Hey guys, welcome back to the homework assignment podcast.
I'm your host, RJ Petino.
And today we are very excited because we have Terrence Johnson here with TI Fitness.
He's actually my personal trainer and he's amazing.
He's had some great insights for us today.
So welcome Terrence.
Thank you for having me, big dog.
Appreciate it.
Why don't you tell us what you do?
Well, outside of destroying lives and trying to help people get a little bit better, man,
the biggest thing I do is I help people understand where they are and help them mirror where they
are and where they want to be and find that medium.
Okay.
Yeah, so one, I'm really excited because so you have your own business obviously and
there's we're going to get into the story about how that was created and get some details
on that.
But what's also really cool is in being part of your program, I noticed obviously you
train a lot of business owners as well that kind of, you know, they're all over the place
from roofing to landscape to, I know, Stacey does like, you know, as a farm and stuff.
So you kind of get to see the different lifestyles of different entrepreneurs, which is really
interesting.
And so I'm really excited to kind of dig into that a little bit to kind of get some opinions.
We don't have to use any names or anything, you know what I mean?
But I just kind of dig in a little bit and see where there or different people's mentalities
are in the different industries that they're in.
So so TI Fitness, when did that start?
So we started December of 2009.
2009.
So 12, 11, 12, 11, oh, nine.
That's amazing.
So how many years is that?
We're approaching 15.
15 years.
Fantastic.
And so how did that get started?
You know, every everybody RJ has that that aha moment or or they say entrepreneurs, they're
always there.
They just are looking for that part in mine is I don't feel like mine's any different
than anybody else.
I was working for a company thought I'd be there.
And then I just didn't like how they were doing things.
And I don't know if you read the E-Meth book, but then all of a sudden there was just that
moment where I was like, okay, they didn't like my ideas.
And basically just said, if I don't like how they do things, I should just go ahead and
open up my own thing.
And that was it.
So I was like, well, hell with it.
Fine.
Cash in.
Let's do it.
All right.
So you went all in from that point.
Went all in.
How was that experience?
I was like, what?
That was an interesting ride.
Because you know what?
And the biggest thing RJ is I knew how to like, because all the times I've been in fitness
before that, like, you know, so I started with big companies.
I was a lifetime fitness.
I was a peer fitness.
And I learned, I knew how to do payroll.
I knew how to manage teams.
I knew how to hit goals.
I knew how to get clients, all those different things.
But in all that time, I didn't understand or even know how to run a business.
Yeah.
At least I thought I did.
Right.
So then I just went in.
I was like, okay, well, I know pricing on equipment.
I know good pricing, bad pricing.
So I went in, bought all the equipment that I felt that I would need for my space and
to do what I needed to do.
And then that's where I started.
And I bought equipment and then I literally put the word out that, hey, you know what?
I hadn't been training in a long time.
I put it out there.
Hey, you know what?
I'm going to get my own spot.
I'll be training again.
And then went from zero people to 10 people in a month.
And then from there, went from 10 to 30 and a few months after that, and then we were
rolling.
And then my wife and I, we had our, had our child.
This was number five for us.
And at that point I was like, it's kind of loud to be training people in the crib.
I need to go get my own space.
But I went and got a brick and mortar knew nothing about good pricing, bad pricing.
I was just like, okay, that's 2,400 square feet.
Okay.
It's going to be 1,500 bucks a month in rent.
Okay.
That seems fair.
Okay.
Let's do it.
And I did it.
And then all of a sudden trainers who used to work for me in the past, they, the company
that I worked for sold and they didn't like the new ownership.
So they asked if they can come on board with me.
And then this is where I made, started making every business mistake you possibly can make.
Like I said, I knew nothing about how to run a business.
I just understood payroll.
So I went into it from a standpoint of percentages.
I'm like, okay, well, this is the percentages we paid it.
Lifetime this percentage is we paid it pure fitness.
So I just kept on those percentages.
And month after month after month, you know, I thought we were doing great.
I look at my wife and she tells me there's nothing there.
I'm like, what do mean is nothing there.
I'm working hard.
I don't understand when you tell me like there's no money there.
I don't understand that.
And she's like, well, there's no money there.
She's like, payroll is this, the building is this, the expenses, this and, and then
so that was all the business mistakes I made at the beginning in years one to two years
two to want to say seven or eight.
Those were the dumbest mistakes.
So I like compounded my mistakes even more.
So and that's why I said, I'm going to be real with you.
So we had a 2,400 square foot space.
I was paying 1500 bucks a month in rent.
I thought that that was just really sleazy because when I taught people, they're like,
Oh, do you only pay 1500 bucks?
Dude, something's not right.
And then you'll kind of find out, you know, maybe it wasn't right, but that was a hell
of a deal.
So then I felt like we had our grew the space.
So there was opportunity to go get 4,800 square feet.
So my mind, I was like, well, if I get two times the space, we'll make two times the
money.
Yeah.
And that was exactly my thought process.
There was nothing else other than that.
I didn't look at, wait a minute, I'm going from paying 1500 bucks a month to now I'm about
to pay nine grand a month.
I didn't make the correlation.
And for those four and a half years at our space on Greenfield Warner, I went from barely
making it to now there's like the stress is real.
I'm completely upside down.
Very upside down.
Luckily I was living close enough to the newest location that we moved to where there were
times I was like, dude, I can't afford to be driving.
I'll just walk.
So sometimes I walked, I ran, rode my bike.
I was like, it's going to work out.
I know it's going to work.
And it didn't.
Yeah.
Absolutely did not.
It did not work.
So that's why I'm in the location that you've met me at now.
I realized that it wasn't working.
I went to that landlord said, I can't keep doing this.
Can we just, can I break my lease?
Can we work out a deal to where I pay you?
I know I signed the lease for X amount of time.
When we work out something where we just don't get litigation involved, because then he's
getting lawyers, I'm getting lawyers and it makes the bill even harder.
So we settled on a number.
I moved out.
That's why I'm in Valveston, Elliot now.
And I was like, okay, I got to start this thing over and I need to learn what I didn't
learn.
