 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, these are some of my favorite episodes. Every once in a while, we sit down and we have a Q&A or something like that plan. We smoke on the pipe. And what? I don't know what he said. I don't know what you're making. We end up going off on a tangent. And then we'll look at Doug. And Doug's looking at us like, keep going. And we'll just keep going. And guys, you got something here. This episode was awesome. We talked about some cool stuff. We get into social media. We talk about the growth of the podcasting world and what it's going to look like in the future. We talked about our sales awards when we worked back at 24. You guys talked a lot about that. 24 finished. You love those days. And we talked about a couple guys that we knew that were absolute beasts when it came to production. And then we get into just the business of fitness. We get into, god, what did we talk about? We talked about gyms and what they were like back in the day and how they're moving forward now. Future methods. They're thrown out there. We really got into just the stuff that really interests us today in terms of the fitness industry. So you get to kind of peer into our minds and sit in on a great conversation. Also, we still have 30 days of coaching. It's getting revamped all the time. You enroll or register for it. It's free. And every single day, you get new information on a particular topic related to fitness, wellness, or health. It's a great resource. It's a great way to introduce people into fitness. Send it to friends that don't listen to Mind Pump. They'll get some good information in there. And we cover all kinds of topics, all the most important topics when it comes to fitness. Again, it's free and you can find it at mindpumpmedia.com. Why Gary Vee is better than us, right? Oh, yeah, let's talk about this. Well, here's the thing. He has this ability. If you pay attention to everything he puts out, right? So, I don't know how old he is. Do you know how old he is? No, I don't. He's older than us. I imagine he's almost 40, right? Yeah, he's a little bit older than we are, right? So he's got a little more wisdom on his side than we do. And then the magical part about him that makes him so unique in comparison to other people that are in the same arena as him, is he has the ability to speak to the younger generation. You pay attention to, pay attention to the way he dresses. Yeah, he's a cool factor too. Yeah, absolutely. He's got swag. Whether he, I don't know. Now, I don't know if he hired a team around him that has helped him do that. I haven't followed him long enough or paid him. I don't know, dude. You know, when you look at people that you think are actually cool, because you know, you can put up this facade. Well, 100%, we've experienced this, right? Yeah, for sure. We've experienced this a lot. Yeah, well, we know a lot of people like that. It's very common in our business where, you know, we meet somebody who we were connected through social media platforms. And that was our only real interaction other than some phone calls, maybe text messages. And we do that for, sometimes, we court somebody for six months before they even come on the show. They come on the show. And then sometimes they're different than what that you're being shown on, you know, social media. You never know if that's a really good job by the business that does, as far as putting that person out to that way, or they're genuinely like fucking cool. You know it, too, right away that when they come in. At this time, with all these videos of him and everybody following him, I think you'd figure out if that was coached. He asked to actually be authentic with the way he carries himself. I don't know. He seems authentic. Here's the thing. You see the way a dude walks. I don't know, man. Tell away someone walks. I don't know about him very well, but I've been to a couple of these internet marketing like conventions and seminars where you get some of these like, people you've never heard of, but who literally run the internet marketing world. And they talk about strategies of how, like when you do a Google search, like if I look up Adam Schaffer, right, how many searches come up on a front page of Google? What is it? Like 10, whatever. They'll teach you ways to make sure that everything that comes up on that first page is something that you own. So your persona is what you've created online. And they're very, very good. People that know how to do this know. I get that. This is SEO 101, but that's even that's evolving and changing, bro. That was like four years ago. You can claim, you know, you can wear all these clothes and you can have all these things and all that stuff. But like that's not it. Like it's how you project yourself and like how you talk and like how you relate to people. But you're on video and you're creating this persona. It's interesting. I think it's gonna be more, I think it'll be more difficult to not be authentic. I think it's already starting to happen. Here's the deal. People like- I was stressful, dude. You gotta understand that. You gotta understand this. Like what you're talking about right now, like this is why Gary, this is what makes Gary V so badass too. He has, he evolved faster than, most people are still talking about that, bro. That's not, that's old. Like think about what we know where YouTube is going, right? Just think of this. Think of this logically. What you're talking about right now is like SEO shit, right? Being able to put anything that's related to fitness and boom, mind pump pops up at the front page of every Google. That's great. But what is Pat, what's gonna pass Google by next year? Yeah. For searches you. YouTube. So look at the type of stuff that he puts out there on video, okay? For people on- Well it's not just that. I'm not even saying that. I'm just saying when you're talking about cool and this cool factor in making yourself look a particular way, I think it can't be manufactured like it used to be. It has to be just what you are but put out in a very professional way. That's why when I look at him, I feel like it's genuine. Like I feel like I can tell. And I haven't met the man so I don't know. I'm just speculating right now. But I feel like- Either way he's tricking both of us at that point. Right. Right. So. I mean, it's a really good job. In business world, does it matter? I mean- I mean it doesn't matter. If someone perceives you that way, that's all that matters really. You've accomplished. Whether you're fake or real. But I mean you're also hanging on to one little thing that I said. It's not just that. I mean there's a lot of things that he's doing that. I mean, even just from the choice of music that's played, that's not fake or anything like that. It's just being smart. It's like understanding what the younger generation is listening to, looking at, shopping for. Those little details fucking matter. So here's what's interesting about internet statistics. It used to be that the largest users of internet-based, whatever, media, products, all that stuff, was the youth. But the fastest growth that they're seeing and that they've been seeing is actually in the older generations. Cause the youth always grab onto tech very quickly. But like Facebook, for example, is becoming dominated by people who are 25 and up. And Facebook, although it's not cool, like Instagram or Snapchat or anything like that, it still kills all of them in terms of revenue production, in terms of, did you guys see that Facebook just hit two billion users? Two billion. Two billion users, they literally have, I mean, if every one of those was real and active, cause of course you need to have the wash all that stuff out, they literally have almost one third of the world's population on Facebook. And if you want a consumer, the consumer you're aiming for is between 25 to 35. They're ones that have money, they're gonna buy stuff. And you're seeing the growth happen in that. And then the older generations, like these dating apps, for example, here's a great example, dating websites in the beginning, when they first came out, were dominated by younger people. But the ones that are dominating now are starting to become, are the older people. Cause they just take longer to- You know, you just gave me a thought. You know who I want to interview? I want to interview the guy who was responsible for turning the monetization on for Facebook. I want to know what that was like. The first day you- They've been holding them back forever. He's like, come on, man, come on. Let me go. Right? I want to talk to that motherfucker. And what that did- No, no, we still have to be cool. Right, right. Could you imagine how much, how much just started coming in at once? I like, there has to, it has to be insane to just- Well, they actually in the beginning- The floodgates. They actually had to figure it out because when they first started monetizing, it wasn't what, their value was on their potential. Like most tech stocks, right? When they first come out, everybody's like, oh, it's potential is huge, but you look at their actual numbers and it doesn't reflect it, but you're kind of taking a guess, right? So Facebook had to figure it out. They were the first ones to kind of figure out how we're going to make money. It's like Google, Google had to figure it out too. Right, right. When they first came out, so, but you know, I'm looking at, so we're in the podcasting world, right? Which by the way- And I'm looking at- What I love talking about this stuff is, that's what we're doing. We're in an energy, although it's nine years old, really it hasn't, in the last four to five years has it really turned into a potential business for people where they can actually get a large enough network- Well, there's no mega business in fitness. I mean, people might think Nike is a mega business, like fitness business. No, it's an apparel company. It's an apparel company. Yeah, yeah, no, definitely not. Well, we're gonna see- Nobody's shooting close to that. Yeah, but there's plenty of room for that to happen. Well, the podcast world is very interesting because podcast, a lot of people don't realize podcasting's been around for a long time. It's actually been around for longer than most, like it's been around longer than Facebook. It's been around podcasting, it's an old medium and it was only like the most tech savvy- I don't think it's older than Facebook. Podcasting? Oh, absolutely. What it was was- Oh, it was on that computer. It was different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But podcasting, it's just, what's made it grow was its availability and use the mobile phones really exploded the use of podcasts. Podcast has been growing steadily since 2006. So right now about, out of the, these are statistics from Edison Research. 