SPEAKER_00: 0:00

What's up guys? Welcome to another episode of the FBU podcast. This is an episode and a continuation episode of a series that I've been doing where I've been sitting down with members of my SPF mastermind that have had success. Now, I'm doing this for a couple reasons. One is some of these guys are kicking ass and doing really well. And I want you to share their story. One for inspiration, but two to learn some secrets about what they're doing to have the success. But the second thing is, and this is an idea you can probably swipe. Uh, the second thing I'm doing is I'm writing a book, and the book is all about the success stories of my members. And so we'll use that book and you know, we'll send it out in the mail to different people that are interested in the SPF mastermind, and we'll send them that book. And it's a great tool for you. It's a great thing to you for you to do at your gym. Imagine you having a 50-page, 100-page book of all the success stories of your members and handing that to prospective clients. It's going to be a really powerful thing. So that's what I'm doing. I'm just pretty much telling you what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And the gentleman today is very special to me. The gentleman today probably goes down as the maybe the biggest success story in the history of the SPF mastermind. So it's a pretty bold statement because there's a lot of successes in a lot of lives that have been changed. But I am on the phone with Tony Biancino from Outrun Your Fork Personal Training. He's been in the mastermind, I think started in 2018. And uh Tony is my interview for today. So, Tony, thanks for coming on.

SPEAKER_02: 1:36

Yeah, man, thank thanks for calling on me again. You know, I I gotta say, first off, hats off and kudos to you for such a great organization, such a great program, and such a great bunch of really intelligent, hardworking human beings. We're also like just really good people to crowd around us so that we can help each other succeed. But the curriculum you put together really is like top-notch. This is like legit classroom curriculum, hardcore stuff with the community of people that are very sharing and open. So I think that's really the success for it. And that's you know where we got the success. So yeah, I'm Tony from Outrun Your Fork Personal Training. My wife and I own it. We're at one location right now, and we I worked in corporate for a while. I've been doing personal training for 37 years, and my wife and I decided to open up a studio. And I did really, really poor, really poor, and I wound up really, really poor, made a lot of really bad decisions, and I was looking for a coach. And all the time I was looking for a coach, I went in and uh ran across uh, let's just say a number of less than reputable people and less than really, you know, maybe they were legitimate and good people, that just the courses weren't good, they weren't effective, the support wasn't there, and it just didn't translate to success for me. I had no lack of hard work, but I knew I needed 10% of guidance. So through that, I kind of lost all the money that we had, and not kind of, I did. You know, we went broke. I was trying to fund this business. My wife didn't work. We have a 23-year-old autistic daughter, plus a you know, a typical son, and she's home taking care of the kids. She didn't work. I was failing. I was working 120 hours a week, making$5,000 a month in total revenue, total revenue before business expenses. So let's just say it was a rough go. We wound up a million dollars in personal credit card debt at 29.9% interest. Now, if you guys haven't thrown up yet, just hold it because there's more. So, anyway, I'm giving you kind of like everything all at once, and then you can backtrack me and pull out some things you may want me to do.

SPEAKER_00: 3:30

Yeah, so let me let me guide this a little bit. Tony, it's like so so let's before you You want a retake. Yeah, so before you joined, you you were renting space, you didn't have your own space, right? You were publishing a space, you're doing five thousand dollars a month. Tell the story about you coming to me, because you you mentioned all the you know people who were charlatans, but you obviously thought I was a charlatan too when you first when you first heard about me. So tell that story about your wife found the book and all of that.