So I went from 2400 square feet to 4,800 square feet to 20, gosh.
20, 2100 square feet and started over and started trying to learn, got some coaches.
I was like, okay, I need to know what I don't know.
So I started getting some coaches.
This coach was telling me this, this coach was telling me this, all these different
coaches started trying to make adjustments to payroll.
And fast forward through all that.
I lost, when I made that move, again, lots of business errors.
When I made that move over there, in my mind, I thought, okay, I'm going down in square
footage, but I'm not going that far in distance.
It was only three miles.
So I'm like, okay, three miles is not a big deal.
Three miles is not a big deal.
Lost half my clients.
Geez.
Because we moved three miles.
But at the time I didn't factor in, well, I'm moving three miles, not this way.
I moved three miles north.
So that three miles was an additional 10 minutes of driving for people.
In addition to, some of them are already been doing 15.
So now there's 25 minutes.
So now that's an hour of driving for them, an hour of the workout.
They're like, I don't have two hours like that.
And you also lost some people there.
So we lost a bunch of clients, lost every trainer, started back over with just, so it
was me and one other trainer.
And that was it.
And literally it was me and her, and I'll always be grateful and amy for this, man.
Me and her, just the two of us, Monday through Saturday.
Sun up to sundown.
Sun up to sundown, just me and her for a quite a period of time.
And we would take turns on the Saturdays so that way I could rest, she can rest.
Let me talk real quick.
So when was the timeframe of you going from Greenfield and Warner to Valveston Elliott?
So I went to Valveston Elliott in 2016.
So I started in 2009, moved everything out of the house I was renting in 2010, moved
it to the brick and mortar on Lindsay and Warner, was there for a year, moved over to
Greenfield Warner, want to say 2011, was there for four and a half years, then moved to Valveston
Elliott in 2016.
Got it.
And that's where we've been that since.
For 10 years, no, eight years, right?
Yeah, eight years.
Yeah, because obviously like looking at where you're at now, these are way different.
So obviously you made it work.
Yeah.
First and foremost, right?
So I want to backtrack a little bit of kind of the main lesson you spoke about in that
story and that is thinking you knew enough to start a business, but realizing you know
nothing about business.
Facts.
That is the number one, and this is my opinion, the number one mistake new business owners
make is that they're like, like for me in construction, hey, there's a bunch of people
like when COVID hit, there was a huge surplus in work.
Everybody's just remodeling because nobody could fly anywhere.
Right.
They're spending all their vacation money putting in their homes, which was fantastic,
but I had all these guys that were leaving companies leaving my company and starting
their own thing.
Oh, I have a hammer.
I have this.
I know how to do this.
I can start my own company.
They're no longer companies now because they didn't make it.
And that was because what people don't realize, and this is really important for anybody that's
starting to create a business now, but what people don't realize is that business running
a business has nothing to do with the trade or the industry.
Facts.
And just like you're saying, hey, well, I knew how to do a payroll.
I knew how to do all this.
And then you got into it, well, crap.
You didn't know how to look at it right.
You didn't know your numbers.
And that's part of the whole business.
At the beginning of any entrepreneur, in my opinion, they say that within five years,
small businesses go out of business for stuff like that.
Because that's why I'm referencing the e-myth book.
And if you've never read the book, I haven't read that one yet.
I've heard of it though.
It just really comes down to the, and the e-myth stands for entrepreneurial myth.
Everybody goes, oh, wait a minute.
I know how to do this.
I'm going to go start my own thing.
And I'm going to be rich and successful.
I'm going to have financial freedom.
I'm going to do something that I really love and everything that's going to work out.
And it's BS.
That's not how business works.
Business does not work like that.
Everybody, you know, and the biggest mistake that most people make, it's thinking that
you know what you know.
You know nothing about leases.
You don't understand taxes.
You think you might understand payroll, but you don't.
Right?
And then there's all the expenses.
The expenses are probably the biggest thing that people just don't see here and go like,
they sneak up on you.
Yeah.
They're like, over here.
Well, wait a minute.
Well, oh shoot.
Well, the AC went out.
Oh, I thought that was on me.
Oh, okay.
I got to call someone to get that out.
Oh, there's a trip charge for that.
There's this charge for that.
Oh, plumbing.
Oh, that's on me.
Oh, wait a minute.
So when my equipment broke that I need to do my job, all these different things that,
you know, people just don't realize.
Yeah, sure.
Everything is an expense and people who just don't know, don't know.
And if you've been an employee, you think you know, but you really don't because you've
never looked at all that.
You've never looked at what it caused to do this.
You never looked at a power bill.
I remember one time somebody was asking me, because I'd like to be transparent.
They're like, you know, what is your power bill here like?
They're like, you know, I know this is smaller than my house, right?
They have like a 5,000 square foot house.
I'm like, yeah, my power bill, you know, you know, on average is about four or five hundred.
I was like, bro, my power bill is a thousand and up.
Yeah.
I'm like, well, a thousand and up.
I'm like, yeah, I'm like, you know, your home is meant to be run efficient off all these
different things.
Your home will never get the same usage that a business gets.
So that door opening and closing, like that old adage, I tell people, I'm like, hey, you
know, when your mom would say close the door, because it's letting out the air out.
That's real.
Yeah.
That air is going to ride out and the money is going to ride out with it.
You know what I mean?
But it's just stuff that people don't think, you know, it's some stuff as simple as, you
know, and it's, and it's funny you mentioned that because until you become an entrepreneur,
you might not have thought about it either.
So now when I sit there and I'll be someplace and I'll see somebody grab a cup and then
y'all, and maybe they grab three by accident and they throw two in the trash.
I'm like, you just literally threw away somebody's money.
Yeah.
That's money you just threw in the trash.
Like it was nothing.
Yep.
But you don't know what you know until you know.
Yeah.
And these are the miscellaneous.
I mean, so you've made them, I've made them.
I know every successful person we know has made all these mistakes long.
Oh, sex.
Sex and others.
Yeah.
I have some mistakes.
I'm like, yeah, I shouldn't know.
I kind of saw that coming.