36% of the population above the age of 12 has listened to or listened to a podcast. That's 98 million people, which is a lot more in 2006, it was 11%. And it's been growing at about- How much did that change to go back- From 11% in 2006 to 36% today. Oh, it's a triple. But you saw a big jump when like iPhones and stuff like that. That's a triple over nine, how many years? How many years? That's like nine, 10 years. 10 years. 10 years. And it's so far it's clipping along at a three between three to 4% growth rate, which is pretty good considering most people listen to their podcast, believe it or not, a large chunk still listen on their computer, which is funny. Really? Yeah. So in 2016, trip off this, right? So in 2016, so that's just last year, almost 30% of podcasts were listened to on a computer. 71%- I call it the workplace. Yeah, 71% on their smartphone or tablet or portable device. Now the places to listen to a podcast, 53% at home, only 21% in a car. Oh wow. Now what's about to change big time? Oh, that's, yeah, the car for sure. Once they start putting them on all of them, like the Teslas, it's going to be. That's it. Once it's going to be put in the, because right now it's a pain in the ass. Like if I want to listen to something on my phone, to play to my car, I got to connect the two. You also have an auxiliary cable or Bluetooth. Yeah. And I got a Bluetooth. Like I only listen in the Denali. When I drive the Mercedes or the Corolla, both those require an auxiliary connection. I won't even listen. I'll never listen if I'm driving that vehicle, which is a lot. Part of the reason why I've been driving that car so much is just because of that reason. That's funny. When I had the Jeep and then I just switched, you know, like now I have Bluetooth. I'm like, oh God, yes. So a lot of people still got to catch up to that. They do. So once, and even if you have Bluetooth, you still have to go to your phone, put on the app, hit play, and then the car goes on. And people don't realize that small, stupid steps like that. Dude, any small little step, if you have any kind of online business or anything like that, like you have to think about all these little nuance things. People are so finicky. Why do you think Amazon destroys everybody? Four years old should be able to understand it. Two year old should be able to do it. That's it. I mean, this is why- Just one click and then shift. That's it. This is why Amazon destroys people because literally you can click buy now. Was that you who sent that over? I did. They have a new thing. They have a new thing where it just remembers all your common patterns. And you just swipe. You swipe. It memorizes your habits, your common patterns, and then it sends it to you. Then it's just, do you want it right now? It's creepy but awesome at the same time. You just buy, buy, buy, buy and very easy. So my point with this is with podcasting, if you're in the podcasting world, it's about to fucking explode because once people can turn their car on and switch to a podcast right there, like you would a radio station or whatever, you're gonna see a whole new audience get introduced to podcasts. And a lot of the, so the age of the average podcast listener is between like 25 and 54. And we're seeing a lot of growth. That's a wide range. Well, I actually heard too that they're... Well, it's not, it's not the super young. Like we think like the super young, like 18, 19, 20, they're not the one, they do listen to podcasts, but most people who listen to podcasts are the consumer, like what you consider the actual consumer that you want to target, right? The average podcast listener is more educated and earns more money. And I think that has to do with right now the fact of the way, it requires a little bit more savvy just to find a podcast and listen to it. So we're about to open up to a whole new market. Well, what I was gonna say is like, so I just heard that iPhones are gonna become like dead in the car. So like, yeah, you can't use it. So that's another thing that's like, okay, well, hopefully everybody has, you know, that Bluetooth connection or whatever that they can project it up to the stereo to make that seamless. Well, I think all of the new cars will look like Tesla, which looks like an iPhone or an iPad, you know? Just literally you have all the same things from there and call everything is all connected straight through it. I mean, it's, that's definitely the future of where most vehicles will look. And then it will, it'll be a lot. Then you'll see an increase in people listening to it during traffic. Well, so here's what's cool. Cause you know how Adam, you always call us idiot. Servant. Servants. Servants. Here's an interesting statistic. The average podcast listener, the sweet spot for how many podcasts I listen to per week. You wanna guess? How many shows they listen to per week? Five. Five. Wow. How many episodes do we drop? I wonder if I've read that. Yeah. Five. That was a horrible guess. Yes. We own your podcast listening. If I would like five episodes. Yeah, I'd probably be like three. Cause I said we're idiots of servants. Got it. So you should have known that. Men, more men than women listen to podcast. That I would, I was surprised by that. What? 56% to 44%. Yep. So pretty, pretty cool stuff. By the way, so here's an interesting statistic. Podcast consumption. So this is from that same site. Has been substantially more common among Americans under the age of 25 until now. This was since 2016. For the first time, a larger percentage of 25 to 50 year olds listen to podcast monthly. And that is growing faster. I'm telling you right now, internet and the internet has been dominated by the young because it was, the young just, they just grab things really quickly. But if you, for historically in America, the key age demographic that you want to It'll trickle up, so to speak. Well, the key age demographic that buys shit is like, what do they say? The 25 to 35, that's the, that's like the magic age that all advertisers really try to target. Cause that's where, that's the age that does the most buying and has the most expendable income. Yeah, the early adopters, yeah. Yeah. And you're seeing that, that and then even older. There's also more, there's more variables nowadays that you have to consider now. Those type of stats you're rambling off for. So nowadays, something that's likely to go viral or be shared is more likely to be done by someone between the ages of 19 and 23. So there's numbers and stats now to counter that way of thinking before. It's a whole new world, man. What's unique now is, and what I think is funny when people ask me this question all the time, like I remember especially when we first started building, like what's your niche? You know, who's your, give me your demographic or your avatar. You know, give me your avatar. That's dead. And I'm like, fuck that. Like why am I only going to appeal to one type of person in a certain age? You've fucked that. Why can't you listen to me at 17 and all the way up to 65? You probably have to be 18 or older. But what I do see, what I do see value in is this, and I've been telling you guys for quite some time that I believe the future is segmenting the show. And you know, talking about these stats right now, how cool would it be for us to take a poll? Our forum would be a great place to do this. You say five shows is the average. We know already, cause I know we've seen our forum talk that they all listen to other podcasts also, would be to see, have them all list, like what other podcasts you consistently listen to, then extract, extract. Extrapolate. Yeah. I just said to fuck it up right there, right? Sorry. I wanted you to create something new. Come on, man. Then you're extraster baby. Extraster baby. You see my brain working over here? It's hurting. You should have gone with it, bro. Smoke for measures. You can go with it. That's what we're giving. So you pull that out. So you pull that out and we separate all of them. And then we could start to see what John was like. So like let's say 20% of our forum actually listens to Mind Pump and then also a business development type podcast. 33% listen to a pure comedy podcast. 42% listen to a finance podcast. So we can actually figure that out. And then when we actually start to segment our shows, we can start to think about that when we either one produce others on those days so people can listen so we can start going for types of genres or we can even gear our own personal message around those topics. And then you begin to naturally segment the show. It's a very interesting, I mean, if you're at all into business or human, it's just psychology. Cause I like business, but I like human psychology and they're both kind of the same. It's fascinating when you look at technology and how it's shifting and changing just the landscape. Like some of the most viewed videos on YouTube, period, end of story are these fucking videos that little kids, little tiny kids who don't have credit cards or anything watch. Now that makes you kind of wonder like, sure this video of this woman opening up this, you know, this boxed and playing with a toy. Cause believe it or not those videos get tens of millions of views. Sure, it gets a ton of views, but does it convert to anything? Cause you got all these five year olds watching it. Well, so this is how that- What's the ad space? What's the value though? You know what I'm saying? I know it has some value. So unpack that, right? So if you read the book that I just finished, what was it? Hit makers? Yeah, hit makers. Fuck you. I got your back. I know, thank you. I need your help today. I wasn't sure we were going to record right now, but since we're on this topic, I think this is great. Oh, it's on. So hit makers talks about like, okay, so if you were to unpack that, how they, how does that lady or that kid that's unpacking or that's doing the presence gets the five million views. What's likely happening is somebody like Will Smith and some other, these celebrity parents that have a child that's the same age that owns an iPhone and has YouTube finds that. And then they post that on their Instagram or share that on their Twitter. And because they're popular kids because they're the kids of Will Smith. And then when there's six or seven of those kids they get influenced at school, you know, Susie over here showing everybody. And then because the whole school follows that kid because that's Will Smith's son or whatever. I'm just using that as an analogy. I have no fucking clue how old this kid is. Somebody has to make it popular. