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Uh a lot has happened since we had you on the show last time When we had you on the show last time we were like in like full-on lockdown gyms were not available. Nobody was open. Yeah, and now things are starting to move What's going on? What are the what are the rules look like so far? Yeah, I felt like last time I was here We couldn't even use the restroom without asking for permission, right? Yeah Yeah, no, I mean listen, it's been an absolutely Insane year both in our industry and let's just face it around the globe and It's been so interesting to watch how everybody's handled it, right? Whether it's political from a political point of view from a An organizational or corporate point of view. I'm all the way to entrepreneurs. The good news is Man, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. We're coming out of it And and you know, a lot of people are feeling very very bullish But now is the time. I you know, I think when I when I just quickly when I when I think about everything that's been accomplished in our industry it's been incredible and I had an opportunity to travel throughout The us and I've been talking to a lot of people over the last three months and listen hats off to you guys because Almost in every conversation. I'm talking to my trainers and my coaches and you guys get brought up The service that you guys provide to the trainers out there and the in the so much of our fitness industry I think it's more impactful than you guys know. So congratulations to you guys for the impact that you guys have But listen, what have we learned from from coveted in this pandemic? It's stuff that I never really thought of Scientifically until we went through this experience, right? And there's one the big o-word obesity You don't really understand What obesity does to people to community? to your Your psyche There's there's so many challenges around that and then as we started looking at the data from covet 19 What did we see we we saw that? You know, you were 10 times more likely to die if you were if you were you know, had a bmi of 40 or above And then the percentage of population that's obese is just absolutely insane And I think you know when I started thinking about this and I started thinking about you guys I'm like we have to start consolidating together as an industry And as experts in the media to get out there and start talking about this evil O-word Because to me obesity causes cancer. It causes diabetes. It causes anxiety It doesn't allow you to sleep at night. It's a holistic Disability that can impact everybody And so, you know, I'll give you an update on the business a little bit later But I but I but I felt you know, a I wanted to you know, get your guys's thoughts on What how you look at obesity? It's the elephant in the room It's the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about We just brought this up on the show the other day That that the obesity rate is now 45 of americans are obese not overweight Overweight is over 70 percent. Yeah overweight. We're approaching 80 percent. Okay, which that's every you know, almost pretty much Almost everybody is overweight But 45 percent nearly half of america is obese clinically obese It's this is how this is how big of an issue it is if you look at If you compare our life expectancy and health to other developed nations, uh, for example, uh, compare us to Italy or france would be an example They smoke cigarettes at such high rates in comparison to us and yet we have worse health That's how bad obesity is for you cigarettes. You're better off not not encouraging people to smoke cigarettes, by the way But you're better off, uh, working out and being lean and smoking cigarettes than you are Being overweight and not smoking. That's how bad it is for your health And then you mentioned covet. It's the number one risk factor for, uh, severe symptoms of covet of all the risk factors It's the number one and it probably has to do with the how it affects Our body's ability to to clot blood our circulation And then of course our what you would hope would be a call to arms to really focus on bettering your health and improving your health Right and and trying to you know reduce the amount of obesity that we're seeing So i'm from your perspective, you know, when you think about obesity What the the core? Cause of obesity, obviously we know we have the modern-day conveniences We know that we have fast food that's growing at record levels and we know that Technology is reducing movement But is there other things that you guys attribute to obesity? Oh, yeah, if I I can hammer two There's two nails that are almost entirely responsible for the obesity epidemic. One is, uh, the the processed food Um, just how much processed food is now in our diet? So we used to blame Too much fat on obesity then uh, then we figured out. Oh, that's not the problem We think it's too much carbs too many carbs are causing obesity and then we figured out. Oh, no, that's not the issue The issue is that our diets now are comprised of a majority of hyper palatable Heavily processed foods which encourage us to overeat. There's some actually really really good studies now that show And these are remarkably well done studies the crossovers where they'll take groups of people They'll they'll they'll make sure the macros Are pretty matched for both of them and then they'll let them eat as much as they want the only difference is one group has Unlimited access to heavily processed foods. The other group has unlimited access to whole natural foods They'll let them eat and then they'll the scientists will count the calories see what's going on then they'll switch them Switch the groups So it's a very well-made studies and they find that heavily processed foods on average will increase Your consumption by about five to six hundred calories a day Every single day, right? So that's that's about a pound of fat you can gain Essentially in a week or two from those excess calories. So that's number one Now the second one is definitely activity related But people think it's because we don't move enough to burn as many calories as we should that's actually not true Our body actually adapts to lots of activities. So our metabolism starts to slow down when we're moving a lot So it's not that we're not moving enough and burning enough calories It's that we're not moving enough and we don't have a lot of muscle on our bodies Which is very protective