Still made it, but it's definitely part of the journey.
And so you're talking about, so obviously you worked for a couple of gyms before you
had to do Fidden SK.
My question is, what is the difference in the, so you went from a, being an employee,
you had a, let's say a nine to five, right?
So now you have a schedule for like that schedule you had from Monday through Saturday, right?
So what is the difference between a, when you're an employee and you're working for
a company and you have your set hours versus having your own business?
Well, that one's easy.
That one's probably the easiest question you can ask me.
When you're an employee, when you clock out.
Gone.
You're gone.
Yeah.
When you clock out, you go on vacation.
Oh, just TV.
You go to the hospital.
Yeah.
Anything.
When you clock out, it's done.
Like period, no matter what, like you clocked out any, your stuff's done.
When you own the business, there is no clocking out.
You can say you're clocking out, but there is no clocking out.
I've had times where, just to give you an example, I've had times where I've left work,
gotten a phone call from the security department because the alarm went off at one in the morning.
Got to get up.
I got to get up.
Got to get over there, find out what's happening.
No matter what, any and all problems, your phones ringing.
And yeah, you might have scaled your business to a certain degree where, okay, maybe now
that call doesn't come to you and it comes to somebody else, but there is no, oh, I work
40 hours.
If somebody was to ask me, I have no idea.
Do not count how many hours I work because when I wake up, it's here to here.
And about the only thing I've worked on doing is like trying to like shut it down in enough
time to be present when I'm around my family.
Otherwise, I don't count how many hours I work.
So when you're an employee, 40 hours, yeah, you work 40 hours.
Truth be told though, I feel like as an employee, you don't work 40 hours.
And clock in 40 hours, but you work 30 hours.
Right?
Yeah.
When you own that business, you work every hour.
So there's 168 hours in the week, all 168, you work it.
You work in your sleep.
You work when you're on vacation.
You're always working.
Yeah.
And I think that right there, the misconception of that creates the two different, or I guess
the understanding of that creates the two different types of business owners.
I've met and I guess since I've been alive, but my career, but and that is you have the
guys who understand that and they understand that even when you're able to delegate, even
when you grow and you have employees and you can maybe come in for six hours on a day,
you're still working 24 seven, those guys excel and continue to grow.
Then you have the business owners that don't understand that they think, oh, now I got
this little bit of freedom.
And so now I'm actually not going to do anything.
And then they say stagnant and they don't move forward.
There's those two different types in my opinion that I've seen is like, I don't know if that's
them not understanding.
Maybe that, Hey, if that's what they want, then that's what they want.
That's great.
But typically most entrepreneurs, they're here to grow and they want to keep on growing.
They want to keep on, keep that hustle alive.
Right?
Absolutely.
And so, so now we're talking about employee versus entrepreneur.
I kind of want to tackle and get your opinion on because you deal with trainers and to me,
I feel like an opinion of mine, you know, I went from paying 10 bucks a month at EOS,
right?
This gym that I go to, I was kind of, I went every day.
I definitely didn't work out as hard as you make me work out.
I mean, I've definitely seen results, just phenomenal.
I mean, I'm paying significantly more for that.
But for me, that never like getting a trainer or being a part of like, what's the F?
At 45.
At 45, stuff like that.
I was like, yeah, I just, to me, it didn't make sense to pay so much money when I go
work out myself.
And after dealing with you, I'm like, okay, like one, I trust you.
I like the stuff you're putting me through.
I believe in you as a trainer to actually, you know, you're putting me on the right path
that I want to be on.
And I, it's the values there for what I'm paying.
So I'll start there.
What I would say is, you know, if you were like, say, Hey, man, I'm so I'm going to stop
training.
I want you to train with one of my trainers.
To me, I'd be like, okay, who are these people?
Are they as good as you?
So that comes into play.
What comes into play there is, you know, the entrepreneurship of the people you hire, right?
So we got employees that worked at nine to five, and then you got the people that really
care and actually make something of themselves inside of a business.
What do you look for in the people you hire to know like, Hey, these are, this is somebody
I want a part of my company that's going to help me grow my company and not just be that
nine to five clock in, clock out, and then not worry about the growth.
So the biggest things I'm looking for for people is that they have a willingness to
fail.
So because here's what happens.
If you're not willing to fail, that means you're going to look for me to micromanage
this shit out of you.
I have zero interest in micromanaging you.
I have none.
I have a training manual.
I have a phone and you have your eyes and we have meetings.
If you're unwilling to fail, you will not be able to work for me.
There's only one rule we have at TI and it's a super simple one and we've grown it over
time, but it's, it's now it's kind of down to a science.
The only failure you can make at our place is you get someone hurt.
That's it.
Only failure.
Everything else can be corrected.
Everything else can be fixed.
If you gave somebody too many sets, okay, we can fix that.
If you made somebody too sore, we can fix that.
But if you hurt somebody, it is, it is damn hard to fix that because now you took that
person's trust.
They told you where they were.
They told you the condition they were coming in and they told you the goals and nobody's
goals to come in and say, Hey, I want to get f'd up.
That's not a goal.
Right.
There's one thing if all of a sudden it's like, okay, just a little tweak.
Right.
All of a sudden someone's like completely messed up or now it's like, you know, they
got to get a physical therapist.
You know, you know, they got to go get a surgery that we failed miserably.
So that's the only, so I tell everybody upfront, it's the only failure that is unexcusable for
us.
Everything else, you have to be willing to fail.
So they'll ask me a question and they'll say, Hey, Terrence, I was writing this person's
program and I know this was their goals.
What do you think?
And they'll be like, you're certified, right?
Yes.
You did the training with us because, you know, we onboard people for 12 weeks.
I'm not saying you, I'm like, so you did 12 weeks worth of training.
We reviewed your programming with groups.
You've worked with some of our private clients, some of our semi private clients.
You've had to write programs from them.
We've reviewed all that.
We've sat down over and over and over.
Okay.
So why are you asking me this question?
Yeah.
I'm like, if you're asking me this question, because you want me to look at your workout,
that's one thing.