SPEAKER_02: 4:02

Yeah, so you know, all these guys were you know, they were less than reputable, other programs were just real crap. And I always say that they were shysters, you know, they were full of baloney, shysters, yeah. That's what it's right. And my wife came across this ad on Facebook or Instagram, and she goes, Hey, you know, you should look at this. And she sends it to me on messenger, and I'm like, No, I don't need another shyster, another huckster. So six months later, she sends it to me again. She goes, I really feel good about this guy, and I have no idea why. And I'm like, So now I go and I take a look, and there's a thing to get a book, and we were worse than broke. We were a million dollars in personal credit card debt at 30, 30 interest, really, 29.99. And I think it was like 20 bucks. It was free to get the book, right? But then you could get two books and a phone call with Vince. And I was like, all right, I was like, let me let me go for the 20 bucks, let me see what this guy's all about. Because you know, I'm a face-to-face kind of guy. I like to see integrity by talking to somebody. And when I got on the phone, first thing was in like 30 minutes, you gave me three actionable items that immediately were gonna help me change what I was doing. And I knew that I would have some success by doing it. Now it wasn't gonna be immediate, right? But I knew if I implemented them over the next couple of months, we could probably 3x what we were doing right then, which was only five grand a month, right? So 3x is significant, but anyway, and that was without joining. You you didn't ask me about joining, you didn't push it, you let me know it was available. I wanted to sign up for mastermind right away without doing this, you know, six-week intro, the client surge. Uh, you pushed me away from doing mastermind. You kept pushing me to do the surge first, and it was a it was a smart decision. Now, just so you understand, anybody that's listening to this, uh, this is where some of the integrity comes in the surge, which a much lower price point. It was a one and done with no monthly thing. There was no trapping me into anything. But what you did, Vince, was you wanted to guide me to what was best for me. And you know, I'm really glad you did.

SPEAKER_00: 6:01

Yeah, and and what was the what were the big let's talk about the things that you were struggling with, right? Like why do why were you struggling? You were at 5,000. I know you had a ton of personal debt built up, but what were the things that you were struggling with? Why couldn't you do this on your own? Like what were the why why did you feel like you needed help?

SPEAKER_02: 6:19

Yeah, I mean, look, I my whole life I've had mentorship and I've looked for coaches and I've looked for people to guide me in careers and football and sports and all that. And that was the one thing I lacked here. I knew how to work hard and I knew how to do corporate marketing. I mean, I I ran the digital marketing for a Fortune 100 bank, right? But here, doing the business to like the small business in a small town, I couldn't figure it out. I was working like crazy, doing all kinds of knocking on doors and you know, just really, really working, trying to create buzz about my business. Turns out that I was targeting the wrong people. My the images were wrong, the message was wrong, the people I was trying to talk to was wrong. I wanted to be, I was like, I'll take any client. And that wasn't the right approach. So that's really all it was was the marketing. And then the second thing that I learned in the first couple of weeks was a follow-up process. I didn't have one. A lead came in, I made a call, maybe an email, and then it was gone. I think it was like week two or three. You talked about implementing a follow-up system for the few leads that I had and taught me how to grow an email list. But just by grabbing all the leads that I had gotten that I only called out once or twice, I signed up three clients the first week. So it was between the two of those of logistics of sales and then the actual right marketing, creating that avatar was really, I'd say, a hundred percent of the difference.

SPEAKER_00: 7:40

I think a lot of people struggle with debt, and they it's it's emotional to have debt. And I've never heard of anyone having as much debt as you have. And if you don't believe the story of Tony being a million dollars in debt, there there is a testimonial that he that I have, I think it's on the website or somewhere, and it's the first uh certificate of debt completion that I've ever received as a testimonial, right? And basically you sent it to me as a text message, and it was a legit certificate of you have paid off your debt, and it was like a crazy I don't know if the amount was on there, but there are a lot of people struggling with that right now, whether that's mortgage debt, whether that's business debt, whether that's credit card debt. Debt is a tough thing. How did you handle that when you were going through it? And then what were the steps you took to start writing that wrong?

SPEAKER_02: 8:38

Yeah, I I I don't know that I handled it. I just worked and I just kept moving. I mean, look, as far as logistics, you know, moving money and being able to survive and all, that's a whole lesson that I can I can give. But, you know, it the stress was through the roof. I didn't sleep. All I did was work. I the amount of panic, anxiety that I had, it really was panic every second of every day, right? That's what drove me every morning to get up and just start running until I couldn't run anymore. I was getting like two, three hours of sleep a night at most. It was because I kept working and working and doing everything wrong. It's the classic creating a lot of activity and not getting a result out of it because I didn't know where to put the effort in. So when it came to it, it was just what was I gonna do? You know, at that point, there was no way I could collapse to it, you know, emotionally. I mean, people talk to me, oh my God, I got$100,000 in debt. And I'm just like, it'll it'll be okay. It's all right. You know, and they still have money in the bank and they still both have jobs and all. I was earning$5,000 in total. That's not my take home. That was before business expense and cars and all. So, to kind of give you a quick little picture, we were we were actually on food stamps for a month, right? I was on, you know, we had food stamps. It was$642 a month that I fed a family of four.

