(12) Brian Alexander - Getting the Right People in the Right Seats

Hey fitness fans, welcome back. This is Eric Malzone with the Future of Fitness Podcast and the Fitness Marketing Alliance, and this is lucky episode number 13. And we have Brian Alexander from CrossFit Illumin. So Brian has two gyms out in the Chicago area, and he is one heck of an innovator. There is a lot of really, really good information in here and things you can easily take away and apply to your own business. And I thought some of the interesting things was recently within his uh his growth as a business owner, he's really focused on putting the right people in the right seats. And it makes perfect sense. A lot of times it's constantly overlooked, especially in our industry. And he also talks about how he got his MBA through failure. Uh early on, uh he owned a restaurant, it didn't go so well, but he took a ton of lessons and he's got a growth mindset, and he talks about that as well. So that's really important. And some of the other things I really enjoy, uh, which I've taken uh ideas from him and made them my own as well, is the idea of excursions. So uh he'll explain all that and how you can apply it to your business, and I think you'll really enjoy it. So before we do that, let's talk about our sponsor, uh Busy Bar. So um you can find them at www.busybar.co. And they have three different flavors right now. They got double chocolate chip, peanut butter, cookie dough. Uh it's only one gram of sugar, highest quality protein available, grass-fed whey, and six net carbs and nine grams of fiber. And if you go there to their website and you enter in the promo code FMA10, Fitness Marketing Alliance 10, you will get 10% off every product, every order from now until the end of time. What a deal. Get on there and check it out. And without further ado, Brian Alexander of Alumin Fitness. Two locations out in the Chicago area. He's also a mentor for Two Brain Business. And uh Brian, brother, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, yeah.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, man. Uh so we love stories, everybody loves stories, right? Uh everyone I've talked to in the fitness industry has a fitness story, right? How they got into it, how it's progressed. So tell us like what's your fitness story, how'd you get into this industry, what led you to it, and all that good stuff.

Okay, yeah. So um I was always the bro guy that would do, you know, bench and in biceps, back and triceps. Um started working out when I was 17, and it had always been uh all show and no go about the um the physique or the aesthetic piece of it all and not necessarily geared towards any performance. Um, so I started when I was 17. I did that for nearly a decade, and it works when you're young, uh, but as you start to get older, you know, it's uh the things that you have done no longer work as well as they used to have worked.

How old are you now, Brad?

Uh I will be 37 on October 30th. Young gun. Cool. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, so you know, uh a little blend, I guess, or a little blend of the stories is, you know, I had two conflicting lifestyles. I was in in the nightlife and restaurant business, um, but then I would go to the gym, you know, like an export workout, I'd have a cigarette, you know, in between sets outside with my muscle milk. And you know, this is when I was like 22, 23, when when you know you know everything, right? Yeah, nothing left in the world to be learned and um a little egotistical and always a good guy, but you know, just young, right? Young and dumb.

Yep.

And uh ended up, you know, kind of approaching my my 30s, and people had always told me that I should do CrossFit. I looked apart, I looked like I was fit and in shape. People would always ask me questions and kind of like, you know, pretend like I knew what I was doing, um, because they were they were looking at me like I was the you know the expert and they'd always ask for advice, but I wasn't living the the lifestyle, right? And I felt like a phony and I felt like a fraud, and you know, if I took my shirt off, I wasn't really lean, it just looked like I was you know a big chunk of muscle. And I didn't like that about myself, and uh I never did. Uh so I saw my picture of myself at my bachelor party in Miami, nail shirt on in a pool, and it was when we had gotten back from the trip, and I was like, man, is this that's really what I look like right now? Like after you know, spending an hour a day on cardio in the morning and then going to uh to FFC to lift weights during lunch, like this is this is it, two hours a day, and this is the best I can do.

Yeah, it's funny how it's it's like how we think we look. Yeah, and then how we look in a photo.