If you're asking me this question because you're not sure where to start, then there's
a mistake and apparently we're failing because you've been taught how to write programs and
you've been taught that, guess what?
Every person that walks in this door is going to be different and you have to.
So, you know, so I tell all the questions like, you have to be able to take one piece
of equipment and you've got to be able to adjust that to 12 different people.
So I will put them through the fire and be like, show me this 12, show me this same exercise.
Give me 12 different versions of this same movement.
Well, one, I know from experience that works because that when you went to Vegas on a conference,
was it Vegas?
Chicago.
Yeah.
Who did you leave to train me?
I think it was Molina.
She kicked my butt, man.
Dude, I was like, I hope I never see you again because I was out for the count of those,
I think it was two days.
And so I'm like, okay, you know, Coach T is a little bit easier.
Let's stick with Coach T. Not really.
But no, so obviously I know that works.
So yeah, that's, I think that's something that I hear a lot is like, hey, how do you
find good people?
And we deal with that too here at elder.
It's really, it's really hard to find.
It's like, it's like either you get the qualifications or you get the attitude.
And then sometimes they don't match together.
I've had someone with all the qualifications, but the attitude is just terrible.
And they don't understand how to maintain the motivation for the vision that we have.
And a lot of people say, Hey, well, that's the leadership.
But at the end of the day, comes down to the person, right?
Like you said, like, Hey, I'll give you the resources.
Will you use them?
Can you make something of it and can you follow the program?
Right.
And that's what it's all about.
And then we're there to obviously keep the vision alive and stuff.
And I guess on that point, what is your vision for T?
You know, I'm really glad you asked that.
So my biggest vision for T and it's, it has shifted over time.
Of course.
At one point it was, I wanted this big box.
And then at one point it was, okay, I want to have multiple locations.
And I did that.
And I can tell you a story on that too.
And then finally got to the point where I am now, where I said, Okay, here's the biggest
thing.
I want everybody who works here to feel like they can grow their vision inside here.
So if that means like, for example, we have one of our coaches who just let me know that
she wants to be a physical therapist.
I was like, that's fantastic.
That means I got three years.
I have three years to build our company with the team's help to where she can one, be a
practicing physical therapist in our practice or two, she's going to go somewhere else.
Those are our two options.
So if I make sure that our team and we at least create the opportunity for her, if she
decides that she's going to go, then that's on her.
Yeah.
100%.
If I create an opportunity for her to be able to have that, that's on me.
So the biggest thing for me at this point is I want everybody's vision to be able to
feel like it can fit in our space until it no longer can fit.
And if it can't fit, like I said, if it can't fit, and it was something that I couldn't
do, like if somebody else didn't say, Hey, I want to be a dentist, can't do nothing for
you.
Yeah.
Not going to have a, it's not going to be TI fitness, sports performance and dentistry.
Right.
Not going to happen.
Hey, making some good money.
I mean, true, true.
True.
There could be some money there.
You know what I mean?
Could be.
But I mean, yeah, what's the percentage looking like?
But so for me, the vision is am I doing the best by the people who work there?
And then the second part for me and my vision is can everybody who comes to service us in
the capacity to service us, can we do what we need to do with them?
Yeah.
That's key.
You know, because, you know, to me, it's, it's, I don't remember what show I watched,
right?
But to me, it's kind of dumb founding if I own a gym, but I got to go to other fitness
places to get the stuff that I need for myself over my kids.
So that's another part of my vision, which is, you know, right now, parts of what I need
to do with my kids, like, you know, which is getting them on a track.
I can't do that in my space.
So I need to go create that.
Right.
I need to have that at my space.
Yep.
Again, another lesson, like a lot of, a lot of business owners.
So I've been in coaching programs and we were in kind of a path where we acquire businesses
that are doing some revenue and then we help them scale because they're missing all the
essential pieces, right?
Right.
It's just like, hey, once you plug these in, you're doubling your revenue.
Right.
And one of the things I see is like, it's always like, Hey, I got to hire more people.
I got to hire more people.
I'm like, well, what about the people that are there?
Well, you know, it's hard to keep people.
So I, you know, I'm focused more on hiring people.
The problem there is, is like you're saying, if your team cannot, if they don't understand
that everything they want out of life, out of their career can be realized through your
company and your vision, then why would they stay?
Yeah.
Right.
They're not going to stay.
Right.
So if like we have someone here is like, Hey, well, what do you, what's your goal in the
next two years?
Well, my wife works and I don't want her to work and I want her to be, say, Oh, mom, okay,
can that happen within this company?
Yes.
We're going to make sure we're going to plan.
We're going to make goals and we're going to hit them.
And we're going to make sure that in two years, she isn't working now or working and she can't
be a say, Oh, mom, or if it's a new car, okay, let's make those goals.
And we call those PPEs personal, professional and PPFs and financial goals.
And that has changed.
I think the structure of my company and maintaining the good people that you already have and
not focusing on, I need to find better people because the people that are already in your
organization are phenomenal people, but everybody gets motivated differently.
I'm trying to, it brings up to mind who was it?
Was it Brandon Dawson that talked about the Chipotle burrito?
Yeah.
He was like, you know, I got guys like, Hey, thousand dollar bonus would push them right
where they need to be.
Some people are just coming in and getting a winning a Chipotle burrito in the week.
That just gives them all the motivation to get the next burrito next week.
And it's like, everybody is, is so different.
And I think one of the most important pieces about being a leader was exactly what you're
talking about is understanding what they want and understanding how to plan to help them
get there.
And at that point you will retain good people and you're never going to really have to look.
So here's the other part.
And I'm glad you brought that up.
Right.
It's, you know, I looked at what is the average time span that somebody stayed with me.
It's two and a half years.
So two and a half years.
And like I said, the longest time, the longest time somebody stayed with me is seven years.
The shortest time somebody stayed with me is a month.
And that person that was a month, you know, it didn't fit.
And that was my fault.
That was, it was a, I shouldn't have brought them on to begin with because with what they
wanted and the timeline, we never discussed the timeline and thus created the problem.
So I've actually kind of changed some things since then.