SPEAKER_00: 9:59

I've always wanted to know this. What are food stamps? Like, are they actual stamps? Like, what are they?

SPEAKER_02: 10:04

Oh, so today you get it, it's called EBT or TANF, right? You get a it looks like a credit card, but it's like you know, big blazing purple or blue or something like that. It's like people that know what it looks like, they know what it is. And you go in there, whoop. So there's a credit card. You got to separate your groceries. But I was look, I was feeding a family of four on six hundred and forty-two dollars a month. It was it was crazy. I I look, you I'll get into whatever minutia you want of exactly the steps that I took to do it, because then I think people would understand, but I'll allow you to guide me after the steps that you have to take to be diligent and what's the word, consistent in your focus. If if getting out of debt is your whatever the focus is, that's got to be your number one focus. If you start to focus on other things, like you want to grow a small group personal training business, you want to grow a gymnastic, I don't care what it is, that has to be the focus. If you start getting distracted with selling vitamins or adding, you know, large classes to it, you know, you just you're not gonna you're gonna be master of many or whatever, you know, jack of all trades, master of none.

SPEAKER_01: 11:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 11:11

There's got my focus was paying off debt because it was suffocating, I was in a panic. Uh, so that's all we did. Every dollar that came in, I paid off what I needed to. Like we never missed a payment, we never laid on a payment. We didn't declare bankruptcy, we didn't do any of that. I paid off every dollar plus interest.

SPEAKER_00: 11:30

Were you did someone advise you to declare bankruptcy? Like it was like it seems to be like that much debt. It was almost like would that be a good idea?

SPEAKER_02: 11:37

So I talked to I talked to three attorneys, bankruptcy lawyers, and each of them told me the same thing. The short version of it is if I declared bankruptcy with that much debt, I would probably get 50% of it forgiven, but at least 250,000, maybe 75%, at least 250,000 would have to be awarded to somebody because it was such a great amount, and one of the debtors had the majority, right? So what I was told was yes, you could do it, but you're gonna wind up having to liquidate any assets that you have, which at this point were just my house, whatever equity had in the house. And I couldn't tap that because we were tapped out, but I would have had to use that and we'd have no home, we'd have no cars, we'd have no place to live because I don't have family here. And then the debt that they forgive, let's say it was half a million dollars in debt, the forgived forgiven debt, you actually have a tax liability on it. So I would have owed taxes, so I would have still owed a couple hundred thousand dollars to the federal government. What are they gonna garnish at that point? I'm not making anything. So I said to my wife, you know, I'm sorry, I'll I'll I'll let you go because then that leads me to my wife's, you know, standing behind me or or next to me the whole time. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 12:53

So the the funny thing is, is I uh I do this podcast to make everyone feel better about themselves and their debt situation. That's the only reason why I do that. All right, tell me about Melissa. You're your awesome funny wife.

SPEAKER_02: 13:07

Yeah, no, she's she's a piece of work. I mean, I wouldn't be what I am, have what I have without her. She's the yin to my yang. And you know, for everybody that says their wife stands behind them, that's great. Mine mine walks right next to me, and she allows me to lead. And then there's some things like around the home when I allow her to lead. So we have that that mutual respect and really, really good working relationship emotionally, mentally, you know, all that. Anyway, we had we were subletting, and I had just finished your your surge program. When do you want me to tell the story about the the hospitalization in the street?

SPEAKER_00: 13:44

Yeah, just go. All right. So let's let's bring it back to you. It's already off the rails. So let's just go.