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You think, now here's the thing. And that's how that happens though. Here's what's fascinating. And then those people, guess what? Somebody influential. Yeah, absolutely. Usually, usually of course, but what's interesting to me with the young, young kid videos, because like I said, my daughter's seven and then I have like cousins and nieces and nephews that are even younger. What's interesting, like nobody's ever heard of some of these videos at all. And I think what they're doing is they're really doing a good job of showing something that the kid wants to click on almost. Like I don't, like I know my five year old nephew. He doesn't fucking give a shit who's gonna tell him what. He goes on YouTube and what they do is they search. That's part of the formula too though. It's not one thing. It's not just so-and-so. Why did Will Smith's kids share it in the first place? Cause it was fucking cool. It was a cool video, colors, he drew there. Yeah, whatever drew his attention to want it. He's gonna want to share it. So there's also, you can also break down and unpack what makes somebody want to share something. You know, there's ways to think. So there is a formula to making something that is more likely to get shared. But at the end of the day, it's all about those influencers that share it. It's not by accident. I mean, when you break and you unpack all these like specific videos down, you can go to like the angle and the lighting and you know, the way that it's staged and the icon of it and yeah, who influential- The average podcaster in general uses, I was looking at this, I don't remember what the number is and I just closed my phone, but the average podcaster uses social media more often and longer is basically more connected to that world of business, to the internet world of business. What's interesting to me is, it wasn't that long ago, you can actually Google this. You can look up what YouTube looked like five years ago, what the average internet webpage looked like 10 years ago and it looks archaic. Just five or 10 years ago, you look at it and go, wow, that's how fast it's changing. Dude, it's a matter of time, it's a matter of short time before having individually produced podcasts where we just started it in Doug's living room or whatever. That's gonna be a thing of the past. I think it's gonna be like these super highly produced like YouTube channels. It's not gonna be like people who are good and smart with using apps and stuff. I think you'll still see some of that stuff, but man, it's gonna keep getting better and better. I have a feeling that it might get dominated by some of that stuff. Or you could Bing it. You know what I mean? Yeah, whoever said that ever. It's here now. Bing it, man. It's here now, it's already happening. We were just a part of it, and we're so buried in our own stuff that we don't have time to be out shopping around and looking, but if you really pay attention, your company's like Nike and Under Armour and whatever, some big soap company, Chevy. All these companies now have YouTube channels and they're just now learning how to do it. When they first came out, like if you look, and I have no idea because I haven't been on this, so I'm just totally just throwing bullshit out right now, but I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty confident. If you were to look at me, if you were to look at these big companies now, most of their YouTube channels are pretty fucking cool. They've actually spent time making it for the right platform. Well, four years ago, when those big companies came into YouTube, they would be just doing, they were repurposing already content that they were doing a commercial. They actually have new content for their online. Right, exactly. Because have you seen commercials for big brands that are only shared online? Yes. That have like cursing in them. You know who, do you remember? They're more edgy. Do you remember who one of the first companies, in my opinion, I think that did that so well? It was the Dirty Balls. The Dirty Balls and the, it was not Old Spice, Axe. Axe, Axe. Yeah, I do remember that commercial. Axe and then Old Spice falling up with that. Then Old Spice copied them, bunch of people, but that was a YouTube. That was not, they didn't do a commercial. It was like super low budget. They did that and it went bananas. And so now, and then you started to see big companies after that start to kind of follow suit a little bit. But that was only like, you know, I mean, maybe five years ago now, I can't remember when that first came out. Maybe a little bit more. I'm, you know, maybe it's been like seven years. I don't remember when it was. When that first came out, we could probably look it up. But that was when you really started to see this change. And soon it'll be very hard for somebody like us, who is just, there's nothing, there's nothing famous about any of us. There was nothing that we, none of us did anything fucking super spectacular to, for people to tune in and listen to you. I did one time, but nobody was there. I was gonna say that. Damn it. Nobody saw it. Only we know we're cool. Right? We're all right. Yeah. So we're good. You know, so soon it's, companies like that will hire anybody even. If you were, if we were, if you would consider us talented at what we do, we would be hired by somebody like that. They would go like, Oh, these three knuckleheads are now going to work for Nike. And they would, you know what I'm saying? Don't forget the fourth month. You're going to run our podcast. So, you know, that's, I think it's all cool, man. I think it's going to be interesting to watch. I'm glad we got in when we did, because if it does what we think's going to happen with the world of just specifically speaking podcasting, you know, if we just keep doing what we're doing and kind of hang on, it'll grow along with it. Cause although, I mean, 98 million Americans have listened to a podcast every single day I talk to people and I'll bring a podcast and like, well, what's that? How do I get on it? Like, how do I, what is that? Where's the icon? How does that work? Like, imagine when that becomes easy and it becomes like, you know. Well, just an audible medium, you know? There's always going to be a need for that, you know? Like for people to consume because like they're going to be doing things with their hands, they're going to be like, you know, like working or going around the house or doing errands or whatever. And it's like, you know, we could follow you the whole way. It'll, you know, we're there. It'll be like when we saw with newspapers, like, who the hell reads a newspaper nowadays? Yeah. Have you guys seen the San Jose Mercury news? No. Does that still exist? Well, the San Jose Mercury news. Is it like the news like I see on TV now where they report about Twitter? That's a picture of this morning on Twitter. It's like, are you trending now? Dude, the San Jose Mercury news used to be an award-winning newspaper in the country. It used to be a well-renowned, like one of the better ones. It was thick too. It was a big newspaper, lots of stuff to read. It's like three pages and ads now. It's like nothing anymore. It's fucking a shell of its old self. It'll probably not exist once this generation of reads newspaper still dies, which... Everybody that gets it now is like, oh, it's kindling. That's what's gonna happen with radio. It's already happening with radio. Oh, radio and TV. Yeah, or it's just, they're just gonna be gone. That's so crazy. That's what I see. Like companies like Nike, this will become a whole department or company within itself will be like the social media part of the business. And you see it already. It'll be it's, you'll have a network. It's like what we talk about, what we're a building. It just takes a long time to build that. Actually, speaking of- When you build it from the ground up, if we were Nike and you came in with- Your brand is like a person. Yeah, $10 million. It has a podcast. It has a YouTube. It has all these things. Speaking of podcasting, Doug found, there's an award thing that they do every year for podcasting. It's been going on for 10 years. Is that the podcast? Podcasting the hardest. Podcast awards. I want to get the- No, I thought it was like podcast movement or something like that. No, I think it's podcast. Yeah, let's find that. So there's an award. There's actually an award show and podcast awards. You found it? Yeah, podcastawards.com. So it's been going on for 10 years. And they give away awards like the Emmys or whatever to podcast. We want a trophy. So here's the thing. I get it, mom! Here's the thing. I want to fucking win, dude. I want to think. I want to win. I don't want to do this unless we win, dude. All the people. I want to fucking win. I don't want to do it unless we win. If we don't win, Adam will eat his hat. I'm going to Kanye Weston. Just get in front of the- Adam should have won! Adam! Yeah. He's the best! Yeah, you did a good job on everything, but they had the best podcast. So podcastawards.com, you go on there, register yourself, and then vote for Mind Pump in the People's Choice