syndrome? Are we chasing our tails here, or you know, or do we just want to make money doing the thing? You know, and you kind of rope us back in a lot.

SPEAKER_02: 9:23

What was the uh I want to get to the second problem because Dan, I know you explained that really well. But Joe, when you went to the first, I just want to be go back to that first, when you went to the two-day mentorship, what was the struggle and the challenge in the business at that point?

SPEAKER_00: 9:38

Price pricing, pricing and and marketing.

SPEAKER_02: 9:41

Pricing and marketing, okay. And then what were the things that happened? Uh so you joined the mastermind. I know you have a you you gave me a great testimonial too about the holiday card system. Like, I know you took one of the things that did really well. What were the things that started to happen or what are the things you did that started you realize like, all right, this mastermind thing that we joined is working, it's helping us.

SPEAKER_00: 10:04

I needed I needed tactics, right? So, like I was, you know, again, a lot for all the gym owners listening to this, when you're in it and you're working feverishly, and a lot of the people, again, like you know, that I meet in your group, they got families, they have kids, right? And you're doing 30, 40, 50 sessions a week. It's very difficult to be creative. So uh I had not created a one-way for myself like we talk about now, like creative time, clarity time, headspace time, right? And like now when I look at my schedule, I I would like laugh at the current, like the old Joe would laugh at the new Joe, be like, dude, what are you? Cupcake for God's sakes? What is this crap? Like free time, free thinking time? What is that garbage, right? But we know that in that free thinking time, like I might come up with an email or an idea that makes the business yell freaking million dollars. But I didn't have any of that. So I was in it. So it's very difficult to be creative. You know, what the one thing was I had gotten fed like a booklet of ideas. So I was like, oh shit, here's a ton of stuff that I didn't know. And then two, just awareness of the pricing structure. One thing that Ryan Lee did was he told us our pricing structure was garbage, right? And we already knew that we were having struggle because we had 200 and something members paying 150 bucks a month. And he said, look, how much you guys want to make? At the time it was like, you know, we want to say we said we I think we want to make personally like 250 grand a year each or something like that. And he was like, All right, well, if that's 25% profit in a business like this, you need to make$2 million a year in this in this gym. And that means you're gonna have to have like a thousand clients playing this money. We're like, oh shit, we didn't even think, you know, didn't really resonate. So after seeing you lay out the small group model on how you were charging, you know,$400 plus a month. This other damn, we could do that. Like we're already doing that. Our classes were already like world cloud strength edition classes. We were just giving away too much, right? And we weren't charging enough for it.

SPEAKER_02: 11:45

So the first phase for you guys was marketing ideas, pricing structure, and then model shift, right? Shifting from a different model, right? So that was kind of the first phase in your what you got from us, right? But then the second phase came, and I'm gonna let Dan chime in here. The second phase came when you guys joined CEO Mastermind and you guys had done well, and you and again, you guys, full disclosure, and I want to say this to everyone listening, they were close to a million-dollar business before they joined. So I'm not taking credit for all of their success. Like these guys are heavy hitters, they're doing really good work, they're helping other gyms right now in their business of strength program. So I don't want to take like these guys. I I did not ask them for a testimonial for my new book, which is gym is doing zero to 25k. I didn't ask them because they were already well beyond that. Right. But they're still even at close to seven figures, they were still struggling with the marketing side, they're still struggling with the model side. And we were able to help them improve that and make that better.

SPEAKER_00: 12:46

And what important last thing I want to say though, Merc, is that we were we were there, we were at that loud number. But if you remember our first our first meeting, our payroll was like 57% of our revenue. And Dan and I were both working six days a week, 40 sessions a week. We were crushing ourselves in that model of the week. There was no escaping. So something had to get.

SPEAKER_02: 13:08

Yeah. Yep. Yeah, there was there was what I call this, it became this big ship that had organizational ADD. Yeah. Great, great analogy. Yeah, and and part of that was the thing we're gonna get into with Dan right here. So Dan, tell the story of the first the head, the fate, the SPF famous CEO hot seat story of you and Joe. That was great.