SPEAKER_02: 13:48

2019, 2018, actually, I started Vince's surge, like I was saying before. It was like, I don't know, December. Two weeks into it. I drive myself to the ER. I had a traumatic spinal cord injury. My whole left side was paralyzed. I go to the EER, they go, Oh, there's nothing wrong with you. They send me home with like painkillers and stuff. And that was on a Saturday. I was the pain was ridiculous. I didn't know what to do, but I kept working. And Monday I work in the morning, I go call the neurosurgeon. Oh, go back to the hospital. What are you doing? Oh my God. Go to the hospital, they give me the MRI. Surgeon comes to me at eight o'clock that night. This was 10 a.m. at 10, 8 o'clock at night and says to me, Hey, look, I looked at the MRI and it's not good. Your bones are pressing into the spinal cord and nearly severed it. That's what's causing the weakness. I don't like weakness, the thing doesn't work. Okay. That's what's causing the weakness. He goes, Here's what's going to happen. And he gives me the scenarios. And I was like, well, I don't want that. So let's do these things. That, you know, part of what he suggested. He turns around, goes back, he's like, All right, I'll uh get you all prepped and admitted, and we'll do the surgery tomorrow. I was like, oh, I was like, I came in here for an oil change. You know, here you are, gonna cut me open and fuse and drill holes and all this stuff, and call my wife. And I was like, you know, I'm from Brooklyn, so all the F-bombs were dropping. I'm like, I was scared. I had no idea what to do. And here's what I was scared of. I wasn't scared of the surgery. I was scared of what's gonna happen if I can't work. Because the little bit that I was making, look, I have a responsibility to take care of my family, and the burden was on me, and I allowed that, right? So that's what terrified me. What would I do if I can't work? So after conversation with my wife, we went, and long story short, we did it. And I'm in the hospital right after maybe two days after the surgery was done. They fuse three discs and, you know, put plates and screws and all the stuff, took bone from my hip. It's pretty major surgery, five hours on the tape. And I'm over there in one of the client surges, and I got the camera, the phone, hung up on this thing that hangs so I could see it, and I start going to sleep. And I'm like, stay awake, stay awake, stay awake, right? Because I wanted everything that I could get out of this because it was like gold to me. So fast forward over the next nine months, you know, I just I couldn't get my head right for a long time. I couldn't think straight. Maybe it was the extra anesthesia. I don't know. Maybe it was, you know, getting older. But nine months into it, it was that September, I had been doing what you taught me, right? What Vince taught me in this client surge for just about nine months prior. And I had learned a lot of lessons. I had tried a lot of different things that we talked about. Some of them were working, like the sales funnel, the follow-up process, building the system, the avatar. It was all working, but some other things weren't working. So what we did was we took what worked and we removed what didn't work and we built on the foundation of things that worked. And by September, things started to turn around. I started to get more clear headed. We started to make a couple of bucks, and you know, it started to increase. And by I remember talking to my wife a while back, I said, you know, if we could just make 10,000 a month, total revenue, 10,000 a month, we won't go into any further into debt. And if we could do 12,000 a month, we could start paying this off. And it's like there was that glimmer of hope. That was what drove me. If we can hit X, we can do Y. And in February of 2020, we were still subletting. We hit 14,000 a month. I was like, I remember telling my wife, look, because we used I used to write it all up on a sheet of what we made every week and who paid what. I knew exactly who paid what, when they paid it, how much, how many sessions, who the and I was like, we're doing it. It's happening. I was like, oh my God. Now we step back to that November. We had an opportunity to get out of subletting. We had no money. And one of my friends, realtor, commercial realtor, said to me, Hey, Tony, he goes, I found a place if you need it. I was like, all right, let's look. And meanwhile, I'm thinking, there's no way I could do this. I have nothing. Anyway, I look at it, I'm like, Yeah, you know, this place is a dump. I'm thinking Melissa goes and sees it and she goes, I I like it. He's like, I like it for you too. And I looked at my wife and I was like, listen, I was like, we don't have any money. I might be able to get a hard money loan for the you know, the rent, the deposit, which was$9,900,$9,900. I had no way to get that money. And I said, you know, if we do this and we fail, I was like, that's it. We lose, we are literally on the street. There's nothing else for us. She goes, okay, let's do it. Just like that. I was like, what the f I was like, all right. So I got a hard money loan. Now, for those of you that don't know what a hard money loan is, it's it's essentially like legal loan sharking. So you you you take out a loan and you have an extremely short runway to pay it back, and it's at an incredibly high interest rate. So for me, the terms and conditions were they gave me$14,000. I used$9,900 for the deposit. I had a couple of bucks left over. You could do the math, I'm not doing it for you. I had to pay back$28,000 in six months. So this was a total, total gamble. There was a lien on my house and all this stuff, right? So I was scared shitless. But I went and did it anyway. You know, and I I think that's the one thing that I always can say is always consistent. There's probably a few things that are consistent in my life. And what is not is regardless of how I feel, oh, I feel tired, I feel scared. It it's irrelevant that because there's a body of work where there are things that need to get done. So for example, uh integrity is another thing, right? For me, it doesn't matter if I'm scared to tell somebody the truth or if I'm of for what the reaction's gonna be. I've never been somebody to not do what was right just because of how I would squirm feeling doing it. And here's it it's a fun case in point, like with my wife. We're guys, I'm a man, I'll say for me. I do very dumb things, right? Nothing immoral or anything, but just dumb things. So one time My wife calls me at work. She kept calling me when I was working at the, you know, the bank. And I wasn't answering the phone because I was trying to get my work done. And I wanted to get out of there quicker because she kept breaking my chops every time. When are you coming home? What are you doing? When are you leaving? You know, like nagging me. So I stopped answering her calls. When I got home, she accused me of having an affair. Why aren't you taking my call? And cell phones were brand new. And I was like, finally, I just said to her, look, I was like, I didn't know what to do. You were calling me and uh I just couldn't deal with it. I was trying to get, I didn't know what else to do. And she looks at me and she goes, You're an idiot. That was that. And other times she asked me, like, did you do this? And I'm like, and I cringe, and I'm like, Yes. And she's either gets in and yells at me or anything, or she gives me the you're an idiot. And I telling truth or having difficult conversations is never fun. Going through this debt and taking on this hard money loan was not fun, but I did it anyway.