Award and in the category of health. This is like podcasting hard, dude. What do you mean? Yeah. Podcasting hard? Yeah, it just feels funny. Hashtag. Ah! Podcasting hard. We're still building that. Push out the podcast! We're going to try and get an award at this thing. Yeah. We've been doing it. Yeah. We're in the trenches of the podcast. I'm stepping my ass to trenches. Stepping my game up now. You know what it is, dude? Now that we're up for an award. Yeah. Oh, shit. You know what's funny about this is that, because I've never- We should have opened with a new epic voice. Yeah. Do you still have any of your glass trophies? They podcast hard. Do you still have yours? Oh, from 24? Yeah. I have no, I'm not exaggerating. I have two big, like big moving boxes full to the rim and they're, I think they're at my ex's house and they're just covered in dust. So I have so many trophies. I have a Ben too at my house. I thought that'd be pretty, maybe one day we'll take them all out. You only get two. You know what we should do? Because I don't wanna bring all of my athletic achievements. No, that's gonna get ridiculous in here. We're not talking about sports. Whatever. Whatever, Mr. Motor Mouse. Obviously, I have a bunch of trophies, they're not. But I want to bring them in. Motor mouth awards. You know what we should do? We should bring them in and we should count them all to see how many. I didn't work as long as you guys did for 24. I was only with them for- Oh, don't start me getting excuses right now. Hold on, dude. Just to show, no, no, just to show scale. Cause people would be like, wow, it's hours more awards than you count. In fact, I was only there for two and a half years. Whoa, that's a lot of awards. Now, what was the best thing you won at 24? Did you, was it the Hawaii trip? Well, no. I mean, I didn't win any management awards cause I, you know, I was there for like a minute. But yeah, like in the company, you know, number one in the company. Yeah, but I'm saying, did you, cause they used to have contests too where they'd give away a TV or they'd give away this trip. They stopped doing that shit. It was in the early days, huh? Yeah, man, I missed all of that. Didn't you win a Hawaii trip, Adam? Seven times. You went to Hawaii with a 24 foot and a seven time? Yeah, I missed like the last one. Yeah, and then I was like, I know the last two that I didn't go to, I mean, don't get me started on that. That was when they, they started to do this thing, right? Because the company was always making it tougher for you to hit goal. Of course. Right, right, always moving the target, right? It didn't matter though, the competitive guys like us would be like, ah, fucking, I'll still figure it out. Crush, right? And so every year they made it harder. Well, the final two years where I didn't go, it no longer was in my hands. It was now, if you and your general manager, the sales side averaged this. Oh, shit. So because my bull, and I busted my ass. I feel like they made that specifically because of guys like us. I remember us helping the entire sales side of the GM, just to try and make that. Yeah, my trainers were over there, we were selling for them. Closing deals for the sales. Closing deals for the sales. I was like, fuck these guys. They suck so bad. I'm like, you guys, I'm going to ask, I need your help. I just came to my trainers and said, yeah, we guys, it was way embarrassing. So one, one, my favorite thing that I ever did, it wasn't an award was, this is just something that happened. When Santa Teresa, the club, there was two grand openings for it. There was the, like the grand opening where people can go in and do some stuff, but it wasn't fully done. And then there was the official grand opening, which, so I was the manager for the official, like big, you know, grand opening, but the first grand opening where they actually open the doors, the district, was it the district manager? No, the, the vice president, I believe it was the VP invited his top general managers from the region to go to the club and compete for top salesperson for the day. So you've got a bunch of killers going in there who manage their own big clubs and we're going there and it's pride on the line. And then last minute, he says $500 cash, and he pulls out $500, you know, $500 bills and puts them down and goes, and whoever wins gets $500. So it was me and all these managers. Shark eyes come out. Yeah, me and all these managers, and it was about, it was about to go down to see who can outsell who, right? Right. And I fucking, like it wasn't even, like it was me and then second place was like half. And the, Watching Usain Bolt. And the way I killed them was two things. I had two strategies that always made me effective as an AGM too when I was just a sales guy was, A, I could take it. I could see a customer walking in before they parked the car. So I could fucking. And they'd zero in. And number two, I had a quick, I could do a quick sales process and I could work the floor better than anyone. So when I didn't have a guest, I was working the floor and I'll steal all the balloons and I'll sell them personal training like crazy. And I won that. And then I use that to talk shit to everybody for ever. Still now, if you're listening now, I beat you. Yeah. That was something I thought about forever. Who would you attribute like most of the sales skills that you have to like, is there a single person? Obviously I know you that you pick up from anybody and everybody you ever worked with, but was there a single person that impacted the most? There were two people that I worked with, three people. Let me think, one, two, three, maybe. Yeah, three people who, two of which worked for me and one of which I worked for, that pushed me to get better. Because I was very natural at it, so it was easy. And so I took that for granted. Like I think anybody, right? If you do something and it comes easy, tend to take for granted that you could get better by honing your skill or whatever. The first guy was Don Cardona, who was my general manager and then became my district manager later on. And the way he pushed me was he would fuck with me. So when he was my manager, I was an AGM and assistant manager for a little while when I transitioned from fitness. And I was just, I was doing numbers nobody has seen. I was doing $40,000 and $50,000 in production and in commissionable revenue every month, back when the second and third place were in the 20 and maybe 30,000, right? So it was just blowing people away. So what he would do with me is he would fuck with me and literally the day would start and he'd ask me shit that he knew the answer to. So we'd say, Sal, let me see your planner. Remember the stupid planners that we had? Knowing you didn't fill it out. I didn't fucking do a planner. Yeah. Highlighting green here. Highlighting yellow there. And he'd be like, oh, you didn't fill this out. You get no guests today at all. So then for the whole day, I'd have to figure out how I can make sales without getting any walk-in guests. So I'd only get appointments or I'd have to work the floor. So I'd have to be really, really creative. And there was a couple of times I got in trouble because like one thing that I did was I'd go on lunch and put in reality to what I do is I'd stand around the front of the gym and I'd see who was walking in. I could tell when they were a guest and I'd hand them a guest pass with my name on it. So when they come in, they'd be like, oh, I'm here to see Sal and I'd walk in. Oh, I have a guest. Yeah, he threw a calculator through the wall when he found that out. But anyway, it pushed me really early on in my career. And then when I had- How old are you at that time? I'm 18 or 19. Oh, fuck, you're young right now. Then I had Jason Marcucci work for me who you guys know very well. I know Adam, you know him very well. You know what's funny? I've been meaning to bring him up on the show. He would be fun to bring down here and talk. Oh my God, dude. I'm afraid of what he would say. You know, like- I'm afraid of half the shit. Yeah, I wanna hear his stories. No, I don't know. Yeah, he's got him on you guys. So, yeah, he's just a great dude, too. Marcucci was, he worked a very, very short period of time for Don Cardona when Don was a general manager at Sunnyvale and I had run my first club, which was Salinas. Then I get Sunnyvale, the flagship club. I walk in, Marcucci's only been a counselor, a sales guy for a month maybe. And I walk in and here's this fucking dude. So back then, when we were selling memberships or running the gyms or being trainers, the uniform was sweatpants, a purple polo shirt and tennis shoes. So we looked like- Was it Fila days? No, this is before Fila. Purple? This is before Fila. Before Fila? So we had sweatpants that we could wear, whatever sweatpants we wanted as long as they were a particular color. I think it had to be black. So it could be whatever you wanted. And then purple, like old school, 24 fit in a shirt. I walk in and here's this fucking kid and Marcucci was young. He was, is he our age? He's between me and you. Yeah, so he was- So he was me. So I walk in as a manager of Sunnyvale. I'm 20, he's 19. So he's a young, just champion, right? I walk in. I walk in. Did he walk in with it? Did he have the personality that he's always said? I know him as. Hold on a second. Let me just explain, let me just tell you the story of it. Literally this is the first day I met Jason Marcucci. I walk- You're the GM at the time. I'm the new GM. Brand new. New GM. I walk in early. I have a meeting, all staff meeting, like 10 a.m. or something like that. So I walk in at 8 a.m. 15 minutes later, this fucking kid walks in with his purple polo shirt on, slacks, expensive, like snakeskin shoes. Like Ferragamos? Yes. That's so J. Hold on. I'm not done. And a briefcase. Yeah, a briefcase. Perfect. Jason did not have a briefcase. I swear to God. It's like my cousin Vinnie. He walks in, so you know him so well. You know that's exactly what he would do. Oh, I totally believe, you know what's awesome about that is anybody who knows anything about the gym industry too, like one of the biggest, I think the biggest or most common questions ever