SPEAKER_00: 13:32

I mean, when I just said I intro you with the truth. When you app intro you, I was like, well, there's no better way than to tell the truth and tell the story. And when Joe came down to that event throughout the weekend, he's like, I'm signing up for this thing, this guy Vince, whatever, and obviously we know the story, he ended up signing up. But I was totally against it. And you know, he went against what I wanted him to do, and like any good business partner, he did exactly what I asked him not to do, and he signed up to the mastermind anyway. And it didn't take long for me to realize that he had a pep in his step, and it was just like new, fresh ideas to add stimulus to a marketing machine that was working. We had brand reputation, but we just needed some no new tools in the tool dolls. And they started to work and we started to execute. And I quickly was like, I'm glad I had the maturity to realize, like, wow, this is working. Like, I need to pay attention and came down for a meeting and realized you know, you were which means more to me than anything, you were an approachable guy that had humility and like you genuinely gave a shit. Hashie was there too in that first meeting, and I really I really appreciated where you guys were at and how much organizational structure you had in your building. I was an early adopter, I was hooked ever since then. And you know, one word that we haven't mentioned, but it's so important is that yes, we we had come in with, you know, a defense business, and today now we, you know, we help other gyms and we have three gyms now, but like the biggest thing we would have never realized any of it if we didn't have the accountability. Like a lot of people could say, like, oh, like whatever it is, it's not that hard to do, whatever. Like, that is bullshit. You've kept us on the straight narrow word hey, we meet every three months and we gotta disclose what we said we were gonna do and what we actually have done. And you've had a way of delivering the information where it might be a punch to the gut, but it's done with grace and empathy, and it's hey, like this is what happened, but this is where we're going. And that constant that constant push has allowed us to find that next gear. And you know, to anybody listening to this, you're selling coaching. What is coaching? You could chat GPT a training plan, but you can't chat GPT accountability and competition. And you know, we were in the weeds of it, and you have had a really unique way of being above it and allowing us to see what we don't see, and through that, like I will always forever be grateful. And you know, this past weekend I made mention that you've done that and continue to do that for 150 people. And it, you know, the reason why we continue with you and and will continue with you because you've allowed us to find that next year and we keep pushing us forward.

SPEAKER_02: 16:28

So go back to the that's appreciated, Dan. Go back to the story though of the hot seat. So to let me set the stage of this is a mastermind that had probably about nine people in the room, and everyone had to this is is way more embarrassing than getting up in front of the room and dropping your pants, right? This is getting up in front of the room and showing your PL. Like, not, hey, I made this much money. Like, no, this is what the actual spreadsheet from my profit and loss statement from QuickBooks says. And it was a very, I had never seen anything like it either, right? And I I got the idea from my business coach, Paul Goff, who should who showed me this model of, hey, this is there's no hiding in this type of coaching. That's the the accountability comes from not from me holding you accountable, the accountability comes from the process of the way the mastermind is structured. In that you fill out this document, you bring your PL, and you show us exactly what actually is happening. Yeah. Right. And so that's the that's that what I want to do is set the frame for everyone listening of what these meetings were like. And then each group, each gym gets an hour in front of the room after we've read the document, and then the group helps them solve the biggest challenge that they're having based on what the document says.

SPEAKER_00: 17:52

For sure. And and also too, like I don't want to take anything away, like the FPF events, the large group events are fantastic as well. And I think like to anybody listening to this that believes that they've arrived or that there's ever going to be a time and place where like you know it all. Somebody asked me recently, like, what we attribute our success to at varsity house, and really the the word is curiosity and staying interested. At the last SPF event, I sat like in the front two rows, two rows or two tables, and I'm taking notes and applying things that you're saying to our business like within 48 hours of that event. So the sharpening of the sword never ends. You have to stay interested, you have to stay curious, and it is super freaking important. In terms of that CEO, that first CEO meeting, then you want me to talk about like specifically happened.

SPEAKER_02: 18:48

Yeah, no, because I because I want to highlight the challenges, right? I want to highlight the first challenge was marketing, model, price. The second challenge was accountability, was really structure and roles. Yeah, right. And the rub was you guys were doing everything together and no one had clear defined roles. I think that's that's what it was.