Right, right. And after seeing that, I was like, all right, well, I gotta do something drastic because whatever I'm doing isn't working. So, you know, I Googled the closest CrossFit after people feeding me the theory and the name of it. I really didn't even understand what the hell it was. I just signed up and I went in, did baseline, you know, the 500 meter row, 40 Squats, 30 sit-ups, 20 push-ups, 10 ring rows. Uh at that time actually was pull-ups with bands at the old gym that I used to go to, and it crushed me. And I was like, wow, that is humbling. And uh, you know, this this is what I've been looking for my entire life. That uh I'm I'm happy I finally found it. Signed up for Unlimited right away, and uh the rest is kind of history there.

Awesome. Yeah, I actually started with that same exact workout in San Francisco, and then I remember uh I just wasn't right for about five hours. Yeah, where is this? Okay, shocking. Uh so you uh you're a very cerebral person, right? You tend to think quite a bit. Uh you you're very much into personal development. I know you read a lot, and I know we probably follow a lot of the same people. Uh who are some of your mentors when you first started in business? And who are they now?

You know, um when I first started in business of opening my own gym.

Yeah.

So nobody um when I opened my own gym, nobody in the fitness business, but um, I would say more life mentors. So when I um when I first started working in my corporate job, so a little brief history is I I invested in it and owned and operated a restaurant when I was 23, uh, got taken for every single penny by friends, crushed me mentally, you know, emotionally. I went into super dark time in my life where I was in the nightlife and just not doing great things for myself or other people, and ended up getting a corporate job um when I was 25. And I hadn't worked for anybody for seven, six, seven years, no structure in my life, and it was a it was a wake-up call. I hated every single minute of it. But I remember the first month I was at CDW, uh, one of the senior account managers, that the role that I was in in sales, spoke to the entire academy, who's like all the new account managers or salespeople. And uh I was really, really impressed. So I I I offered to take him out for coffee, to take him out for coffee so I could pick his brain. And he was really like the first person that really believed in me before I believed in myself. And that set off this chain reaction of success at CDW, personal development, um, you know, going from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, just understanding that you know, if you if you work hard enough and you really are vested in anything, you can do anything. Prior to that, I didn't believe that, right? I just thought people were good at specific things and they're not, and and you know, some people just get lucky, some people don't. So that was that that's what set it off. And then the better I did at CDW, I'm like, wow, I I I I C DW and CrossFit, when I joined CrossFit, those happened at the same time, right? So I was at CDW for a little bit and then I signed up for CrossFit. So between the two of those, uh, they really, really played into each other really well. In sales, you have a leaderboard, right? You're they literally posted how many calls every salesperson made, um, how many, you know, uh, how much you've sold to them, how much profit you made, and also how much money you took home. So all public, all posted every day. How many hours? They put your your income on there as well. Yeah. So it was it was the literal whiteboard. So when I found CrossFit, it was it was very familiar. Right. I'm like, wow, this is this is kind of the same thing. And nobody wants to be at the bottom of the whiteboard, and it's this you know, intrinsic drive to be like, wow, if this guy just got a three-minute fran, I know it's possible. I don't know how the hell I'm gonna get there, but I know at least it's possible because that guy did it, and he doesn't look that much different than me. That was the same thing as seeing a guy who made a million dollars at CDW, not selling a million, but literally taking in a million dollars of income. He looked no different than me. Um, not necessarily much smarter than me. So to see that and be like, this guy is a really decent, normal guy making a boatload of money. It's possible. How do I do it? I need to surround myself with those people, right?

Yeah.

So very long-winded answer uh to your question, but kind of fills in the background of kind of how I got to where I am today from like a mindset standpoint, and from there, it's just been exponential kind of like personal growth for myself, and it's you know, never over, but me today versus me last year, I'm a completely different beast, and I hope to do that every year.

Yeah, well, that's great. So, how did you uh I think you and I are similar because I did go from a corporate and I started my business, and there was actually some overlap time too. How did you personally make that that switch when you went from corporate back into because you already had a touch in entrepreneurship, doesn't sound like it was sounds a great learning experience, let's put it that way, with a restaurant.

It was my MBA in in life.

Yes, right. And uh so how did you for because maybe there's people out there who are who are doing two right now, they're doing a corporate gig or they're doing something and they really want to go full-time into their fitness careers. How did you bridge that gap?