So the biggest thing is like, people will sit there and be so quick to be like, Hey,
man, fire this person, fire this person.
Okay.
Well, if you invested this time and it's not just you as the company owner, like these
people are also investing back in you.
Right.
So there are some people that come at the beginning and originally it's, it is about
the check.
And if they come in, it's originally about the check.
That's not their fault.
It's my fault.
Yep.
Versus if they come and saying, I want an opportunity to be better.
I believe that I can learn some stuff and get better.
And then from there, it becomes a, okay, let's help you grow.
What's like you said, what's the next stage?
You've already invested this time.
So for me, when I sit there and go, the average person is two and a half years, then I could
see why our clients, it would be hard for them.
When it's like, I'm so used to that person because I've seen that person and there's
a, and there's a distance between comfort and laziness.
Right.
And some people kind of get that confused where, you know, like there's some parts like,
and I know you've listened to Grant Cardale.
Yep.
There's some things I agree with with Grant.
Some things I disagree with.
Grant likes jet packing people.
And he'll look at it from a jet packing standpoint of, okay, this person hasn't helped get them
to the next level.
Okay.
Well, maybe that person never said, I want to be a leader.
I want to be management.
Maybe their, their super strength is being consistent that they show up.
They're never late.
They do the best with what they have and they believe in the company and that is their superpower
and that's exactly where they want to go.
So watch that person get jet packed because that's what they want.
That's somebody who was like, Hey, you know what, which would you rather have?
Would you rather have 20 people who would be with you for 10 years and you find one
or two people that are just like out the box want to be management?
Or would you rather see here and cycle through person after person trying to find management
management?
Cause at the end of the day, you still need, you still need some people.
Hey, this is exactly what they want to do.
So for me, I'm real big on me.
Once I identify, once somebody leaves, I look at it and I do take it personal and I don't
care what the one says.
I'm going to take it personal because if I told them their vision can fit and then I
didn't deliver, I need to take it personal.
100%.
Yup.
Because I lied or two, if they leave and I didn't know they were leaving.
And I really take it personal because that means this whole time I haven't been developing
them.
I haven't been putting into them and I've just been doing nothing but taking and saying,
Hey, I'm going to take constantly from you.
And the only thing you need to get from me is a check.
That's BS.
When you own a, when you're a small business owner, you have to realize that these people
could go work for anybody else.
I know for a fact, and there's no, there's no arguing with this.
I know for a fact that lifetime fitness can offer things at this present state that I
have not been able to offer.
These are facts.
I know that I'm not disputing that.
So then why would somebody come work for me versus lifetime?
What can I offer that they cannot offer?
Well, I can offer education.
I can offer an environment unlike anything they'll ever get over there.
I can offer them an opportunity to be like, we can grow as much as you want.
And then your vision can fit in here.
And that's why I said, I take it personal if somebody leaves, because that means I wasn't
right.
That means I didn't own up to my part and I got to do better.
So for me, you know what I mean?
I look at it from the standpoint of that's how you help people.
You got to pour back into them constantly.
You got to be straightforward with them.
If you're not meeting, like I read this book, you know, deaf by meeting, I used to hate
meetings.
I used to hate them with a passion.
That's because I did crappy meetings.
I didn't go to a meeting with a purpose.
I didn't go to a meeting with a plan.
It was just, okay, here's our numbers.
Here's where we're at.
Here's what we're doing.
And that was my body language and my attitude.
But I flipped the script on that.
So my team, they know we're meeting.
They know we have a meeting once a month.
They know we have individual meetings once a month because number one, I want to help
them grow.
I need to know where they're at.
They need to know what's going on with the company.
And then two, we need to be aligned together and be able to say, Hey, this is where we
are as a team.
What can we do better?
Matter of fact, I'll tell you this real quick story because I know you got another question.
The first quarter of the year, the first quarter of the year, I said, Hey, here's our vision.
Here's our goal.
Let's do it.
In three months, it didn't work.
We met in April.
I said, Okay, we did it the way that I thought we should do it.
And it failed miserably.
So now we're going to sit here to you guys tell us what's the way because I thought my
way was the best way you guys have told me otherwise.
What's the way we're going to do it exactly the way you guys want to do it?
And we sat there.
Was it painful?
Absolutely.
Everybody was like, I'm that awkward moment of silence.
So we're like, well, I don't want to say something.
I was like, we're not leaving until everybody starts talking.
And then we got to resolution and dammit RJ.
They have destroyed it April and May.
They have destroyed it.
They've taken leadership because it was their ideas.
What my idea?
Their ideas.
We're doing their ideas so they're bought in more.
And then they've been incentivized with their ideas because now guess what?
Everything's doing better.
So guess what?
It all comes back, circle back to them.
But originally in the past, I wouldn't have done that.
I would have been like, it's my way.
It's my way.
I know, I know, I know.
That's like, dude, titles are titles just because you're the owner.
And just because that's how you would do something.
It's still a team.
Yeah, it's a team.
It doesn't mean that that's how you would do it.
That's how Terrence would do it.
That's how some of the other people we know would do it.
But that doesn't mean that's how that person would do it.
So it sounds to me like I can write my workouts and give them to you in the morning.
You know, you can write them and you could definitely give them to me and we'll do the
best we can to implement them.
Even if we only implement like three seconds of it, that's still implementing it.
That's great.
So, you know, leadership is so hard.
And I've been reading, so I know you read a lot of books.
I do.
And we read a lot of books too in our company.
And I told you I was reading one of the 12 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell.
I don't know if it's 12.
But leadership has always been a little hard for me because that's how I was too.
Like my way, my way.
And all these guys can tell you, it's like, dude, I know what's best.
You guys don't know what you're talking about.
And then as we've kind of like flipped the script like you're saying, like our team
has excelled and I realized, frickin' hey, I'm the problem.
I've always been the problem.
You're the bottleneck.
It hasn't been my team, the people I love, it's been me.
And that has created it.
And I'm still, I still struggle with certain stuff that we all do, right?
It's hard because at some point you're still, you're still the owner, you still have to
make those tough decisions.