Of uh, uh speeds up our metabolism It's very protective from the from from food from sugar from Makes us sensitive to insulin. So we're weak Low muscle and we eat too much food. Those are the two things. So if you want to counter the obesity epidemic Very this is actually quite simple. Maybe not easy, but it's simple Don't eat a lot of processed food and build some muscle. Those are the two most Yeah, the challenging part that was modern life is is making that more difficult Like you alluded to things like, you know fast food and things like uber eats and we've got, you know TV now on our phones like I mean I find myself today as a trainer giving this advice that I never gave this before like one of my first things To help somebody with their relationship with food The first rule I give them before I say, oh, you can't eat this or follow this diet Is actually just stop eating in front of your telephone or in front of the tv Just so you can become aware Just become aware of what you're consuming We're so distracted today with with technology that we can't even sit down and and have a meal with a friend without Being on our social media or watching your favorite Netflix show You add that with what sal was talking about with processed foods, which were designed to get you to eat more You're just people are unaware Inundating our bodies with chemicals from every which direction on top of all that too Which we just found out this study. That was pretty alarming Yeah, now here's some interesting ways that you can combat this and as trainers what we got good at And you know this you've worked in gyms for longer than we have Is you stop pressuring the The mechanics of what to do and you start pressuring behaviors because that's what's more successful How do we get the right behaviors? One way this is studies show this by the way one way to get people to eat better is to get them to exercise Okay, it's it's it's actually it's a side effect of exercising when people start to work out But sal going back to the processed food comet. Um, and by the way, I think you've worked longer in the gyms that I have I'm not that old But do you think that As people eat processed foods your body's realizing it's not getting enough nutrients And so there's something in your body that's triggering the need for more food to try to gain the correct nutrition It's not the nutrients, believe it or not. Although heavily processed foods typically are Less nutrient dense really what it is is there's if you look at all the rnd That goes behind processed foods processed foods or foods that are in wrappers boxes They have a long shelf life If you look at the the amount of money that's spent on those foods It's marketing and then it's also how do we make this food as palatable as possible, which includes Taste texture how it feels on your fingers the way the wrapper sounds when you open it the color of the box The smell how long it stays crunchy. I mean they literally have this down to a science so perfect I'll give you an example. Let me give you an example. Let's say I gave you, uh, let's say I took, uh, Six Potatoes and boiled them plain potatoes and boiled them put them in front of you So you got six whole big potatoes right in front of you and I said eat these all no salt no butter plain Can you finish these in the next 10 minutes? Probably you probably be very difficult It's you'd gag right I gave you a bag a bag of laced potato chips. Could you eat that in 10 minutes? Same amount of potatoes It's because one is hyper palatable and it it literally hijacks Your natural system of satiety which we all have our body naturally will tell us This is why when you have a big dinner, let's say you go Thanksgiving You had a big dinner and you're stuffed and like, all right, I can't eat another bite And then they pull out dessert and for some reason you can eat a little bit more You're literally messing with that novel right so these food manufacturers That's what they're trying to do in fact if you look at all the categories of foods In the supermarket Including health foods the top sellers are not the top sellers in health food for example because of the healthiest The top selling protein bar the top selling protein powder the top selling Green powder is the ones that taste the best That's that's what sells the products and so we end up eating these foods that make us eat more You're screwed. You're not it's going to be very very challenging To eat the appropriate amount when you eat these kinds of foods and then you add to that A slow metabolism body that's not sensitive to insulin low muscle weak body And you're going to get fat You're just going to get fat and it's going to cause and it causes a lot of problems So so guys what you know as and I you know I have my perspective but when you think about The general population out there and you think about the amount of trainers that are working with that population What's the best way in your opinion for those trainers to to socialize this with their clients? Oh So here's the thing about trainers is they they have the ability to make the greatest impact Of anybody else if there's anybody in In in the world That can help solve this problem. It's really good coaches and trainers a good trainer or a good coach Can fundamentally change someone's life in terms of health better and more effectively than anybody else why? because Some people people who don't know this They think trainers just somebody tells you what to do and gets you to work out In reality a trainer is a guide. They're they're like the sherpa, you know guiding you to the top of the mountain They're like a behavioral therapist. Absolutely. And that's what trained. That's a really good trainers do so So what are really good trainers do they meet you where you're at? They don't you know if you tell them I I can only work out once a week the trainer a good trainer will say No problem We'll make that work a good trainer will get you to Uh, we'll communicate to you in an effective way to make you to get to the point where you can make fundamental lifelong changes A good trainer doesn't just focus on motivation because motivation is fleeting A good trainer understands how to build discipline and teach their client to build discipline a successful trainer Gets a person to change their life forever. Whether they're with the trainer or not So this is why we talk to trainers all the time, you know my my view on this is i'm Navigating through the industries