So when we opened our gym, I I had been working at CDW for a while and I already had begun to do well. So when we opened the gym, it was a hobby. It was, you know, all right, we're gonna have three classes a day. I'll coach the 5:30 a.m. and then the six and seven o'clock, you know, regular class in on-ramp. And then my wife will coach the 9 a.m. Super simple business model, we'll make it work. And then, you know, I kept doing well at CDW, that was a consuming job. Um, the gym began to grow, that became more and more difficult to manage as it grew, and it came to a point where I was making a lot of money at CDW. Um, the gym was going really well, and after having made a lot of money, I realized that money was not the thing that was making me happy. It was the pursuit of not money, but the pursuit of building. So I I love building and creating. And I just realized, I'm like, well, you know, I'm I'm working 16 hours a day here. Um the gym to get it to where I want it to be, I need to really focus on that. And I had failed big enough before to make failure less scary for me to say, well, you know, even though I'm making a lot of money at CDW and it's stable, and you know, you would think you finally made it, right? In sales, it takes took me seven years, well, really like four years, and then three good years of making a lot of money. But it took a while to get there, right? A lot of hard work, you know, a lot of cold calls and stuff I hated to do. But I didn't want to let that impact my decision. And again, having failed uh catastrophically when I was 23 with the restaurant, it just eliminated all of my fear of failure. And that that fear of failure is always there, but uh I knew I can I could reinvent myself had this not worked out, right? But I would never forgive myself for not trying.

Yeah.

And it it ended up being uh when I make decisions, it's like if I make the decision, it's it's a done deal, right? Like there's no like coming hawing for months and months on end. And it was a month before my daughter was about to be born. So working 16, 18 hour days between CDW, running the gym, I'm like, well, I'm not gonna be able to have time to be a great father or even a good father. Um I'm already not a great husband, uh, even though uh I tried my best, but from the time that I was able to spend with my wife outside of the gym, it wasn't perfect, right? It was just CDW in aluminum and 18 hours, and she was in there somewhere, but it was more often in passing or at the gym. So I just decided I gotta cut the cord. Um, if I'm gonna make this all work, and if I'm gonna get alumin to where I want it to go, I need to burn the ships and cut off all safety and not give myself uh a way out.

Yeah, that's really interesting. And I think uh, you know, when it comes to decision making, uh my business partner and I talk about the rocking chair test, right? If you if you're sitting in a rocking chair when you're however old you are, 70, 80, maybe if you make it a 90, are you gonna look back and say, I really regret trying?

Right?

Yeah, no one's gonna think, you know, what you're gonna regret is not trying 100% of the time. Right. So let's let's talk about where you're at now because I I had the pleasure of going to your gym um, was that back in June? Yeah. And uh I could I could see you just have a lot going on. Like your membership has a lot of options. Um you know, actually one of our colleagues uh referred to as a nuclear isotope of ideas. So what uh we tell us kind of what you with the formula you've you've come to now with with Illumin, and uh I'm curious too, and kind of a sub sub-question on that is when you have all these ideas, how do you sort out which ones you want to follow and pursue and which ones you want to just backburner?

So um the ideas never never stop, and and I'm I'm a big idea guy, uh I'm an innovator, creator, you know, that's that's kind of like my go-to. Um when we first opened through maybe, maybe even three years ago. I'm sorry, last year. So from we opened four and a half years ago up until maybe a year ago. Uh it was Brian comes up with an idea, he begins implementing it, and then he tells everybody what's going on. Um, half of them get it, and then the idea is kind of like you know, they work, but not quite as optimally, and and it takes a little time to get people bought into the idea after it's already been rolled out. So trial and error, um, you know, learning about my my own strengths, but also figuring out how to work with people and get people to buy into these ideas and and and figuring out like, okay, well, that did not work. The idea was was solid, but why didn't it work? You know, can I be uh reflective on that process and then maybe do it better the next time, right? So it's been this constant evolution of of that. Um but at the same time, you know, what one my personal mission statement is um relentless with your vision, um stoic in your actions and empathetic in your interactions, right? So the last four and a half years I've been trying to figure out how I can continue to be relentless with my own vision because I really believe in uh my vision in um architecting the perfect form of something, right? Um, but also getting people to buy in and understanding that maybe not all people move at the speed that I move. Maybe me moving at the speed that I move is not the best for everybody or Illumin. Um, and then trying to figure out how to fill my gaps with people who understand and believe in my vision, but can also help implement these things well. And the last year has been spent solving that problem, right? And it's uh it's been a very interesting uh year for me. Again, this last year has been the most exponential personal growth year that I've ever had when it comes to be being a better leader and understanding people and understanding like how to actually make everything you want to do happen and have have a solid team around you to support you. That makes sense.