But when you give a little bit of that reign to these people that are highly creative,
they're intelligent and you see yourself as an eagle and not as, oh, I'm the boss.
Everything changes.
You know, in our company, you know, speaking of Grant Cardone, when I did, I did a 10x360
with him.
It was good.
I got a lot out of it.
One of the favorite things I did get out of it was they had the R3 assessment.
If you've ever heard of that, what it is, it's like, it puts everybody in four categories.
Like a driver, influencer, stabilizer and a...
Analyst.
Yeah, analyst.
Yes.
And it just basically told us a whole bunch of stuff off this questionnaire about everybody
and it was like so spot on.
It was honestly a little creepy.
Our whole team did it.
But one of the things I learned about understanding like the people who you're working with in
that vision that we're talking about is like, Kyle here, I'm going to use you as an example.
You know, I love you is sweet.
He was an electrician for us for like two years, a year and a half.
Literally in addicts, electrician.
And he was excited in the very beginning, but hot addicts and stuff.
It's just, it's never kind of been his thing.
And so towards the end, things got a little rough and you weren't enjoying it and it showed.
And now we realize understanding to look at him and who he is and his personality drives
him.
He's a huge influencer.
He always has been here.
Like in high school, you knew all the freshmen, they knew you, you knew all the seniors, they
knew you.
It didn't matter what grade you were in, everybody knew him.
And I'm like, okay, well, let's, let's switch the role real quick.
And now he's been our media producer, our event coordinator and he's been succeeding.
He's, I mean, everything in his life has gone up.
It's changed.
And it's like, again, it was the leader.
It was me not realizing the potential of these people and trying to put them in the place
I thought was best.
And I think that's actually one of the hardest lessons I've learned because it's, you have
to bite your pride, you know what I mean?
And it's, it's interesting.
It is a real big, hard thing when, like you said, we talked about at the beginning, it's,
you know, when you're the owner at the end of the day, if the business fails, it is all
100% on you.
But the part that you got to remember, and I said, and that's what I tell myself is when
the business succeeds, it is now no longer 100% me.
It is everybody who was there, everybody who's putting into it.
And so the hardest part is recognizing, well, when you said you did that test and you have
to realize everybody has a strength and everybody has a weakness.
Once you can identify strengths and weaknesses in people, then guess what?
Everybody gets to shine.
You know, yeah, at the end of the day, yeah, somebody's the MVP of a team.
Somebody's like the main voice.
And you know, and I like to use sports because sports makes sense.
You know, unless it's an individual event, like track and field where it's like, hey,
you win the gold man, the 400, dude, that was you.
But you still had a team because there was a coach, those other stuff behind the scenes.
But when you win as a team in a sport, you can visibly see basketball.
You can see every player on that team that contributed.
Yeah.
Whether it was three minutes, five minutes, past all the rounds, everything, football.
It was one of the greatest ones because everybody goes like, it's an entire team.
You can put up all the points you want to on offense.
If your defense is giving up more points than you put up, you lose.
So the hardest part is a business owner is recognizing that, you know what?
Yeah, you started the vision because you saw it.
But now to get to the next stages you want to, you have to bring people on who at one
point they might be this.
And like you said, I know you mentioned your boy Kyle, but then their strengths start to
show a little bit more.
You go, you know what?
Let's give them an opportunity.
Let's let them just take that over.
Let me step aside because just because I do it, and that's the thing I think as an owner,
you have to realize just because you do it doesn't mean you're the best.
So if you have someone in the team who's better, let them do it.
If you have 100%, why wouldn't you want to?
So man, well one, obviously we're free flowing this and I just have a million questions,
but we won't be able to get through them all.
Sometimes that's the best man.
He always says some of the best rap songs that come from just free flowing.
This one's just minus weed, but you know what I mean?
They come, they flow.
Yes.
That's why I think this rap battle between Kendrick and Drake kind of was throwing that
out there.
Who you got on there?
Kendrick.
That's just my opinion.
You know what I mean?
I mean, I haven't heard it.
I just heard it from other people, man.
They're both good.
I mean, when someone throws out, you know what I mean?
Some lines about, you know what I mean?
Was it Kendrick, Q's Drake, or Petafile and things like that?
I mean, you know, it's, you know, not to kind of take away from that kind of stuff, man,
but you start going like, well there's some smoke behind those mirrors, man.
I mean, we've seen that happen.
We're on PDD, Bill Cosby, and I throw up everybody in that same situation.
There's a ton of stuff.
But there's like, you know, so, I mean, I could say, you know what I mean?
Prior to all that, one of them I listened to when I worked out from time to time.
One of them I listened to when I ran.
Yeah.
So.
Due to the beat.
Yeah.
I mean, I liked them both.
I, Drake's just more melodious, in my opinion, and more of that rapper, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
But I listen to them when I work out, and it doesn't matter.
On the way to your gym, I'll pump one of their songs real quick, you know, kind of
give me in the mood or...
Yeah, it helps.
I mean, you need all you need.
You need me dealing with me sometimes.
You need all you can get.
That is true.
I mean.
I'm not a breakfast guy that early in the morning, but you got me eating bananas before
the workout.
That's all I gotta say.
So.
Excellent.
Well, well, I think one of the last questions I have, I kind of want to pick your brain about
is a lot of people online right now in social media, there's a mask on on YouTube.
It's true entrepreneurship.
That's how I put it.
It's like, you go online, oh, look at my bank account.
Here's how you can make 100K in a week, you know, doing all this blah, blah, blah.
And I sit there and I just laugh at these things.
I'm like, how great would that be?
You know, I kind of look at it as like stocks, you know, it's like a gambling on some stuff
and on some people who don't really know what the heck they're talking about because
true entrepreneurship, it's not that easy.
And so I feel like a lot of people I've had friends have gone into it and not really like
thinking it was that simple and then come to find out.
Yeah, I failed and they never pick it back up again.
And I feel like if they had the right expectation that they were going to fail, they would have
kept going.
But because they thought they were going to succeed the first time with a bulletproof
plan because I see all these other people do online and it happened.