asked, right? Cause I've given probably, I don't know, thousands of interviews over the 10 years. And everybody always asks, what do I have to dress like? Because you know that in the gym life, it's pretty much like sweats and polo shirts. It's all casual. It's pretty casual. Like, so if you're a young kid fresh out of college, you're kind of concerned like, do I need to suit up for this or not? Most people actually don't even ask and they actually show up in sweats. Every once in a while, I would have somebody show up dressed nice, but definitely never had anybody roll up with a briefcase. Hold on. He comes to work. He's got a briefcase and he's got slacks on and shoes on. And he's like, you know, I'm like, hey, how you doing? And he puts out his hand. He's a 19 year old kid and he looked like a 19 year old. Mark, he still looks like he's got this baby face. He puts his hand down. He's like, hey, how you doing? He goes, all right, man, I'm here to make some money. Like, Oh, dude, I like, I looked at him like, this is, he's going to be a monster. And in Mark Gucci was a nightmare, a nightmare for most people to manage because he is the kind of person you had to put a chain on him. 100% and you had to hold them back. You had to hold them back because if you didn't, he would break every rule. He would go, he would do crazy shit. In fact, he worked for me twice. The first time was at Sunday and he was nuts. He was, so I was always pulling him back. Like, you can't do that. You can't do that. Don't say that. But he was a crush. He was breaking. What you mean, but you should explain the listeners what you mean by that because when you're back then, it was very car salesy. So you could write your own prices and then, oh, I'm going to cut it by 15% or, oh, I'll throw this in for free. Like we had a lot of flexibility back then. No, no, Markucci would make-ups. He would tell stories and shit. And you know, they were harmless, but they were obviously bullshit. They were lies. And it was just like, what do you do? Like I would talk to him about this kind of stuff, but he was always had to put a leash on him. The second time you worked for me, this is not a joke, by the way. Now I'm at Santa Teresa. This is years later. 24 Fitness has tried to mature. They have, they bring on this HR department. They try and everyone have these meetings. Okay guys, you got to say this. You can't say it this way. Everybody's got to be prepared or whatever. I bring Markucci back on board. Cause I'm like, he's a killer. I want him on my team. But I had this talk with him. I sat him down in my office and I said, listen. I said, it's not like it used to be, dude. You used to do crazy shit and I used to hold you back. I said, if you do crazy shit now, they'll fire you. And I can't do anything about it. Like I'm not, I don't have as much powers I used to have as a general manager. And I'll stand up for you if I can, but if I can't, you're fucked. Like, so be good. And you know, Markucci, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. And so he'd fucking destroy numbers and crush or whatever. Anyway, I come in one day and fucking HR's there, dude. And they bring me in the office with the operations manager and they have fucking surveillance video of Markucci climbing through the ceiling tiles, breaking into the operations manager's office to change the station. Cause the music, he don't like the music cause the music was boring. Now here's why you don't do that. The operations manager has the money. Right, right. And if you break in there- She's got the safe, all the important files of all the clients and stuff. And of course nothing was stolen. Markucci wasn't a thief. He never was. And he got fired because he fucking cl- And I remember sitting in my office with them looking at him like, you know why you got, like, you know you made a stupid decision, right? He's like, I know, you know, I don't know. Like, why the fuck did you do? He's like, the music was sucked. I'm like, I don't care, dude. This country, I'm over it. But anyway, Markucci pushed me in the sense of being, of having fun and getting creative and really brought up the atmosphere of the club. And then the third person that pushed me was Larry Evans, who is- Now back up real quick with the J because I know this is a part of your personality and because I know both of you very well. Is that something that you, like before him, were you less like that? Were you not like that? Cause I feel like you have that trade about you now where you have fun and like- I was, I was all, I've always been like that but when you see someone who's a master of it and that was Markucci, he's just the, he's a master of doing that. He's very intense, but he also is extremely creative and has a lot of fun and will bring the energy up all around him. Not even so much as a leader because he wasn't like, he wasn't very good at giving meetings and training and developing staff. That wasn't his thing. He was just- He's just a killer. He's just contagious. Like you have him in the room. If you go out with it, we all gonna go out one of these days. Oh bro, I've been out with him in situations like that. It's the, I'll tell you a story about going out with him. We went once- Make sure it's one that he won't, he won't get mad at you, tell. Yeah, hold on. Cause we're using his first and last. I know, I know way to say it. He'll be okay with this one. Yes, he'll be all right with this one. There was about- That's everybody else's names. There was about 10 of us that all, that were all going on. And I don't remember what it was, but it was a lot of the gym guys. So everybody fit, good looking young guys, all going out. It must've been a bachelor party or something. And we're actually like downtown San Jose. And we come walk, walking in. And I mean, and you know how you, I know exactly what you're trying to explain right now because the moment we get out the car, he's on. He's already on. Jay is the loudest person talking to everybody, leading the way, like, and I'm an outgoing four person. Anybody who knows me knows I'm very loud, outgoing four. Like I become like a shell of a man in this, with this guy. You just can't, he just- He dominates that world. He's, yeah, he's bigger, he's bigger than life in that situation. We won't, we come walking through. We're not even into the club. And then boom, there's this group of just bunch of hot girls. And they're like, all bachelorette girls, they're getting going out themselves. And he walks up and starts to introduce us as some baseball team. And he starts going, and he is just off the cuff, introducing each of us, our positions, what we just didn't, I mean, he had this whole story that he had made up and- Are you pre-playing? Oh, no, it's not even pre-playing. He just does this, right? On the, on the win. Yeah, like, I mean, because he had no idea those girls, 10 girls, like that many girls, that many guys, all of us. And it is a gift. Right away, he goes right up to the, the baddest one, starts talking to her all out and it introduced us all as, I can't even remember what baseball team he said we were. But then he starts going around, introduced some players, he's the catcher, he's the pitcher. This is, oh my God, he did this today. Like, he's just, that's so great. I had a friend like that in Chicago who introduced us all as like, we were on the bears because my roommate was like humongous, you know? And so we had this whole backstory going into that and it was just like, you know, like the entire group of girls were just like, what? It's a skill, dude. It's a skill. And although I'm good at it, I'm decent at it. I watched him- Yeah, no, James. And learned from- It's a fearlessness. And I'm not even talking about the bullshitting. It's just his energy. The dude's just fucking, he's like I said, he's a battery. Consistently. Like I've never seen, I've actually never seen him. And I've hung out with Jason a shit ton of times. I've never seen that guy slowing down. No, no, no. No, no, no. He's- It would trip me out to see him that way. He's unbelievable. He's an unbelievable- Different RPMs. Yeah, it's unbelievable. So then the other, the third person was Larry Evans, who you're also, you know very well as well, Adam. And Larry Evans was, probably is the most talented sales person naturally I've ever worked with in my entire life. He is, he's like, God, how would I explain it? Is it Kobe Bryant? He's like- No, you know who he reminds me of? He's a phenom. He reminds me of the character played by, in Jerry Maguire. And I always used to tell him this because I used to, whenever he'd call me, I love black people. I used to do that to him all the time. And it was because he wrote, his character, his personality, is that he's the only guy I've ever met that is ten times cockier than I am. And you still love him for it. Like you can, it doesn't come, it's so, it's weird. It's hard to explain, but if you've ever met somebody that is as fucking as cocky as they can come, but every bit of it you enjoy and it doesn't get annoying to you. No, so he walked in and we sort of- He's talented as fuck. He walked in, and you know he interviewed or he tried to get a job as a sales guy at Capitol, but they wouldn't even interview him. He came in to see me and he told me that. And he was wearing like a jersey, I think a basketball jersey. And I said, all right, we'll meet tomorrow. I said, show up like you want this job. And he fucking showed up like looking nice. We sat down and Larry is just, like I said, like you talk to him and right away, right away, I could see this incredible talent in him. And so when I unleashed him, and that's literally what I did is I unleashed him on the gym. And he was also a good student. So he was very, very trainable as well in the sense that he wasn't so cocky that Markucci had this quality about him that I didn't like where sometimes you couldn't tell him you know what he did wrong and what he should do right. Cause he'd battle you. Like you'd have these fucking arguments with Markucci, which I loved, but I also hated. Larry would sit there and he'd absorb it and then he'd put his own spin on and he'd do it better than you did. He would end up great