SPEAKER_00: 19:08

Totally like most people in that room, you'll say, okay, accountability chart, and you one person's name in every box. The challenge that we had is we had two hard-charging me heads trying to share every role in the accountability chart, which does not work because there's if there's no clarity between two said partners, we had a team at that point. And that team, it was like going to two separate parents that were speaking different languages. Well, I'll go to Bill because I know I'll get that out of them. I'll go to J I'll go to Dan for this answer because I know I'll get that out of him. And like we both wanted to contribute on marketing. A case in point now, Joe owns the marketing in our business. I contribute, but at the end of the day, the marketing messaging and the schedule and all the things that we do from paid ads to emails to initiate. Yes, I have it to say, but Joe owes that responsibility. And you highlighted for us based on you know some of the strengths and weaknesses that we had from a personality standpoint, follow-through, whatever it might be, that it might be important for us to revisit our accountability. And Joe was the founder and the incumbent CEO, but really his strengths and what he was doing was he was really keen on the ad and the videos and being the face of the organization, where I really wasn't. I liked marketing, I like the messaging, I like writing emails, and I was sitting in the marketing scene. You made a suggestion to flip swap roles for me to become the CEO and Joe to be the head of marketing. And that one switch alone, I mean, I know it was a tense room, but as Joe alluded to earlier in the conversation, we felt relieved just knowing like, hey, this is my one like one page, what I need to do to in order to move this organization forward. This is your one page. We'll round it up every week to make sure we're on the same page and influencing each other to where we want to go. But accountability and organization or organizational health, and we talked about you you have to have the ability to generate leads. Once you can acquire a customer, if you have an organization that's doing in and around a million dollars, organizational health. I mean, they call it that's rocket fuel, right? Organizational health is rocket fuel. Our business went to the freaking moon as soon as you helped us identify what we were getting and really more or less what we should focus on. I mean, we've grown at an exponential rate, not immediately, but once we started to get comfortable nose rolls, I mean it's been a really cool growth trajectory ever since.

SPEAKER_02: 21:54

Yeah, and I also know that profitability improved in the mother's. Tremendously. Tremendously. Yeah. So you grew top line, but also the profit, the fr the profit was tight when you first started. It was under 10%. And margins. Yeah. And so then now you have a very large business at good margins. Yeah, which is which is powerful. No, that was great. Yeah, and I think the tension, yeah, that and remember, like, we could cut the tension with the method that you guys were actually standing like as far away from each other as possible. And again, I knew you guys loved each other and I knew you guys had a good, strong partnership, but there was tension there. And I think that and then what I want to teach everyone the tension was caused by a lack of clarity of roles. That you have two people in a business that weren't clear on what their job was, and that was causing the tension. That was the problem.

SPEAKER_00: 22:45

So it's not personal tension with me and Danny. No, no. Most of the best thing, again, kind of like the Pat Rigsby thing, kind of like every time we come down for a CEO, there's always something to work on. But, you know, I think anxiety, frustration, and uncertainty come from not having the right aiming points and the right directive. And like that's the whole point of the CEO is that every quarter we come and we reframe the directive and create a couple really key aiming points. And look, I mean, all businesses had lots of problems. At VH, we're doing exceptionally well. We're having one of our best years ever. There's a million things to work on. Like shit, we can go down the list. I have a I have a dead sea scroll of action items that we could literally fix and work on every day. But by setting by having the right people in the right seats, uh, me and Dan kind of diving deeper into our superpowers, use of Danis Sullivan kind of term to really dive into our our unique ability, right? And Dan is a much better follow-up people manager than I was. I enjoy the creative. Um, you know me, I've got a big personality. I love being in front of the camera, speaking to people, going out and doing business, going out and making new relationships, going out in the community and doing our stuff. I love doing the marketing. I have a very creative quick start brain. And it just was a natural switch. And when we got there, I again, like I know the TJ and a bunch of the guys in the group had like bets going that we were never coming back and that we were done for as a company. But honestly, Dan and I were literally like high-fiving and fist bumping the whole way up the ticker pipe because we we finally had some clarity. I mean, you knew what was wrong. And we and and we had the maturity. You know, I've never been a as big of a personality as I can be since. I've never really had a huge ego with Dan or the people within my organization. I think I can look back at what I've done right or a few things. I mean, it's I've always been fair at getting everybody their just doing opportunity. And you know, if Adam was doing a better job than me at the training and programming and internship, shit, man, you take Phil Brick. You know, Mike was the head director of training, that was Mike's focus. He loved it and preditated and slept it. He was doing a better job. Let me take that thing and run, right? And you know, I you've heard me say it many times, Dan is a way better CEO than I was, and he keeps me in check and does a better job managing our team than I did. And I think that I'm doing him better job with the tools that we have today of the marketing seat because I have all the that's my main focus. So it's been great for us as a business-wise. And and and you know, and again, every quarter we come down, we get those three or five aiming points, you know, according to EOS, those rocks. And you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that if you identify, you know, two to five really key items in your business every quarter and actually fix them and do the thing, uh, at the end of a couple years, you're gonna have some serious traction with some serious growth.