SPEAKER_00: 20:54

And of course, you've on the money loan and you got the new facility. This is before COVID.

SPEAKER_02: 20:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:00

And so and then, and so you get the facility. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, March 20. We we we put the loan down on it.

SPEAKER_02: 21:07

It was starting to build out. And we were supposed to open in March of 2020. Anyone that's been alive for a couple of years knows what happens, right? Yeah. Down and we couldn't open. Now I get the calls, just like everybody else. I gotta cancel my membership. Tony, I lost my job. Now here I am choking to death. This is gonna go back to what I was just talking about. I'm choking to death. Drowning. Like I not, Tony, I gotta stop. I know I'm in a year of contract, but I I can't do it. And the answer was like, hey Vince, don't worry about it. Listen, you gotta take care of your family. I get it. You know what? You need this. Keep working out with us. We all did virtual training. Keep working out. Don't worry about the payment. You let's see how it goes after a couple of months. You but you need to stay with us. And here I am losing money, but I don't have the heart to kick these people out. There's absolutely no way on God's earth I'm going to try to hold them to a 12-month contract because it's good for me. It's got to be good for them, right? So, you know, there was that. Anyway, so we go through this whole thing, and I, you know, that whole thing was a crazy experience. But I remember having the one thing I remember about the pandemic is I was home every day for the first time in a decade, having dinner with my family every day. We started with a salad, we had a balanced meal for$642 a month, right? And then we opened in September. We were allowed to open. So September of 2020, we were making again. We finally got back up to$5,000 a month, and I just got to work. Everything that I had done for, I guess, like a year and a half, practicing all the things that you had taught me, refining, refining, refining, and just working, outworking everybody. We went from$5,000 a month in revenue to$67,000 a month in revenue in 18 months. And we we hit a top portion of$78,000,$79,000 a month, which was great. Now, over four and a half years, we paid off every penny of that debt. I got the certificate. I thought there was going to be a celebration. I started pinning up all the zero balances on a pinboard. And after like the third or fourth one, I just went. I took them off, I put them away, and put the certificate away, and I was done.

SPEAKER_01: 23:20

That's it. What'd that feel like? I never felt that before. I thought I would accelerate, right? But it wasn't. I was just at peace. Yeah. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00: 23:39

5,000 a month to 67, and over four years you paid off that amount of debt. Everybody. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02: 23:49

With interest.