So with all the downs that happened, you know, all those mistakes you made and all those
times where it's like, hey, dude, you couldn't afford your building all of a sudden, you
had to get out of the lease.
Like, what kept you going?
Like was it your, whether it's your faith, your wife, the money itself, the belief, the
confidence, like what was your main drive to say, you know what, no matter how bad this
gets, I can do this and I'm going to push, I'm going to get it done.
Wow, that's a great question.
You know what, if I had to be real with you, is honestly, I just don't believe in quitting.
I just don't.
I, you know, I've been married now almost 15 years and I've always come to learn it
ain't supposed to be easy.
Nothing is, and if it's easy, it ain't real.
It's not true.
It was just one fleeting moment that happened.
So for me, nothing in my life has come easy.
Nothing.
Now, I'm not about to see him be that guy that goes like, oh, you know, man, I grew up
in this cardboard box and, you know, in Vegas and, you know, and the worst side of town.
No, no, no, it wasn't nothing like that.
My parents had, we were in a house, things like that, so I'm not saying something like
that, but you know, I wanted to be great at track.
I had to work my ass off.
Nothing was given to me.
I had to literally put in those hours behind the scene things.
There'd be times I finished track practice, do a workout, get home.
I would do lunges.
I would do 400 meters worth of lunges up and down my street because for me it was, everybody
else is doing that same work that I just did.
That means that everybody else is the same as me and I cannot have that.
I have to do more because there has to be a difference and I had to believe in it.
So what kept me going was I just knew if I was willing to just keep working, to just
get better, that it would get better.
Now I do know that, yeah, there are some people I do know that are in my industry that they
have, you know what, some people consider wealth, right?
And I feel like wealth is a loaded answer because one person might consider wealth money,
another person's family, another person's spirituality.
So there's a massive amount of difference, right?
So just throwing that out there.
I've yet to meet a person that has more wealth than I have in my space.
I had been doing what I've been doing for over 25 years and I didn't do it because I couldn't
do something else.
I did it because I enjoyed it and I enjoyed what it could do for anybody who I came across
it.
So the reason why I could go through all those failures, I could sit there and go through
all them sleepless nights and you know, there's plenty of nights, plenty of nights where I
sit there and be like, okay, oh freak, just dreading my phone because it's like there's
another person that's about to quit the gym.
There's another person canceling their membership.
Great.
That's another trainer that's about to leave because they got another opportunity that's
better than what I can provide them.
So that fear was always there was real and my wife would tell you there was many nights,
I just didn't sleep.
I'd get home, pass out from exhaustion, wake up in an hour because I just literally had
a dream of someone's about to cancel.
So it was just because I don't want to quit.
It's because I know if I keep working at it and just getting, and not just like, like
there's two different types of work, right?
There's, you keep doing something.
It doesn't mean it makes it better.
Meaning like, okay, I had to work at what I didn't know.
What was I feeling?
So for me, it was like, okay, Jim's not doing well.
Why?
Take a higher evaluation yourself versus the whole, well, you know, it's, it's the economy.
It's, no, no, no, no.
People spend money the way they want to spend it.
So don't blame the economy for your issues.
Like take a deeper evaluation and be like, does your product suck?
Is your service crappy?
Are you doing all you can for your customer?
Are you, are you owning up to the things that you said you would do?
Right?
And so for me, that's why I was able to do it.
Cause yeah, I wasn't just, it just wasn't going to impact me.
It was going to impact my family, my wife, all my kids.
I wanted them to have everything they wanted.
And I wanted to hold my end of the deal.
When we got married, I said, Hey, I will provide.
I will make sure that we have what we need always.
That's my role.
That's my responsibility.
And I will do that.
And I'm willing to work.
I'm willing to grind.
But then it got to a point where I was like, okay, why am I failing?
And then that's where I started realizing, and that's why, you know, we mentioned books
at the beginning.
I wasn't reading books.
I had one of my clients who told me, I mean, books were stupid because, you know, you
just keep reading and reading.
And you know, if you don't institute anything that you're reading, it's pointless.
And I agree with them.
If you read and you don't institute any of what you're reading, it's just pointless to
be reading.
So I made sure I got books where it's like, okay, this book, maybe I've heard that 100
times, but this 101 time I hear it, it clicked.
Because I was in the right headspace to hear it.
And they go, but wait a minute, that's me.
That's exactly what I'm doing.
So that's why for me, I was able to keep going because I don't want to quit.
And I was willing to take and accept failure, realizing that failure was happening and then
I needed to take ownership of it and then get better at the things I was failing at.
Because there were some things I wasn't failing at, but the things I was failing at, I needed
to evaluate it.
So that's kind of what happened for me was it wasn't a all because, you know, my bank
account needs to be X, Y, Z.
It was a, if I'm willing to keep going down this line to find out why I'm failing, I will
succeed.
It's no different than Jordan.
You know what I mean?
There's that adage out there.
No one talks about how many game winning shots he missed.
They only talk about how many he made.
Same with Kobe.
Now LeBron a little different because he don't take the game winning shots.
That's a whole nother different situation, right?
You know what I mean?
But that's what winning is.
You talk about the winning.
No one talks about who got second place in the soup bowl.
You can't ever remember that.
People go, um, um, hey Siri, you know, they talk about the winning.
And so that's what business is.
It's you can win as long as you're willing to realize why you're failing, take ownership
of why you're failing, not blame everybody or blame circumstances.
Like it's not winning because I'm not improving here, here and here.
I'm not taking accountability here, here and here.
I'm not willing to admit that I'm failing.
And I think that's the hardest thing as an owner is admit that you're failing.
Admit that you are failing, not just yourself, but to your circle.
Whatever your circle of influence is.
And don't be afraid to admit it to your employees.
I have told my employees dead in the face.
Like I told you at the very beginning where I said, we tried it my way and it's not working.
I'm failing.
I don't want us to fail.
What do we need to do different?
And then they instituted it and it's already a hundred percent better because I was willing
to admit it's not working.
So that's what kind of got me through it was don't quit, realize why you're failing and
go work at it.
Go put some freaking work to it.