you have this kind of $10 a month trainer, right that Gets hired for minimum wage and they take people through a few pieces of equipment and cardio and they call it a day And then you have trainers that are really meaningful with a huge value proposition And I think training is becoming so much more holistic than ever before Absolutely because you have of course, you know cardio manipulation muscular manipulation Um But also when you throw in food like you're so passionate about and you fill in Nutritional gaps with supplements and then you start getting into recovery I mean listen the days of lebron james and tom tom brady It's because of the recovery that they do with their body, right? So when you start talking about compression and you start talking about cryo and you start talking about hydration and And those variables That's to me what makes trainers great and what you just talked about is that emotional connection that where Trainers will actually listen to their client and meet them where they need to be and then guide them That's the x-factor. Yeah, so the reason why I get excited when I hear you talk like this adam is you run a very large gym company right ufc gyms, uh, which you know, we've talked about on the podcast before And there was a trend there for a while where gyms stopped investing in time and money in good coaches It became About there was a second there where we started at 20 for our fitness where it seemed like they were moving in the Direction of really investing in trainers then they seemed to reverse and it seemed like the trainers were An afterthought and it was really about just getting people adore and then who cares and we all knew this that this was a huge mistake It's exciting to hear someone like you who has all these clubs Talk about trainers this way because you get it Talk about that process. How do you guys look at your trainers with your gyms? What do they mean to you? man, it's a great question and It's our core value proposition. It's who we are. It's our personality And you know you as you look at candidates to become trainers and coaches you guys know this it's the ability to Emotionally connect with the consumer But it's also the ability to also control your ego and have the desire to continue to learn Learn and learn so you can become the best at what you do And so we we have a rigorous process and and you know, listen, I have I have I think and I'm a little bit Bias here, but I think I have the best personal training team in the industry right now And it's because of the process that we go through and how we select the trainers and the coaches MMA brings a whole different variable to it Right because MMA is almost a religion And so when you intersect science-based training when you intersect MMA and things like jiu-jitsu And other forms of MMA It's beyond just the push and pull And so the personality has to be right on the profile of the of the trainer Then there's got to be certifications that are associated that are credible none of these I'm going to pay $19 for a certification. It has to be a legitimate certification that makes sense and then Once those boxes are checked. We have a UFC gym certification. That's five full days But instead of just giving them a piece of paper They have to pass a physical test Of exactly what we would expect our consumers to do. They got to be able to do it themselves They got to be action driven. They got to get it They got to go through it and they got to feel the emotion of what it takes to be a great client If you're not if you don't understand what it takes to be a great client. You cannot be a great trainer Yeah, you you mentioned, uh, martial arts You know, I I did martial arts as a kid judo and then I did jiu-jitsu as a young adult and You kind of look like bondom. Yeah, right My wife had a crush on him when she was younger by the way So, you know with marshal spot with marshal are exactly with martial arts Martial arts isn't just about, you know, learning how to choke someone out or armlock someone or knock someone out martial art. There's an art to Uh, to what you're doing and a lot of it is uh, the philosophy and the attitude around it And it very much in my experience the best coaches I ever worked with the best people I ever worked with They were very similar to the best trainers that I ever worked with in the fitness industry In terms of their attitude around what they were doing. It was much more than Hey, I'm just gonna show up and work out. It was It was much more than that. It was it was their life and I've heard people refer to jiu-jitsu was like a philosophy and a way of living Um, do you see that kind of crossover with your coaches with their clients and I do, you know, the The days of old and let's just go back to the 24 hour days. Listen, I think 24 hour at its at its core It was the most innovative company in its space back in the 90s And then as things started to evolve We figured out functional training, right and really I I truly think crossfit was a game changer for fitness I think at that time I mean it set a bar very high to focus on functional fitness And as this ufc gym opportunity came to me via Mark Mastroff and Lorenzo Fratida Dana White We At that point I didn't understand MMA. I didn't under I wasn't like you and and grew up with it I I was more of the traditional sports guy um, and I didn't really understand how MMA would socialize in the fitness But then you go watch these guys You go watch these guys and how they prepare for a fight And it is the most unique experience that I've ever been involved with because You have eight eight to ten coaches in a camp One focuses on their conditioning One focuses on wrestling one focuses on jujitsu one focuses on stand-up one focuses on diet One is a shrink to get their head right, right? So you have this entire camp of people All designed to spiritually move you to a place where when you walk into that octagon You feel invincible your confidence at levels at an all-time high And your body is prepared to not only dish out damage, but also to take damage and to me that's incredibly powerful And so if you can put that into a gym experience not to say that I'm going to put you in the octagon and knock you out But if you can prepare your mind and your body like that and you can holistically bring together Traditional fitness with what's so great about MMA inspired fitness You have something very special. Yeah, I'm not going to lie when when I first heard of your