SPEAKER_00: 23:51

What were some of the things you did to grow from five to sixty-seven? Like if you think about what were the things that you that's a lot of money and a lot of customers that you were able to generate. What were you know, think of, you know, we want to be motivated by your story, which I am, it's amazing. But also, there's people listening to this that want to grow too. And you obviously did it really well. What were the what were some of the things you did?

SPEAKER_02: 24:21

Yeah, so I'll talk about that. And then I have a really great like 30-second case in point after to verify that it actually works more than once, that it's duplicatable. And I know you have a lot. Really, all I did there was zero first off, there was zero spend. We had no money. So I had hand-coded my website and all this other stuff. But the big thing that we did is find every opportunity to get in front of people. So we we sharpened our focus. We knew exactly who we were marketing to. We knew the one type of person, and that was it. And all we did was focus on personal training. That's it. Small group, personal training. And if people, whatever, small, that's what we focused on. That's all I talked about. I went to every event around town. I went out to buy stuff at stores. I would get like, or I, you know, since I didn't have money, I would get online at the juice house and I would just talk to people. Oh, hey, I know you because I was always around. If there was an event, a Christmas tree lighting, a menorah lighting, it didn't matter what it was.

SPEAKER_00: 25:18

You would just go into the juice house and not buy anything.

SPEAKER_02: 25:21

I would stand online for a little bit and go, oh, excuse me. And I would make a phone call, like, oh, I gotta see it. Bye. Oh, you know. I was not sitting there handing out business cards, soliciting business. I was just talking to people. Now, if they asked me, oh, well, what do you do? My wife and I have a small personal training business right here around the corner. Oh, really? What's it called? And I would tell them. And then maybe the conversation would start, right? But people got to see me around town. If there was an event and I could table at it, you know, of course I tried to do it at no cost or low cost. We did street fairs, we did everything that you teach in the program, which is every joint. I literally went to every single business in three towns around me and in Westfield, knocked on every door, opened every door. Hi, I'm Tony. My wife and I have a private personal training studio right around the corner. Love to help, you know, love to work with each other and you know, help you guys get some more people in here.

SPEAKER_00: 26:16

I think one of the other things you did too that was just sometimes it's not about what you know we do from a marketing standpoint, but I know one of the things you did was you moved from Garwood to Westfield, which is two towns, one town away. And that's really when it shifted, right? When it it really shifted when you moved to Westfield, which was just a different location in a different town. And talk about that shift from a new new location into what I think is a better town and a better draw.

SPEAKER_02: 26:52

I think the biggest thing is that we now also had our own spot.

unknown: 26:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 26:56

We were able to control the environment. Yeah, I that was big. We had people that would come in and and not sign up with us when we were subletting because it was a very, very different group of people. A certain set of trainers were dominating the space. Music was different, the training was different, we couldn't get equipment, the vibe was very, very different, and our demographic didn't really like that at all. That's why they didn't go to the gym. So the number one thing we were able to do is create the environment, right? Yeah, yeah. And that was the I think that was number one. Yes, it's a good location, yes, people saw us, but you know, that was just a small piece of the marketing pie, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00: 27:35

What is how is life different today than it was when you were going through all that shitstorm from 18 to 21? What is the difference in Tony, in your mindset, in your mind, your family? I've been around your family, you have a great wife, been hanging around your daughter who's amazing. What is life like today from where you came from? Which was which you know the funny thing is it was a shitty place to be, but I never felt like your attitude was shitty. You never had a bad attitude, you never you were always upbeat, and you always and that's just I think a gift from God that he gave you that disposition to be able to get through hard times with a good attitude. But I think it really is the big contributor. But what how is life better today than it once was when you first before you were going through the shitty place?