SPEAKER_02: 25:35

Yeah. No, so it's it really is cool to see the trajectory of the first phase and the first problems and the second problems as the business grew. And you guys have done really well. I want to shine the light on, you know, wanting you guys to gloat a little bit now, you know, on where the business is today. So we kind of identified where it was, wasn't profitable, strong revenue, but a lot of lack of clarity in the roles, tough like getting the marketing going. And today, you know, I see you guys every quarter, and there's a lot happening, there's a lot of good stuff happening. You got good long-term staff. Just give us, you know, either either one of you, paint us a picture of where the business is today.

SPEAKER_00: 26:15

Well, I'll let Dan hangle from the financing, but I'll give you a quick, I'll give you one other problem that we had, and that was when we decided to scale. And again, I was a little bit hesitant because Vince, you know, I knew you had the business chops, and I knew that you're a super sharp guy on the business side, and you surrounded yourself with other world-class business people, the Mike Wold Jeans of the world who's helped us tremendously, the Joe Hashies, who's who's, I think, I don't know if his business suggestions or his chop busting keeps us alive more because I, you know, I don't want to show up to ever show up to a CEO and not having done what we said we were going to do or not being improved, because I don't feel like listening to his bullshit for six hours. But when we when Dan and I decided to scale to multiple locations, you know, Rupert was instrumental because we had so much, there was so much more to learn. And it's like, do you think that getting the roles right and running one really great, you know, seven plus figure job was hard? Then trying to extrapolate your leadership, marketing, sales tactics, and tools to a completely different location with remote employees. Now there's a whole nother ball game. And we we would not have gotten through. We would, we, because we we we blew up and did not execute the scale plan on the first one correctly. And it would really help us get it back in line. And now that's our most profitable shop here at Juidy. The cab's been there for four years now, and that place is doing great, and it's kind of on the autopilot. And but you know, now we have three locations. You know, we're having one of our best years ever. Our second location to use some of their tactics tools and and and ideas we got from the group. And again, Vince leads the charge, but there's some other heavy hitters in there. Like again, it'd be like I think Dan and I have been very good at immersing ourselves in the group and making friends with a lot of people with both the SPF and the CEO and really extrapolating a lot of great ideas from people. There's some heavy hitters in the group, but Devin being one of them, TJ, right, who become close-person friends of ours, maybe guys who already had multiple locations or were staring in multiple locations. So, you know, we're gonna open, you know, we're probably gonna open up uh another couple more gyms. We have the plan, our original plan was to do five satellites and have our HQ. And this year's been our best year yet. Uh, and look after for business to be around, you know, be 20 years in May, 20 full years in May that we've been in business, to have a record year at we at that point in in the trajectory is is remarkable. And again, like this past weekend we had a big event at our gym. And I would I can honestly say with confidence and pride that it was the best showing that we've ever had for Team VH. You know, the team gets it, wants it, believes in the mission, they're flying the flags. We had some really great hires recently, and and all of our processes have been influenced by the lessons we've learned from you and the rest of the members in the group, you know, by asking questions, by like Dan said, by staying curious and like seeing another gym and you know, like like the like Anthony and the hustle crew out there in Scott one, just like, hey man, like you're doing some really cool stuff, you know, seeing what Devin's doing, taking you know, we took our whole tee down to Devin's in like a grand tour of a gym. Dan went out to see Mark and his crew at Power Strait, and we literally did like a hard hat tour of all his gyms, and you gotta be in it to win it. You gotta get out and see stuff, you gotta get out and learn. And every time we do that, we've improved dramatically. So awesome. Dan. I mean, just to add for that, I mean we have four team members that have done with us over ten years. I mean, I'm proud of that. I know that you need a a blend of veterans and rookies. We've got some hard-charging rookies, but we've been able to create awesome career opportunity for people in our organization, which is great. Today, with the three locations, we have over 600 members, all paying, you know, an average rate of nearly$350 per month. And you know, as Joe said, it's year 20. For me, it's year 17. But I don't know if there's many business partnerships that are going on 17 years. And I think, you know, if you can figure it out with a business partner, it it can be a real gift because it allows you, if you're on the same page, to really cover a lot of ground quickly. And, you know, fortunate to be able to do that here with Joe and looking forward to see seeing what the next 17 years has in store.