of your gyms I thought that's going to be interesting. What that what's that going to be like? But the environment is definitely how you explain it. It's uh, I remember Which one did we go to first because we all went to one Sunnyville it was a sunny veil sunny. We all went into one and we all left saying That's one of the best gyms. I think I've been in so you guys definitely have put together. No, I love the facilities I do have a question adam about you brought up something that Reminded me you took me back to 24 days that I remember when they got rid of this and it sounds like You guys have implemented this in UFC and that's the the week long course of training It used to be called 24 hour fitness university when I when I was a kid coming through it and Was extremely valuable to me and was extremely valuable to me later on as I was a manager and managed trainers that were coming through that They got this at least baseline teaching of our philosophy before they came in and they completely eliminated that so one Uh, you were around for when that was eliminated, right? So one, I'd like to hear You tell me why they did and your thoughts on that and then two Why did you guys decide to implement that and I imagine that it cost money and is is expensive for the company to do it Yeah, you know, listen at that point in 24 that was above my pay grade and So you just do what you're directed to do, but I'll just tell you what Typically ruins great companies are boardroom decisions Because you lose the authenticity and the experience of the way the team member Looks at it So we knew somebody like you that went through this week long process on the university that experience is something you'll always remember, right? What a boardroom says is i'm spending a thousand dollars. It takes somebody through if I do that times 2000 trainers it's x amount of money. I can put that straight to the bottom line They don't understand the ripple effect that it can have right and so listen We're not here to make UFC gyms not here to turn around and make a quick dollar. We're here to create a legacy for a long time This is not about how much money I make today This is about what kind of legacy we can create for tomorrow And so in reinvesting back into our coaches and having these one week certifications having the ability to work with the ufc PI performance institute with guys like forrest griffin are amazing because he has a whole different way of looking at fitness and looking at How people should condition and get trained? and so you know, I think that The entire industry has to relook at this and we have to relook at how we're investing into our key people and our key personnel that represent our industries And our brand how did you guys because a lot of big brands? Not only didn't they get hit hard by the shutdowns, but they're they're a lot of them bankrupt How did you guys survive that that whole process because that? I mean you're literally forced to not do business and there's not much you could do around that How'd you guys stay afloat? So i'm happy to get into the political conversation in a second if you'd like listen it You know from my position It was one of the most stressful times of my life because I have a responsibility to thousands of team members I have a responsibility to a significant amount of members and customers And I know we have a special brand But every fitness company around the globe for that matter every service-based business around the globe was going through the same thing Where you had greedy landlords wanting the rent And you had a lot of different challenges whether it's from a political environment Or whether it's just the circumstances of covet that did not allow you to open your gyms. And so Not only did we survive that but we doubled the size of the company Which is incredibly interesting and and I got to tell you the the man mark mastroff Stepped up and and with our private equity, which is summit capital Those guys worked together And they said adam We want you to go double the size of the company We want you to reinvest back into the company And we want the brand better than ever before and we realize that you're not going to take in Much revenue over the next six to 12 months as a matter of fact mark. It's interesting mark. Mastroff We all know him as a as kind of an icon in the industry when this thing happened last march He actually predicted when everybody else was saying 90 days He predicted it was going to go between 12 and 16 months And he predicted exactly what we were going to deal with with the adversity that we went through So that really helped us having his Perspective of how to take a look at this and then with the support of private equity And the support of an incredible ufc gym team That all had the wear we all had the worst seven hats right We all had to do things that we weren't comfortable doing To make sure that we were leading by example through action To get us to the other side of this and thank god the lights at the end of the tunnel were ready to go Wow, that's interesting. You know, it's funny. Uh, when you talk to Successful investors, what do they say when there's blood in the streets, right? That's when you buy or whatever It's almost like, you know, you guys saw the opportunity because A lot of your competitors We're not going to be able to survive this and so you're like, let's put ourselves in a position To capitalize on this market share because the demand for fitness is still there People are if anything, it's growing. I feel like more people it's growing, right? So that's the same. Is that am I am I saying the right way? Is that what it was? You guys are like, look, we're going to position ourselves so that when this comes up We're ready to go and we'll be able to capture more market share It's exactly what we saw we knew there's going to be a tipping point, right? And listen, we're not in the clear yet But we know what's out there. We know that Obesity exactly everything the data you just shared with us is a huge huge concern out there We know that gyms have shut down, which is also a concern. I don't want gyms to shut down I want them to be part of the movement. The way I look at it is let's take fitness participation from 23 Percent to 40 percent. There's enough for everybody. We need everybody out there chanting the same message And so yeah, the the opportunity was very clear and visible The ability to execute off the opportunity is a whole another