SPEAKER_02: 28:34

You know, interesting you should say that too, because I was not a jovial guy, not when I was going through this, but I was just very straightforward, the driver of like, you know, like I'll joke around and kid around, but I was not probably I definitely wasn't the nicest person in the world. I had to cultivate that over years and work on my mindset over and over again. I read a lot of books, I practiced a lot over and over. I would watch my words. If I said something that was out of line with what I was trying to be or act or behave, I would immediately cancel it out. And you know, that that's another topic, but I appreciate that you said that. And yeah, you know, I was yeah, I figured if you're not having fun, what's the point? So there's no point in being miserable. I was suffering enough. Yeah, so life now, I don't live in panic. I'm a little more calm. I vacation with my family, which is something I always wanted to do. Now we're not where we want to be yet, but we go away. And the reason why I go away is it forces me to spend time with my kids and have experiences. Now, everybody, like, you know, we were when we were paying off the debt, we didn't do a damn thing. If it wasn't free, it wasn't for me, right? Every penny went towards that. But now we have the opportunity, you know, to take some vacations and do what I like to do. Some people like cars and that brings them joy in their life. That's great. For me, it's not the stuff, it's an experience, right? Whether it's around the table eating food. I like to explore different places with my family, see different sites, and yeah, I like to eat. That's why it's called outrun your fork. I work out to support my eating habit. Yeah, but there's so many different things. I'm definitely much more at peace. I started to sleep, and right now the focus on my health is longevity, looking at the the health age that I have and and all that. So obviously, now that you know I have I had that injury where my left eye is my left side is still pretty much mostly paralyzed. I can't focus on being the big guy and the power lifter that I just love moving heavy weights. Now I have to focus on something else. And first it's winning in business, and now the other win is well, we're doing okay there. Let's keep pushing that. Let's go for longevity. So now that health thing has come full circle. So I think what it allows you to do is come up with different goals and win in different areas. The whole focus was paying off that debt. And then for two years, truthfully, I kind of wandered around not knowing what was next. I didn't have a purpose or a goal, but I get to spend more time with my daughter. We work out, we built a garage gym at home so we could work out at home. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's the answer you're looking for.

SPEAKER_00: 31:04

Yeah, yeah. No, I know you traveled a bunch, you went to Hawaii, you went to Martha's Vineyard, you go on to where else did you go?

SPEAKER_02: 31:11

We go, we go a lot. We go a lot. We go to to Ocean City, Maryland, we go to Hershey, we go to Florida, Orlando, we go to Myrtle Beach for the first time, California for the first time. So, you know, we get around. Hawaii went for two weeks, and that was just to test the flight to see if my daughter can handle that. Because if she can handle that, now we could go to Europe's next, man. Look out.

SPEAKER_00: 31:33

Very cool. What are so that's like where life is like, and I know business is you know going well. I've been there, been went to your grand opening at your new spot that you just opened, what, about a year ago? I so I know that's going well. What are the personal wins that you've gotten from your business transformation? So we talked about the more things you get to do in terms of the life experience stuff with the family, but like what about Tony Biancino, the man? What are the wins you've had?

SPEAKER_02: 32:03

Yeah, I mean, you know, just always building on the foundation of integrity and character, right? Client focus or people focus and excellence. Those are the four core values that Outrun Your Fork has. And the reason why it has it is because Outrun Your Fork is really the embodiment of me. And that's a big thing. When we hire, we hire the people for who they are. Because you can't teach somebody to be nice or have integrity or trust. So we hire people like us who have the same core values. This way we could attract people who work out at our place who also live those core values. And they're good people, and they're people, you know what? When I walk in, I would have any single one of them in my living room. So building on that foundation and having me, you know, and that that is something that sits with me. I think it also reinforces that resolve that no matter what, you do the right thing for the right reason for me. Right. And it makes me feel good that I can do that, even when things were crappy. So building for me, that's what a man is. That's what any human being should be doing. But a man is somebody that sticks with his word, does what he says, it says what he does. And the other thing is I needed this victory, man. I needed, I remember, so I had a number of injuries, and they got progressively worse, and a number of financial setbacks. And it seemed that everything that I was chest pounding proud of, I was a competitor by people said to me, Oh, did you used to compete? No, I used to win. All this stuff that I was able to create as a victory, what made me me was taken away from me, stripped away one at a time, and not just taken away, like just totally erased. And I had to figure out who I was, and I was so engrossed with paying off that debt that I didn't have time to think about it, and I didn't have to worry about it. But yeah, I had to try to figure out who I was. And I remember standing in the shower when I had the spinal cord injury after I had the surgery, and I was I like I'm not I'm not an emotional guy, but since then I guess I have been. And I was just crying. I started to just cry. And all I said was, Who am I talking to? Right? You know, I mean, I I we're not gonna get into that, but I said, I just need a victory. I don't want to be I that's what I said, I don't want to be sharpened anymore. I just I need a victory. And and you know, over time things turned around. It wasn't like an instant thing, but the gift was that I was able to work hard, I recovered, and I was able to just keep going. That resolve, I think, is something that's you're born with, and then it's cultivated, right? That push, that motivation. And I believe if you weren't born with it, you could still cultivate it. Just like I cultivated a positive attitude no matter what, it's just a lot of practice, right? So I don't think you're I I definitely don't believe you're stuck with nature or nurture. You can change that at any time. So, yeah, the growth. I'm a very empathetic person at this point. I could see other people's point of view. I've been not just freed from debt, but freed from all those things of what made me me to become somebody a lot different. And it's it's not just the debt, it's not just the injury, it's everything else that's caused me to grow through it. It's the kids and all the accumulation of everything that's happened to me in my life. I am grateful, which is sounds kind of nuts. I wouldn't change it a thing that's happened in my life, not the injury, not the debt, because it's allowed me to be right where I am today. And it's allowing me to use this as the catapult and the platform to continue to go forward. So it doesn't matter what situation anybody's in, there's always tons of ways out.