There the difference between the people who actually take the risk to, of course, I'm
talking about entrepreneurship to actually start a business versus the people who have
the idea, great idea, but just can't take the next step.
All comes down to the understanding of failure.
If you understand, like, and I'm so basically I'm just summarizing what you're saying out
loud.
If you understand that failure is progress.
Yes.
You will, you can do anything you want to do and you will succeed at everything you want
to do.
But if you don't understand that and you fear failure, you'll never try.
Right.
So it's like, you know, failure, every, yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, we, we make mistakes and stuff on jobs like we're, we're trying to change the
game in our industry and stuff.
And there's a lot of crappy contractors out in the world.
A lot of people.
Oh, there's a bus.
I mean, it's a time.
Yeah.
And it creates great opportunity for us because like, Hey, okay, we'll be better than
everybody, but that doesn't mean we're perfect.
Right.
And we fell, but, but if we were like every time I'm scared to take a newer job, a job
that we've never done before because of we were scared to fail, we would never, ever
be able to grow.
You know what I mean?
And anyway, so it's just a huge lesson.
There's a lot of golden nuggets in this whole podcast.
I'm absolutely loving it.
I mean, there's that.
And then the, I think the main topic of this whole thing was assume responsibility.
There's a lot of books I've read that talk about that.
Like if you have to assume full responsibility for everything, I was reading a book by Ed
Milet.
Yeah.
He's like one or something.
Yeah.
And he was talking about, he's like, Hey, if you know, you have to assume all responsibility.
If you're driving on the street and you're part in your out of red light and someone
crashes behind you, who's fault is it?
He's like, of course there are shared fault.
He goes, but a lot of people be like, this person crashed into me.
It's their fault.
If you look at yourself, maybe you left late, maybe you didn't leave on time.
Maybe you went down a different road.
Like you, your decisions also put you in that position.
And so if you assume all responsibility, you all of a sudden unlock this power that, that
allows you to really dictate how your life is actually going to turn out differently.
You know what I mean?
Absolutely.
So, I mean, I mean, and to add to that, I know some people will turn around and be like,
Oh, well, I'm just starting off in my business.
I, you know, I may not have the resources to dedicate to getting, you know, this coaching
education, a mentor, things like that.
Well, I'll tell people this.
How much TV you watch?
You know, Grant Card don't say this and it's really, it's a really simple adage.
Everybody out there, you're not the only one in your space doing what you do.
So why not create advantage?
You can create a 52 to one advantage by reading a book every week.
The average person reads one book a year.
One, if you've got a car and you're lucky and fortunate enough to have a freaking car,
why are you just listening to music constantly?
Like if you're drive, like my drive is 15, 20 minutes.
That's 40 minutes worth of education I can get while I'm driving.
Oh, easy.
Easy.
I'm not saying you can't have some music.
I'm not saying nothing like that, but it's like when people tell me they don't have time
to read, I'm like, you're full of it.
I don't have time to get to education.
This is a podcast.
You can literally turn around, listen to this and you're going to get so much more education.
100%.
That you can just level up to a different level, but people are so like people are just so
on a point where it's like, dude, do something different.
Like you're doing the same freaking thing, expecting the same response.
And that's a quote.
Sanity.
Sanity is the definition of stupidity.
And people are afraid to like, you know, like, you know, and we talk about this, right?
Somebody really real quick, if you're broke, people will call you out super fast for that.
They'll call you out.
You know, if you see someone who's homeless, they'll call you out really quick, right?
Or somebody says, oh, you know what?
Oh, you know, college wasn't for me.
Well, who said learning stops?
Who said that stops?
Like that was just the time.
That means school is just a situation to teach you some basic skills on how to get some education.
It's up to you, the individual, to take responsibility on it.
So, you know what I mean?
So yeah, like you said, man, there's so much people could do that they can get better.
They can level up and then next thing you know, it's like, boom, you're there, you're
there, you're there, you're there.
But at some point at the end of the day, it's like, dude, take a magic marker, write down
how much time you're wasting doing stupid stuff.
I was one of those people.
That's why I got rid of the ESPN app on my phone.
I love sports.
But I realized it was costing me two hours.
And that's when I started diving into it.
I'm like, let me do something else.
And then that's why I've been like crushing through books.
And each book gets me a little better, just a little better.
You threw that statistic out there on average.
A person reads one book here.
One book.
I read a statistic while back.
It stuck with me.
Do you know how many books the average CEO reads in a year?
I think it's 20.
No, no, no, no.
It's the average CEO reads, I think it's what, 36?
Double 60 a year.
60 books a year.
And that's insane.
That's insane, dude.
That's like a book a week.
It's more than a book a week.
More than a book a week.
It's like 1.5%.
Like it's insane.
But that is that advantage, right?
They're there where they are and it doesn't stop.
They got there.
They're still learning.
All this knowledge that we can gain from the podcast and the books, it's awesome.
So, well, I'll let my other questions go.
So I'm sure you got some training to do.
This has been absolutely phenomenal.
Guys, we are going to have links to his social media and his website down below.
So go check it out.
If you are local, he is taking on more clients, right?
Yep, we are.
So we talked about your goal the other day a little bit.
He's taking on more clients.
And from personal experience, it's been absolutely phenomenal and he definitely knows what he's
doing.
So, and everybody inside the gym is great.
The camaraderie, he has good music.
It's awesome.
So I absolutely love it.
So definitely go check him out.
Please follow him.
You can check out our stuff as well.
Keep track of our podcast as well as what our construction company is doing here at
Elder and kind of how we're changing the game.
And as always, we appreciate you guys.
And we ask that you drop any questions in the comments, anything that you guys are wondering
about any of the topics of life.
It doesn't matter whether it's marriage or business, et cetera.
Drop your questions below.
We want to tackle real life situations here and really get down to where everybody is
individually in their lives and be able to kind of brainstorm as a team and figure out
what we've done that's helped us or what you guys are doing that's helped us.
So please don't be afraid to share.
And we thank you so much for joining the podcast.
Cool.
Thanks, guys.
Cool.
Killed it.
Thanks, guys.
Cool.
Thanks.