issue, right? There's a lot of complication around that because You're dealing with real Circumstances that have real adversity And so how you digest that information how you find the right solution You have to you have to think out of the box a little bit and we've been able to do that And you know the exciting thing is we opened A brand new 40,000 square foot gym in Seattle in Puala, Washington that that just turned out amazing We just opened last weekend Or i'm sorry two weeks ago in las vegas 50,000 square foot indoor outdoor gym in las vegas our first one there We're about to open the second one on april 10th Last weekend we opened up in anaheim City of industry and oxenor in california all at the same time And so we are going to from a just a company-owned perspective. I'm not counting domestic and international We're going to open up 17 locations During this period of time. So it's it's been insane. No, I do I do want to get you into the political Let's do it. Yeah, I because so are you part of it's like the fitness coalition And so if you could explain kind of who represents that and what kind of fights you guys have been a part of And what kind of wins? You've actually been able to accomplish In this crazy landscape that we have. Yeah, no, I want to I want to compliment the cfa because they Have done just a fantastic job representing the industry and really In my opinion and I don't want to get too controversial here But my opinion is I have the ability to view fitness all over the globe because we're developing in 37 countries, right? So I know what's going on in thailand. I know what's going on in singapore and china and japan california was the worst run Process in regards to covet compared to everything that I've seen globally. I'm so strange. You have such a great governor Yeah, I mean, I know I saw the poster. I saw the poster of him in your uh The one that we throw darts at Justin's a big fan. Yeah, but listen here's what happened is the cfa You know, we wanted to be fair. I mean they they went to the To go meet with them and and it was about a round table and trying to have common ground because we all wanted to do this Safe, we understood that initially you have to close the clubs and understand what you're dealing with Everybody understood that it's the inconsistency that started to happen that really created the erosion of confidence And so when you say hey Governor's office all we want to do is see the data And where and how you're making decisions So we could understand it because we had our own data, right? We had all the key gym operators around the state from 24 to us to in shape to all these other companies Provided data about covet and the percentage of covet Viruses that happened throughout the throughout the day and through check-ins And what we found out is that they have not lived yet to provide us any data They don't have any data that that where they made that there was the basis of the decision And so obviously that is a huge amount of concern if if we go around making decisions without any data you're going to put yourself in a lot of a lot of trouble and The decisions of how the governor how the governor made those decisions I don't think they realized the impact it's had on the everyday joe And when I look at my own gyms and I talk to my members Around california that haven't been able to work out for a year And they're telling me that they've gained you know 18 to 20 pounds of fat because the average person is gaining between one and two pounds Every single month from the inception of covet all the way through today When they when they tell me the anxieties that have been that have been creating whether it's self-imposed Bottom line is anxieties are picking up when they tell me that the depression or how high it is The governor doesn't realize that the governor's office doesn't realize that they're just thinking okay Let's shut down gyms and let's make sure that cosco is open. Let's make sure that You know all these different Services that they think is essential without any data. Let's make sure those are open But a place where you can actually social I mean think about gyms guys Don't we already clean gyms? Don't we don't we already set up equipment where it's kind of socially distanced because the average machine? Guess what is six to ten feet apart? Everything is distanced. Don't we already have good ventilation and air circulation? Does that same thing happen at cosco? No, no and also look gyms are not there and they've been shown now in the data. They're not they weren't major vectors of Of covet one of the main reasons is this healthy people go there. I'll tell you I'll tell you something right now First of all, nobody's weighing that out. Nobody's saying Okay, this will reduce infections. But what are the consequences? What are the side effects? Nobody's saying that There are side effects there are consequences To some of these policies and of course with gyms and closing down parks parks got closed down People are getting more and more unhealthy Diabetes and obesity kills more people than anything else and then of course, you know How much it increases the risk of dying from something like covet? But here's the big one Okay, if you took the average person and they fell a little under the weather So that full blown sick, but they're a little bit kind of sick. They're still going to go to dinner with their friend They're still going to go to the to the mall to go shopping. Whatever. They're not going to go to the gym The first place people don't go when they start to feel a little under the weather is gyms. They just don't go work out I know this I managed him sick people don't show up to my gym to work out So you have this self-selection bias of people who all feel good enough to work out So you go to a gym. You're not surrounded by very sick people That's one of the main reasons why in my opinion why we don't we didn't see Huge spreads of covet in gyms. You're you're you're so right. There is this common respect in gyms because gyms create community And people know that just don't go to the gym if you don't feel good Um, whether it's a position of they just don't feel good enough to go or that's the respect for the other members that are there They don't want them to get sick. So I completely agree with you and I and I think that As we look back on this in a couple years We're going to be able to directly look at this and say that The way this was handled and managed cost people's