analogy, the two of them for sure. He would do it better than you did. So watching Larry in the club sell memberships and sell training and sell whatever he wanted to. It was the first time in my life I truly felt like I could go head to head against somebody and I might not, I might not win. And I did a couple of times a couple of times to really pull out the best in him. I would compete against him and he'll argue this by the way till this day, I'll argue it, but I've got fucking evidence dude. We had a close out and I told him, let's see who can like, cause we, he would talk crap to me. Like I'm better than you were and blah, blah, blah. Cause he, you know, I'd talk about my heyday or whatever. And so we did a day where we went back to back and maybe he did beat me. He did. We went back to back and I beat him up until the last minute and he had one guest come in. I think he beat me by like 10 bucks and it was an awesome moment. He did beat me. That's right. And then I had this record as the general manager for personal sales at 24 Fitness, which stood at, I think it was like 44,000 something and commissionable personal sales. So as a general manager, you're not really supposed to sell a lot yourself, but they do encourage you to do it. Just be a good example. And I had the record in second place was like maybe 19,000. Like nobody would ever get close to that. And I thought nobody would ever break that record. It was there for years. And the person to break it was Larry Evans. He broke that record. Those three people definitely. To put in the perspective of those type of numbers, I'm glad you, because that is like a normal like back then, like what you had done was unthinkable and it shifted the way the company, a lot of people don't know that, but a lot of how they started to do business was shifted by a lot of these guys because before that like, and you know this because you were there back then, personal training wasn't the major focus. Like that was one of the first pieces that 24 Fitness put in before figured it out before anybody else did in the industry was if you sell them training, they have to get the membership. And when they began, and that was because- And they'll get fit and they'll use the gym and they'll have a point of contact. I mean, it just makes sense. Right, right. And there's guys like you and Larry and Jay back then that were the first ones to really start and do that. And before that, I mean, the numbers were like 50% of that. Well, no, less. Consider this. Yeah, it was like a 10th, right? Consider this. It was ridiculously good. Hillsdale, which in its heyday was producing over $100,000 in one month of just personal training, okay? And it's when I first became a trainer at Hillsdale, same club, same area, same everything, their goal was $13,000 total for personal training. Now for membership, for sales guys, if you sold over $1,000 of personal training a month, you were a God. Like you were fucking amazing. And I was coming in as a sales guy and I was blowing between 15 to 25,000 or by myself in personal training. And what it did is it changed. I was the first one to do it. It changed the atmosphere and how they started doing things. The sad thing is that they started reversing all that shit later on and turned into what they do now, which is nowhere near as revolutionary as they were before. Now it's just whole big box, price war type of thing that I think has been a total disservice to the industry. That's why they've been struggling for quite some time too. I mean, I tell you what, what they did then was so far ahead of their time. Like so many people modeled it after that, but God, it was crazy being a part of that scene. Larry did $50,000 in just personal training by him fucking self one month with me. When we set the record, so the only club that ever did more revenue on a single month was the Austin Club in Texas. They did, I think their theirs was 100 and 192,000, I think was in personal training in one month. And we did 187 that month and Larry did 50 by himself. I did 20 something and then my staff killed it, right? But man, it was so fun working with a guy like that. But I tell you what, Larry and I are really good friends. I didn't learn a lot from him. But that time in my career, him and I got together towards the end of my career. And by that time, I had been with Mark and Austin. I've been in years of training and stuff. And I've been a manager already for like six years. So kind of grown up for sure. And I definitely had refined a lot of my skills through being mentored by a lot of these talented guys. Well, then I get Larry, and I remember before I worked with Larry, everybody was like, cause they found out him and I were gonna be together. They're gonna put, so at that time I was in killing it. The top fitness guy, top manager at GM. And this was the first time, well, not the first time, but this is like one of the first times that they had intentionally done this, right? Where they took him out of a club, me out of a club, both places we are destroying. They're like, let's put our top performing FM with our top performing GM and let's see what we can do in one of our best clubs, Sillsdale. And I came in to replace another guy that was failing who we all know in the fitness business, cause he wasn't cutting it in that club. And we come in and everybody was like, you gotta find out what Larry's doing. Cause everyone thought he was cheating. That's the, well- Everyone thought he was cheating and kinking deals and doing shady stuff. Because he worked, why? Because he worked for me and people thought I did that shit. So they're thinking, oh, he just taught Larry how to fucking bullshit and cheat and, you know, but he's the real deal. Oh yeah, that was so crazy. It was everybody, and I'll never forget this day. I remember my first day of work with him because I was literally like spying on him. Like I was like, I gotta figure this guy out. Cause something I prided myself on was I was a chameleon. I was able to work with anybody and by the end of the day, I could do you. Like I could watch you and I could see the way you talk and how you present, how you are with your guests, your mannerisms. That's all I am, open up in the bar. And I could do that. So Larry, right away I have this mentality. I'm gonna come, mentality. I'm gonna come in and I'm gonna watch everything that he does. And I'm watching him and I'm waiting for something magical to happen. The dude's closing deals. And but he's not saying anything extra fancy. He's not doing anything different out of his tour. He just has this- Like I said, he's fucking, he's, I don't know how to explain it. He is, he's natural. Well, yeah, he's- He's the most gifted salesperson I've ever met. He would go into his office and I remember watching this and I would listen to him talking to people. He didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. Like he did not know shit about training. And I would listen to this stuff. But the way he explained it, it wasn't necessarily wrong. He just, he explained it how it made sense to him and he did such a good job at committee. I'll tell you, that's what I did take from him. I will say that he helped me gain a new level of confidence when we worked together because I'm like, this motherfucker does it. I thought I was like, oh, it's a little, I felt like I didn't know a lot about this. This motherfucker didn't know. And he was the best. Like he was the best at doing what he did. He was the guy that would get hugs. People would hug him. Oh, yeah. They'd buy, oh, I just spent $3,000 on this. And they'd give him a hug because he would, like, I get a hug. He walked him in good. Only person I ever worked with that ever bumped one of my deals. Only time that's ever. Only time, one time in my life. And the time he did it to me, it was the most, in my opinion, like I remember what we used to do is. I got a story about that. So what we used to do, for whatever people, those that are listening to have no fucking clue what I'm talking about. So a bump deal would be that I go over to get like approval from my manager. I sold this person a membership, 20 sessions, whatever. And then when he actually says goodbye to them and welcomes to the club, he sells them more. Yeah. And that, to me, you're a punk. Like that means I didn't do my job well enough of like this person, my boss gets ahold of it and now he thinks that person can use more of self. Bro, that was a power move. Right, it was. So nobody has ever done that to me, ever. You gotta remember, I get Larry like seven years later in my career and the first time it happens to me here. And I'll tell you what, I was showing off when he did it, which is what made it even crazier was I took somebody on. Oh, he did a smart move. He did that because you showed off probably. Well, no, it wasn't like that. Larry and I had already been together for a long time. Like we were already close and friends, but it was like him and I had both agreed. Like today we needed, we had hit numbers. And so him and I were taking every guest. And what I would do is I would take them on my tour and it'd be like an hour tour because I would do body fat test on people. I'd talk to them for like 15 minutes about their body, their deviations, I'd break them all down. And then I would bring them back. And when I would bring them back, I would present to Larry what they needed. This is what this person, this is what she needs. This is what he needs. They want to come this many days. I'd have it all laid out for him. He just had to close the deal. And we are a great team. That was the, and then I brought a guest and what was so impressive about it was, I could get somebody, I could get you in an hour tour. You would feel close enough to me that you would be willing to share like your bank statement with me and say like, this is how much money I have. I can invest this much. I can do that, but I can't do anymore. Well, I would get to that point. And I knew that this guy was like, he just lost his job. He was a butcher. They told me everything. They told me their financial situation. So I remember telling Larry like, hey, just so you know, like when I passed it off to