SPEAKER_02: 30:46

Yeah, no, well said, Dan. I I this is for either of you. Are there any so there's obviously been a lot of business success from the advice you've gotten from the resources, from the relationships that you've created? What are any personal wins that have come from this? You guys know we talk a lot about mindset, a lot about thinking. I know you both have children and families. Dana, don't think you had kids when you joined the group. You now have one. Any personal wins, personal benefits that you've gotten? Is it, you know, more time, less stress, more confidence, like any any good personal benefits that you've gotten outside of the business success?

SPEAKER_00: 31:30

Yeah. I remember I remember you telling me one, and I never really thought about it, like and it impacted my life like in way more ways than just with success. But you said there's two things you're gonna have to dead good at in order to be, you know, an effective leader. And look, be you lead as a husband, a dad, a friend, you know, in your community. You didn't have to have the ability to write and speak. And writing and speaking is one and the same. And I hadn't been writing, but loosely, and you know, writing transfers to everything, and then the ability to publicly speak. That was something I selected a lot of opportunities because I wasn't comfortable doing it. It was something I recognized through you clearly pushing it. Uh being like, you know what, I'm gonna embrace this, I'm gonna get better at it. And my ability to publicly speak today of course changed my income, but it's also like being a friend or family member that's able to say what needs to be said in the right way, like, you know, might sound simple, but it's really been a skill set that that I'll have forever and absolutely changed my life in that regard as like an actual tactic that's been really great.

SPEAKER_02: 32:49

Awesome. Yeah, I I I definitely think that your speaking ability can go well beyond business stuff, like I did the eulogy at my dad's funeral, and I think Joe, you did your mom's too recently. It's painful, but it's like, man, what a what a gift to be able to deliver the right words, you know. So yeah, I I agree speaking can be can be used not just for person just for business stuff or personal as well.

SPEAKER_00: 33:18

I would say, like, I mean, like, you know, the group is cool too. Like, again, there's a great group of people in the group. We push each other a lot. Our specific CEO, like, I can honestly say that I consider everybody in the group friends. Like, I know that if I was one to take a family trip out to Colorado and called Joe and told him, you know, me and the Riggios were coming to Colorado for family vacation, that he would roll out the red carpet and probably have you know stupid human tricks or feats of strength lined up at nauseum. But I know that his intention would be enormously high to make sure that I had a great experience and that my family had a great experience. So he's a he's a good human being. Obviously, we talk a lot about TJ and Devin. They're like, they're literally like we we're we call them, you know, Army Head Brotherhood. Like it's we have a special bond with those guys. I learned a ton from them. I think I, you know, other the lessons of watching other business leader entrepreneur dads conduct their business. I've learned a lot, but it's just one thing that I've gotten, and one specific thing that I've gotten from the grid is learning how to disconnect the emotions of running a business from my personal life. I used to let the business get me so hot and cold and charged up, like about feelings. And we talk a lot about having feelings and data in the business. And I was, in case you couldn't tell, Vince, I'm, you know, you know, off the cuff, kind of lead with my emotions on my sleeve type of guy, right? And I let the feelings of my business, the feelings of employees doing well or not, the feelings of client problems drive me bonkers. And now I've learned, you know, obviously I've been doing this 30 years now. I'm gonna be 50 this coming here, but the reality is that we have a data-driven business. The PML, the numbers, the POS systems, the scorecard, the marketing scorecard, that's the stuff that runs a business and doesn't lie via, you know, a lot of times the feelings are just head trash. And I used to have a lot of head trash. And being in a group of other gym owners who are going through the same problems and seeing exactly the same situations that we did, I started, I it started to normalize it to the point where I was like, oh, this is what everybody's going through. It's not just me driving myself crazy. Let me just if to be having a hiring issue or an employee development issue, let me look at the data, let me look at the processes, let me look at the systems and fix those things. And then I don't have to drive myself crazy. So everything's really just become data and systems driven now. And when you have that, you know, life is a lot more peaceful, right? My weekends are a lot more peaceful. My personal life is a lot more common. I can be more present with my wife and my kids.

SPEAKER_02: 35:58

So that's any big to be for me. Can you explain for people listening? Because you use that term pretty easily, of what head trash actually is.