lives it cost people's Professional lives the deteriorating a significant way And it had much more impact than we realized today. Oh, I 100% agree with that So, okay, so your gyms some of your gyms are open now or if not all of them, but with certain restrictions How has the market response been? Have you felt like you opened one up and there people were just like, oh my god I've been waiting for you to work out or has it been slow like what's it been like? There's a huge demand and and yeah, it's uh, it's been just incredible to see is that uh, the popularity without having to spend money on marketing without having to Um, do the things that we've typically done in the past around membership acquisition You know people are coming back to the gym and they they feel almost like their their liberty is back And we're seeing customers now that would not have gone to the gym in the past that are now given it a shot And so now it's really driven around so far the younger population, right? We're not seeing as much of the senior population into the Into the doors. I think that will come as the vaccine continues to to spread but So far it's it's been we're very optimistic and we're very bullish on where fitness is going and we think that there's going to be a huge huge voice Inside this industry as we navigate through this because we're not done with pandemics You know, they're they're going to come back and we're going to be much more prepared in the future with a data But with b making sure we're educating our trainers and our team members and and everybody else within our circle to be able to handle a situation like this You mentioned, uh, I think it was a gym in vegas. That's outdoor indoor with these new Locations that you're opening up. Are you is that something you're considering now to have a larger outdoor area because are they designing that in the plans? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it is I think um, which is I mean in my opinion. That's awesome. I think that's great Yeah, we have a we have a gym in in Costa Mesa It's owned by Mike Bisbing and cubs wants and out there and it's uh, Half outdoors and half indoors and it's always performed exceptionally well Well, when covet hit the performance doubled because you could for the most part keep it open, right? And so it was it was it was really amazing to see Yes centennial has in las vegas has an outdoor gym and and yes city of industry has an outdoor gym And yes oxnard has an outdoor gym. So what we're seeing is members really like that external Experience of being able to train outside and or inside based on how the weather is and based on what they feel Yeah, it's kind of like a throwback. I remember, uh, I mean you ever work out at mussel beach I walked by it. I was a little bit intimidated, but I know somebody like you probably know It's one. I mean, I mean, it was I can't wait to take it off. It's a great time No, but people but that makes perfect sense that you guys would then include that in your new plans because if this happens again At least you'll have that buffer, right? You'll have an open area Was there anything else that's different now? Concerning what happened that you guys are looking like are you training people differently and say, okay? If this happens again, here's how we're set up or are you looking at different plans? Like is there anything else that's different? I was listening that there's there's I would say everything's different. It's not just it's just not one or two things You know it from the virtual fitness community that everybody's now engaging in And how we're setting up to intersect social community with fitness online. I think is a big piece I think how we train our team to More holistically take care of our consumers that they're just not a member check-in That it really is about making sure they're eating drinking sleeping Going through recovery and training the right way the way we're educating our team member is is much more enhanced compared to probably pre-covid And I think you know, listen the obvious the stuff that we all need to make sure that we continue to consider Which is the cleanliness of the facility and making sure that we're keeping maintenance up You can't take shortcuts anymore and gyms that try to save save money and make profit through cutting Maintenance and cutting capex and cutting investment back in the cleanliness They're making a huge mistake because even though we may not be dealing with the pandemic in six months. We're still dealing with Other illnesses and other things, you know staff infection other things that you can get if the gym is not clean Yeah, plus people are aware of the fact that they were that there was an illness So now they're probably just more aware of that in general That's right. That's a great segue for a question that I had for you Are you familiar with some of the surveys that have been done on what people are saying about working out from home now? Have you followed any of that a little bit a little bit? Yeah So I think maybe dug you can pull it up to tell me where it's at Right now, but I've been following this since now obviously when covet first hit and everybody was scared to death to even go outside I'm sure the rates of how many people said they're going to work out from home was much higher than probably what It's going to be when we feel safer, but there has been a large percentage I want to say the number is like 40 percent which is almost half the people That are saying now that they may never return to gyms Now is this something that you guys have discussed and how are you guys? Attacking that from a business point Yeah, I mean, it's the same thing that I see, you know, 40 percent of people are never going to return to a grocery store You know, it's just it's it's not reality and listen We all know you guys are gym people and you know the importance of social community And I don't look at the at-home experience as competition at all It's about how do you complement the at-home experience because what I want to do is take my train different mentality I want to give the consumer the best possible fitness experience that cannot be replicated anywhere else Whether they're at home or whether out another gym Inside my four walls then what I need to make sure that I do is I'm able to extend that at home So if they're running late if the weather's bad if the tires flat They're going to be able to jump online and take a quick class or do a quick workout