him, this is your situation. So be careful. You might have a hard time getting this if you have to drop to this. And I set it up, T.O. nice. Like, and then it's, boom, comes back. So I was like, what? I have a story with Larry. So I bumped one of his sales. And so Larry bumped it again. I literally bumped it and then he bumped it. Which is unheard of, dude. Which is great because, so here's a funny thing about Mokuchi and Larry, both of them exceptional at what they do. Both of them could be each other depending on the circumstance. And if I were to analyze myself, I would say I'm a merge of both Mokuchi and Larry. How fun it would be to put the two of them on the show together. Well, oh my God. If you had a gym that had, if it was a grand opening club, and it was just guest after guest coming in, and you needed speed, you needed fast, you needed that kind of shit, Mokuchi would beat Larry. If you had a normal circumstance where it was quality with your customer and all that stuff, Larry would win. All day, all day, Larry. Jason was speed, Larry, and that was like comparing like- That's so funny, dude, that's it. And Mark is the one who taught me the speed side of the business, right? So I had- Mokuchi would have people waiting while he was touring another person. He would do three presentations at the same time. He'd have three desks occupied with presentations. Never seen that before until I worked with Mokuchi. Yeah, that was a Mark move too. That's how he was. I mean, that was the things that I, I get my, you know, I get all crazy here at Mind Pump when I'm like pushing, wanting more, faster, faster, faster, faster. That's all from him. He installed that. I mean, because I had never worked with somebody. See, now once I got to the GM FM level, you know, you know, rotate, I go through all these different other managers I work with, all had attributes of, if you're in leadership, like you have attributes about you that set you apart from the average person. So there's great things to take from anybody, right? But then every once in a while, you meet someone who's special. And I remember Mark was probably one of the most special guys that I ever met. And the biggest takeaway that I got from him was, you know, at his level, you know, when you get to the management position, like if there was ever a time that you could let off the reins, that's when you're mostly salaried, you're paid on the percentage of the club. Like if you do a good job of leading, like you could cruise a little bit when you get good at it. And there were some managers that did that. Yeah, a lot. And they were good at it. A lot, yeah, yeah. No, I actually got good at it later in my career. And I, my last four years of my career, I admit this all the time that I was on cruise control. I'm making good, I knew I could hit, I could outperform almost anybody in our region. I could put my feet up and have a great atmosphere in my club. Like it was awesome. Work was great. But Mark, man, there's no way if he was working with me, could I do that? Like, cause I just felt bad. This dude would be the first one in, the last one out. Yeah, he was a grinder for sure. He'd work seven days a week. He'd be running three presentations at the same time. Like, you know, he would be doing, he'd be doing the front desk girl's job. He would be doing the maintenance guy's job. I mean, he did everything. Like he did everything and never stopped. He was the one who got me on the drinking speed stacks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He passed it on to me. Right, and then I passed it on to Jeff. It was the only performance enhancing drug. It's the only way I could keep up with this motherfucker. Like, and it, to the point It's contagious, man. Where, and you talk about, I know Dee, who was always, you know, pushing you by challenging you. Like he would, Mark would push me that direction with work. Like, oh, sleep, pussy. You know what I'm saying? Like really? And he would always, and he'd be trying to beat me to work all the time. So that work ethic, I was, and I was already, I thought a hard worker, but man, when he, when we worked together and he did all this stuff that you didn't want to do, dude. And it taught me something about business though. Well, I mean, we broke records that nobody had ever done in that club for a long time that we were together. So, you know, and it was a, it was the shit hole club that I talked about the other day. It was the worst, one of the worst clubs in the company. Everybody knew that. And we broke records out of that club. And a lot of that was because of him and his leadership and the things that he did. Like that was, nobody wanted to do that. Nobody wanted to be a GM, getting their fucking mop in the floor, getting in there, making the phone calls for all, for all the counselors. Putting flyers on, yeah. That's all the grunt work. You don't want, when you get into management, you delegate all that shit out, but he knew he could make, he could do it better and he can make a bigger impact. And so he did it all. It's the work horse. Oh, just, yeah. I mean, man, it just, and it's, I sometimes I get frustrated here because we're doing such big things, right? We've always got these big projects that we each have to handle that we miss sometimes all those little tiny details. And it's like, I want that, like, God, we got to do that. We got to push that. We got to do those things because those things matter. I've seen what it does when you actually put that effort into it, but man, it's a monster. He was definitely a major influencer and super talent. I saw him do numbers like Larry, like Markucci, just in his own way, right? Through work ethic that way. I think finding an environment like that, I mean, for us at least, it was so pivotal in turning us into who we are today. And I think it's an important thing to really factor in when you're getting a job or you're working or who you're surrounding yourself with. I mean, think about it, like you work for some of these dynamic companies because we were in fitness, right? So we were in the industry of fitness and the dynamic company to work for at the time was 24 Fitness and the part of or the region or the area of 24 Fitness where you would really find it being performed at that level was the Bay Area, kind of where it started, right? Because it started in the Bay Area. So these are all the first clubs. Right, I mean, really, that's the idea, right? Like if you're in tech, gosh, I mean, imagine being a part of Google as it's growing or YouTube as it's growing or Netflix as it's growing, all of the things you're gonna learn and that atmosphere, it really disappears when a company gets really large. Oh yeah, I watched it. You can't keep it because all these startups talk about this process. And how nostalgic it is for them because they always remember those times where they actually had that interaction, that one-to-one interaction with their customers. They spent the time to work on all these details whereas they get so removed from that as growth happens and then they always try and revisit that and try and recreate it. And that's something that like, all these startup companies, there is definitely an appeal to that, that energy in the very beginning and everybody's so positive and you're doing it for a reason and a purpose. And I think that once it's tough to kind of keep that sort of passion and that mentality going into like new growth periods in your business. Well, it's like the book I'm reading, Find Your Why, you know, with Simon Sennett. Yeah, Find Your Why, exactly. Yeah, like that, it's, your memories go back to it. Yeah, exactly, and I think that's something that we always try and practice, right? Cause we can get to a point where we're, you know, spread thin and it's, it's why I like us talking about how we work out and we work in the business, right? So we work in the business most days cause we're in here having to put out content. It takes a lot of effort to put as much content as we do out consistently. So that's a big part of the business. But so sometimes we get so consumed by that that we're not handling all the things where the business needs to be going or is currently going or things that have, we started that we haven't completed. Like it's really, it's a monster man when it gets to that level. And it's, you got always to remember what the why was and why we started this and go back and unpack to that and then work your way back. Yeah, I never, I never wanted to work in or manage or lead a bunch of jobs. I never wanted to do that. When I ran clubs, it wasn't, people were not showing up to do their job. They were showing up because they had a purpose and they were showing up because they loved it. And what I mean by that, they loved it. They didn't like it always, but they always loved it because sometimes it was hard, sometimes it sucked. Sometimes it was growth, but everybody wanted to be there because they felt it was bigger than the job title. I would have kids club attendees would attend meetings with me and we talk about certain things. And I used to go in the kids club and play with the kids and talk to them and hang out and discuss the why, why are you here? Why are you watching the kids in the kids club? And they would always look at me funny like, because it pays me 10 bucks an hour and I'm like, no, you're actually a part of something bigger and their parents are working out and I would really explain this concept to them. And it just, it became contagious. And I think working and we were part of an environment that was like that and I didn't invent that environment. I was part of it and I created in the clubs that I ran, but the growth and here's the thing too, it was an intense environment. We worked a lot. One year working in that environment is worth five somewhere else in terms of, and I'm talking about everything. How tired you were, how much energy put out, how much you grew, how much you learned, all the shit you experienced. Oh, how many people, just simply mathematically, how many people you see? Cause you gotta think of pure concentrated traffic. Right, I mean, I think that's anybody who works in a place like that and