SPEAKER_00: 36:10

Look, there isn't an entrepreneur on planet Earth in any business, especially the gin business, which I feel like is a unique business because most people get into fitness because of some type of passion for sports, helping other people. Maybe they had their own fitness journey that really changed their lives. Mine was a combination of everything. You guys have heard my story, you know, my father passing away young, things like that, mom having a RFA growing up with a dad really wanted me to like be a mentor to young kids and things like that. So part of it was a passion. So it's easy when you have like, I think, a lack of confidence in certain areas where you're good. I was good at training, but I really didn't have a lot of confidence in myself on the business side. You know, you start building up head trash about like, you know, the negative thoughts about can I, am I, things like that, right? Instead of like, can I, will, I have those positive affirmations. And it was like clients don't want to buy it because you know, nobody's gonna want to hear my me speak in public, you know, my marketing sucks, right? All that's kind of negative self-talk. And and again, when you get around in a room full of people who fall fell who have felt forward as many times as you have, right? You know, you start to, like I said, you start to kind of normalize it and you realize, you know, I'm in a room thinking my marketing sucks, and then I'm talking to Denner TJ, dude, I just did this campaign and completely blew the went flat. I didn't sign up one person. Oh shit, like, oh, all right, good. I'm not the only asshole in here, right? And so you we just realized that we're all taking swings for the fences, we're all trying to win every day, we're all trying to do things. And and you know, kind of like in the immortal words of Teddy Roosevelt, right? You know, the man in the leader, you if you're not trying, you're not succeeding right. And it's you know, better than try and fail and fall on your face and be able to get up and dust yourself off. You know, and I think I think you've curated a really great group, and that's the EO one group, right? You know, and I know a lot of the guys at CEO two, they're fantastic human days as well. But I think you see in our group specifically, you got some hard-ass mother efforts in there who have fallen on their faces multiple times and just continue to get up and move forward. And a lot of it is, and a lot of the reason why we stay is because again, like we know that the four bus, especially and A B at number five, are gonna show up every quarter. And I want to kick those dudes' asses. You know, I want to come DJ Mr. Money Bags now. He's doing really good. You know, I watched him, you know, you were there. We watched him struggle. He was he was the king of head trash and self-doubt and and shiny object stage room, and now he's got a he's got an absolute juggernaut of a business going. Yeah. And uh, and he and he's rolling, you know, he's he's he's staying at the four seasons and then Mr. Bougie, you know, buying his$200 Lulu. Going going to brunch. Going to brunch I learned what brunch was from TJ Lopez. So, you know, money's money, you say it a lot, man. Money solves a lot of problems, both personally and professionally, right? It's a great tool to do more in your personal life, it's a great tool to do more in your community, it's a great tool for your business to help you know, more of your employees grow and thrive. And uh, you know, and you know, I put it in the chat, but like Dan and I, you know, I've been doing this since I was, you know, 19 years old. So basically 30 years, it'll be 30 years. It was 30 years this summer. And you know, I uh my mentality is always going to just getting started. 30 years of just getting started. Dan and I'd be 20 years of just getting started. Adam and me, 10 years, Mike 16 years. We say it almost the end of every minute, get started, Paul's. Let's get it going, you know. And uh you just gotta have that mentality. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02: 39:34

Well, guys, great job as always. I appreciate the time. Love hearing the good war stories from back in the day. Give me some nostalgia thinking back that first CEO meeting. You know, way back in the day. You guys have come a really long way, and I know you guys are doing this for other gyms as well. And we've been able, and it's I think that's a cool thing is like we've been able to come. coexist in the same space for a long time and you know haven't you know been able to still maintain a really good positive and I think that sounds true for the two of you I think that your next book should be how to create a great business partnership and how to make that work me as a as a failure of two two of them so far definitely some insights there of what you guys could teach you know on how to create a good a real good business partnership which you guys have done I've seen a lot go under I've had two failures under my belt but you guys have hit the note on a strong business partnership on that.

SPEAKER_00: 40:38

Maybe you could write good forward be in there for the uh the accountability shape for sure yeah yeah Vince you've got to get credit where credit is due I always appreciate you being open honest and transparent with us you gave us a platform to speak at events you introduced us to you know countless number of people that have helped grow our business outside of your mastermind personal friends like you said like Mike Wolgen your accountants other digital agencies and things like that regardless of now or then or 20 years from now I will always consider you a friend and mentor and respect the shit out of you for what you've given back not only to us but the industry as a whole there is very few people that are that are putting as much energy and attention and positivity back into the community or stripe. So you you're one of the best for for a reason.

SPEAKER_02: 41:30

Appreciate it guys I know you guys have an empire to run so get back at it.

SPEAKER_01: 41:35

I'm sure you guys got some emails to write six WT closing party tonight there you go get after it you're teaching it everyone for for 15 years now. Good for you good for you all right guys thank you so much so much appreciate you guys later see you later