They're going to be able to search thousands of videos to be able to do that and quite frankly If they have peloton, I embrace it peloton grow expand because peloton how many modalities is peloton It's one modality, right? It's cycling Okay Do whatever you want to do on cycling and it complements what you're going to do in my gym If you want to do other if you want to go to youtube and look at fitness at home By all means do it But that just complements and it navigates the message of how important fitness is So now instead of speaking to the limited percentage of population to get in the gyms We're speaking to a much broader audience that are now accepting fitness at home My job is to make sure my value proposition is so unique that you can only get it within my four walls Which makes people both want to work out at home and in the gym That makes that does make a lot of sense you you bring up the community atmosphere in gyms And then earlier you brought up crossfit This is why crossfit succeeded so well is they had that like you went in And you were working out with other people you had that kind of team atmosphere A lot of modern gyms. I feel like lost that like you go in Put your headphones on do your workout and you don't really talk to anybody So you're almost you're in a public, you know, you're in a private your public gym But by yourself UFC gyms are a little bit different because of the class atmosphere the mma that's in there It does feel more like that in that group environment, which is a very powerful That is one of the most effective ways to keep people Consistent I know that I know people used to show up to work out with me Half the time because they just like to say you know hang out with me not necessarily because of the workout So and I would like to see statistics on that what percentage of people who work out consistently at home Also have a gym membership. I did I know you did too, right? Yeah, you know So I wonder what that with that number. No, I think you bring up a great point And I think that's the right regardless if it affects the business or not negatively I think that's the right attitude is that I think one of the problems of the fitness industry is We've we've been competing with each other for so long. It doesn't make sense I mean there's that's one of the things that inspired the the show was that We wanted to come out and and share all the positive benefits of all these different modalities And there's plenty of obese unhealthy people for everybody in the space to eat and instead of Competing with each other and saying my modality is better than your modality Why not encourage people to dabble in all of it and see what works best for them? Yeah, meet people where they're at I think it's it's great that they know now they have an option You know if those circumstances, you know come up again or like there's more lockdowns or whatever like You know people are now at least savvy to to know like okay, I have an answer I can do this at my house, but I also love the gym experience and I don't think that's going to go away Well, isn't it crazy, you know In 1999 2000 when 16 people out of 100 were working out in a gym And we were going insane on competition. We were beating each other up. We were price, you know cutting each other 16 out of 100 people with that that means and I'm not good at math here But I'll try that means 84 people had they weren't involved in fitness And we weren't looking at that opportunity to grow the platform And so, you know the other thing I'll talk about on on on the connectivity here is There is something to accountability There's just something to it and I don't care who you are. You are not inspired You're not having fun and you're not being held accountable at home So you're going to choose days that you just don't feel like doing it because you're not in the mood You're going to choose to give up a little bit sooner than you should and let's face it when you go to the right gym That's in your trade area And you're inspired to work out with other people around you that becomes kind of like what you're talking about the crossfit effect Right the crossfit effect was that social connectivity Where people were holding each other accountable to showing up at the gym and then inspiring one another To achieve better results. Well, this is a debate that we have all the time This is that you're coming from my point right here Yeah, and we have this discussion all the time, but I will say this A big part of what you're saying has to do with the leadership in the gym And what I mean by that is, you know, I've run gyms that were Old, you know that were not nice not as nice as my competitors gyms But we did better because of me and the team In there What kind of people are you looking for to work in and run these gyms? What kind of managers are you looking for because I feel like that makes the biggest impact You guys have nice gyms nice equipment. It's all fancy big all that stuff But it doesn't matter if the team isn't the right team. I was gonna come at you with a job offer right after He's expensive I gotta pay away too much Listen, there's there's two very important letters when you start looking at leaders it used to be Back when you and I were a GM at 24 hour It was who worked the hardest and and who had the most amount of passion and and you know, I could sell Today those are those elements are certainly important, right? Discretional attitude is always critical, but it's it's ecu emotional intelligence You have to be able to understand the filter of what other people the way other people are looking at things And if you don't understand and comprehend that you will never ever speak to the mass audience You're only going to speak to a selective few Leadership is is is the most important element of any gym In 2021 you have to be able to inspire others around you to accomplish things that they did not think was possible Yeah, that makes it makes a huge difference. What about the atmosphere with the with the members Are you encouraging people to go out on the floor talk to people to get people engaged? Like I said earlier a lot of gyms you go in you got your headphones on and it's like it's like you're by yourself I would imagine you guys are trying to have a different kind of atmosphere Look, you know, I had a I had a conference call last week and I told everybody to put their pins down and to not take notes And the only thing I wanted to do was talk about having