then goes out on their own, learns that lesson real quick, right? Cause you think, you know, you think, oh, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna start my business and I'm gonna get into fitness and I'm gonna do this by myself or I don't wanna give this company half of my money for not doing anything. I'm doing all the work, I'm training them. Like that's the mentality of a trainer. And then they do that and then they go, oh fuck, there's not 2,000 people walking through the door every single day in front of me. Boy, what do I kill for having 2,000 people that are all trying to hit a goal and I know they're trying to do hit a goal and they care about health and fitness cause they're in the gym, obviously and they're paying for their membership. How much I would pay for those people to be in front of me right now now that I'm on my own business, running my own business and I don't have that anymore and all of a sudden you go like, oh fuck. This is gonna be a little challenge. A completely different monster. That's why it blew me away when the direction of the company went. I remember sitting in a meeting and they were showing how they were gonna change the direction and it was literally like statistics. Like we have more gyms than anybody. Our gyms typically have more equipment, better equipment. So all we need to do is charge this price and then we'll take over. Like we're gonna dominate. Nobody's gonna wanna go anywhere else. It's very easy. You should be able to walk into a gym and order your membership like you're looking at a menu at a restaurant. I remember them saying this and I remember thinking in my head like, I'm not gonna be here very long because you have no idea. Totally removed. You have no idea what you're talking about because I could walk into a gym and within that same month, I could sometimes double the revenue. Many, most times, at least bump it by 15 to 25%. Sometimes I double it. Now you tell me if how a person walking into a club with an even with a team can double revenue in a month. Is that because the gym changed? Or is that because the atmosphere changed and the people inside the gym? When they were saying that and I was like, this is gonna destroy everything. And sure enough, it changed the whole landscape to where now, big box gyms are not what they used to be at all. They don't place the same value on things that they were. For a while, they were putting a lot of money in personal training and how to get the best trainers and how to develop that type of stuff, how to keep members. Now it's just like, now you've got these Planet Fitness gyms. I was looking at statistics and how that in-home usage of like, just using like new streaming companies provide like information and fitness in-home for them to have their workouts and the availability with that. And then Netflix and all these types of businesses that popped up that are providing these streaming services, like it's already shifted. Like there's a lot of people that don't own gym memberships anymore. Well, look how many- That was something I was surprised when I started looking at our listeners. We have a lot of people, how many times we get asked about like at-home gyms? What will I need for maps? What tools will I need? I think it's a lot bigger than people realize. It is, it's definitely more than what I thought. Because I don't like it, you know what I'm saying? So I'm like, I'm not a big lift at home person, but a lot of people are. It is, but what we need to consider is, so convenience plays a factor, price pays a factor. Of course, equipment in the gym or equipment that you have plays a factor. But the largest factor by far that will determine whether or not somebody embarks on a lifetime of fitness and consistency with their fitness is all psychological. It's none of the other things, none of them. Because as many home gyms as there are that people use, there's five times as many that people don't touch. People buy equipment and this is why the resale value of home equipment is dirt is shit. Because you go on Craigslist, you can find anything you want because people buy them and then never use it. Well, this is also- And there's a gym on every corner now. Well, now you have direction. This is- I don't know. So Peloton is killing it right now. Do you know that company? Peloton, it's like a, you know how like SoulCycle and all these kind of companies are coming out that it's a group environment. Everything's like cool and all that. Well, they're replicating that group environment feel on your TV now and it's killing it. So I honestly, yeah, that has been a dinosaur thing like where people buy some equipment just gonna gather dust, they're gonna put their fucking clothes on it and use it like as a rack. But it's these engaging people, like these engaging classes you can sign up for real time with instructors and you see other people like virtually in the class and there's this group kind of synergy to it that never existed before. Well, there's more people using cell phones than have a gym membership. The average gym membership, they're cheap now. You can get a gym membership for 20 bucks. Cell phone bill is 100 bucks on average, if not more. It's not cost, it's not convenience. There's a factor that's missing that they have not understood forever. CrossFit grew because of it. All these small studios are growing because of it. It's culture. It's that culture, it's that social component, it's that psychological component. Speaking to the social component and we didn't wanna do this early on in the business because we didn't like it because we attached it to a lot of fitness idiots out there but there is something and there's a reason why they're so successful and I think that we can take a page out of that book with our own business model and we can enhance it a bit, make it better is the challenges. And I knew we didn't wanna do it because we were not about this like, oh, get shredded in 30 days type of bullshit but doing some like a 12 week challenge, something that's over three months but what that does because why we didn't do it before because I was thinking, well, that's stupid. We don't wanna market ourselves that way. We don't like how people do that but the reality is, now that we've been doing this for several years and thousands of people have the program lots of people, if we statistically know better I know we all know better more than probably 50% of them have fallen off and giving them a cool challenge where they could potentially win money is a cool way to remotivate them to, you know what? I've been meaning to fucking start my maps program I've been off of it for six months shit, they're gonna do a challenge for the next 12 weeks I'm gonna do this, you know what I'm saying? And then build a community around it there's people interacting with each other. I think it's worth us exploring and going this route because now that we've been doing it I didn't like trying to do that at the very beginning because then I didn't wanna come off like that. Well, I think sometimes we, and this is true for anything in life, you see something you don't like, something about it, right? So you reject it completely, you know what I'm saying? When, and then you start to come back around and say, okay, there's good parts to it and there's some stuff that's good to it. I'm just gonna have to change this other component. Yeah, the one that's glaring. That's right, because the challenges have all been fucking cheesed out and bastardized and turned into it. Well, what made me think about this was this, right? And they're dishonest, yeah. What made me really think about this was just recently when Ben Pak and I were talking and we're like, we kind of threw it out to each other that we challenge ourselves to get it in our killer shape for Olympia, right? And I thought, you know what? Like I've been going about my fitness and training but I haven't been as focused as I am right now but that's because I threw out a competition with somebody. You got immediate accountability. Even myself, exactly. So even myself who I don't, so I think that there's a need there for it. Maybe when we had maybe just a couple hundred people when we first started, maybe not so much like because most of us people are following it, right? But now there's probably a few thousand people that have maps and are just not using it right now. And if we threw like a maps challenge, like a 12-week challenge and we do some sort of a transformation or we do something. It would just immediately be a lot more eyes on your process. Right, and we build a little community around it. So maybe there's a separate forum for all the people that are going through the challenge. We could have some fun talking trash back and forth. Just build some cool energy around it and a little community of people that are going through it. And then if we have people register, everyone puts a little money in the pot. We have a huge cash prize went out afterwards. Yeah, the way I look at it, for me at least, is if it can get people introduced into fitness and then we do the rest where we can work on that psychological piece. Hopefully they listen to the podcast and it becomes a part of their life. It gives us a better opportunity to be able to make that kind of an impact than to me it's a no-brainer. Yeah, I think it's cool. I definitely think we should do that for sure. Check this out, 30 days of coaching available by Mind Pump and it's available for free. All you gotta do is go to mindpumpmedia.com, register yourself and you'll get 30 days worth of fitness information. You'll get episodes on particular topics like carbohydrates, proteins, fats, muscle building, fat loss, meditation, wellness, whatever, and we'll time stamp them so you can actually listen to this section that talks about that specific topic along with more information that goes into greater detail on that topic. It's free, so do it, mindpumpmedia.com. Also, you can find us on Instagram. Our page is Mind Pump Media. My personal page is Mind Pump Sal. Adam is Mind Pump Adam and Justin is Mind Pump Justin. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. 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