SPEAKER_00: 35:53

Well said, Tony. And I think that shines the light on what a lot of people are feeling from the success they're having. So really well done. I have one more question for you. And this is really just if someone was in your situation or similar and they're on the fence about getting help. Obviously, it's specific to the SPF mastermind, but really just think of it in coaching in general, like getting help. What are you saying to those people that are maybe like you, that have been burned in the past, that what is it, shysters? Yeah, uh, you know, that you feel like everyone's a shyster and you don't want to get help, you don't want to get help again because you got burned the last time. What do you what do you say to those people that are on the fence and resistant to get help with their business?

SPEAKER_02: 36:39

Well, look, it's real simple. You know, the what you've built, the curriculum and the group of people, it works. And you've shown it over and over again. I mean, I'm one of the many testaments that you have. Success looks different to different people. And if it's about making money, this works. All you got to do is put the effort in and open your mouth and ask. I think the people that don't get, or who would be someone who wouldn't be good for SPF? Is somebody that wants things done for them. They don't want to work, they don't want to put any effort, they don't want to learn, and they think they know everything. Right? But if if you're not that and you're looking for mentorship, you want help, you want people you could ask questions to, you want people who are good people that know their stuff, that could teach you. And it's not just in marketing and sales, it's it's things like this. Hey, you're having financial troubles. There's people you could talk to, you know, people not just for inspiration, but hey, man, pay down the high rate first, or hey, talk through it. What's going on? Where do you want to be? It's a place where you could goal set, it's a place where you can have other people to walk this with. You're gonna find other people at the same place where you are right now. And you have somebody to walk that path with, or multiple people to walk that path with, and some other people, not just one, to look to to ask questions, to ask guidance. And there is always, always, always somebody there. So with the curriculum itself, which means like all the material, the weekly calls, right, the quarterly meetings that we have in person, and you got to get to the in-person ones. It's important to build that that relationship because then when you call somebody, it's like easier anyway. Yeah, what what's the problem? Like, what what are you on the fence about? I I would tell somebody for sure, like if you're if you're even half considered, or if you have haven't considered it, you need to experience for yourself whatever program you're offering, or whatever hop on a call or whatever it is, absolutely 100% take advantage of that. You know, get to know events, get to know some of the people in the team, and you have to see for yourself that this is something that's that's different than probably what you've experienced before.

SPEAKER_01: 38:39

Gabby.

SPEAKER_00: 38:40

Well said, Tony, thank you so much. I've had many of these conversations with you, and you always show up and you always deliver, not only in you know sharing the things that you've done to have success, but sharing the insights that you've got from it personally. So I loved it. I enjoyed this conversation. It went in all these different great directions, which I was that's which I expected it to. But I appreciate you doing this, Tony, and very, very proud of all the success you've had. Congrats. Thanks, bud. Appreciate it, appreciate you.