fun. That's it. I wanted to figure out How can we have more fun in our clubs? Let's not talk about kpis and drivers and measures and all the typical conference call stuff that you do the minutia Let's just say how how the hell are we going to have fun tomorrow? How are we going to have fun in a different way than we that we haven't experienced before You got to get people thinking about fitness in a creative way and you got to give them the right autonomy and trust to do So you can't script everything out. You can't say hey from 9 a.m. To 10 p.m. Here's exactly what you're going to do every second of the day I got to go to sell and I got to say sell you are an incredible leader. You inspire me Here's our objectives as an organization. Here's how we think we can get there But I'd like to have your slant your personality your style And I want you to figure out how to make sure every team member has fun because if they have fun Who else has fun the customer? Yeah, it all associates together. Where were you man? When we were at the end of our careers running just I would have loved that I always got the you got to fit in this box. Sorry can't do it your way got to do it this way Highlight the planner So okay, so with some of these limitations In restrictions, I think what some gyms in california can be what to 10 percent indoor 20 percent indoor Yeah, there's some counties that are up to 25 percent now But it's going to continue to get better and listen The nice thing is when you have some decent square footage you can basically operate as normal I was just going to say how does that how do you organize something like that? Does it do people have to have appointments or they show up and then you tell them we're full? What's what does that look like? You know, I can't really speak to the low-cost gyms the low-cost gyms You know the more of the philosophy is how many members can you get in a gym at one time, right? And the premium value proposition gyms. You just don't have the same type of crowds and floods of people, you know, you have When you pay a little bit more dues and you have a more premium experience You just you don't get as many people showing up at one time. So we have no issues We we're in a good spot on that note. Do you do you have any predictions? Do you think that we're going to see any more fallout in the gym industry? Like do you predict any of these low low-cost gyms? Do you see any of them filing for bankruptcy? Are we going to see anything else? Is orange theory going to survive? Yes, I I do think they'll still survive. They're they're a they're a good brand I mean, I think, you know, listen everybody isn't kind of the same position and And it's all how you you deal with the current economic challenges, right? What we're seeing on data is about 78% of our members came back And so I know some of the data says 59% planned the return But but we saw more than we expected to come back initially And then we put a plan together to make sure that we get at least 95% back that we're there prior to COVID happening And is there a risk in the future? Of course there is but the people that don't Take on and embrace that risk are the people that are going to fail You have to know the risk you have to know the choppy waters to try to navigate through And if you run the business correctly, you try to stay as healthy as you can I like the odds of success But there is no certainty in any climate and you know, I mean listen What do we what kind of debt did we create for this country? Over the last 12 months, I mean, I don't I got to get your perspective on this dodge. My son's trying to teach me dodge coin I don't know about that But I mean, you're talking what 2.5 trillion dollars or something absurd and and that goes back into the economy And it's not going to be easy. I don't care if if business and members came back to 100 level where it was pre COVID You still have the adversity of the economic challenges with people trying to raise minimum wage with people With with laws changing and I mean, listen, I'm I'm dealing with the club in and texas. I'm trying to open I'm trying to figure out if I should even if I should name the city because it could hurt me but I'm dealing with the club in texas and And all I want to try to do is open a pre-sale center a business office That's this size with three desks in it to just sell memberships a preview center for the gym The city came out and said no, you cannot open because we don't have a professional diagram Okay, well, let me give you a diagram. We inserted the diagram provided it to the city You can't open because there is not three Thermostats located in these three areas. We dealt with that They came back with something else. So cities now because of COVID There's a lot of city employees that are involved with permits that are trying to justify jobs By rat red tagging. Wow, right? So so it there's there's dimensions of this COVID that is it's not just The simple what's in front of our face. There's the extension of everything else that's around us That's creating challenges to get back to normal Adam. Do you guys franchise? We do. Okay, good That's good to know because one day we've talked about owning a gym. I have my monies on you guys Well, I listen, I appreciate it But we're going to stay humble and and we're going to stay very empathetic to the team member and the and the customer I do believe we have something unique and special as it continues to translate globally But there's adversity. There's adversity in front of us But with the team and and with people like you that you guys that are driving the fitness Passion out there across the world really I like our chances of success as an industry I'm not just talking about UFC gym. I want to see this industry prevail and be incredibly successful Same same here. Thanks for coming on man. My pleasure. Always good to see you guys Thank you very much. Look, you can go to mind pump free calm and download some of our guides They cost nothing. They're absolutely free and you can also find all of us on social media Justin on instagram at mind pump. Justin. I'm at mind pump sal and adam at mind pump adam I do want the pizza You know I do I say I can't because I can't because i'm falling a diet and I'd be lying to myself I said I don't want it and that's why this takes a little bit more practice and how do you get from I don't Want it instead of saying I can't have it you have to start to learn to connect How your body feels?