Yeah, it does make sense. Extrapolate on that a little bit. So, what what is what is the last year? Maybe give us some examples of things that happen or aha moments, you know, where you got hit in the head with something that that all of a sudden, right? What give us give us a little background on that?

So um really it's all about making sure that you have the right people in the right seats. You know, I think we we as gym owners, we all do a very good job of hiring great culture fits. Like we're really good at picking out really good people and then having opportunities for them. And because they're a good person and you have an opportunity, we try to mesh those together. Um, but I what what I think everyone finds is that's not always the best approach. So finding people who are passionate about you know the vision is number one, um, but also who have the capacity to do the job the way you want the job done. Um, whether it's you know running a gym, if it's a head coach, if it's an operations manager, a GM, uh member experience person, whatever it might be, and putting the pieces of the puzzle together a little more like strategically and taking a good person, having an opportunity and saying, okay, well, we'll see how that works, right?

Yeah, yeah, I'm very guilty of just throwing it together. You know, it's funny because someone close to me uh mentioned like five years ago, like, Eric, are you aware that people don't think the way you do? I was like, No, I actually wasn't. And that's a that's a huge it sounds simple and funny, but it's a huge realization. Like, oh wow, people don't think like me.

It it is, and that's something that I've learned along the way as well. And it was a shock because you know, our bias, I think, is we just assume people view the world through the same lens that we all view the world through, and every individual, you know, I I'm like really deep into like personality traits. Um, there's like this Colby index that talks about the quantitative part of the mind, and it's so much more what was that, Brian? The the the Colby Index, it's a cable L B E. Okay. So beyond just uh nurture in our experiences that lead us up to our perspectives and viewpoints, like there is literal um traits, there are literal traits that are kind of hardwired into us, right? And the innate way we take action or we problem solve. And that's what I'm that's my new obsession is you know, how do I how do I avoid setting people up to fail? Because at the end of the day, uh if I put somebody in a position and they failed, yes, they failed, but is it my fault for not recognizing that they weren't going to be a good fit for that? I think people will you know jump on grenades for for the leaders of communities and gyms. Um, but it's it's challenging because we're all kind of learning as as we go. There's some of us weren't general managers or we've never hired people before. Um, so it gets pretty interesting when you begin to think of it in that light. Um, and and that's kind of like what I'm really, really focused on um for the last six months and in forever now is how can I more intelligently approach problems and piecing teams together for better synergy.

Yeah, that's that's huge, and it takes a while to even uh to even recognize it. Yes. I don't even know. I owned a gym for better part of nine years. I don't know if I actually ever recognized it until I I sold, right? Like that's it took a long, long time. And uh one thing I I I loved about what you do, and I think this is something a lot of people can can get some ideas from, is the idea of uh excursions, yeah, badge system. That's cool. That's cool as shit. Like that gets me. If I was a member of your gym, I'd be like, oh, I want to collect badges, right? So maybe explain what that is and and how you came up with that that concept and uh how you roll it out.

Yeah, so um the excursion is the Illumin name for a specialty program. And um really the idea is you know, like if if CrossFit general group classes are the the cruise ship and you get you know 80% of what you want to get out of that, um, how can we set up novelty around um diving deeper into specific disciplines and going off to explore them, but well keeping everybody under one like roof or under one trip, if you will, right?

Right.

Um so we set up the excursions, it started off small, meaning just one program, and it was it was Olympic weightlifting. Um and then we added Pose Running and Endurance, we added Russian kettlebell, OCR, and it it's just been this natural kind of evolution over the last four years or so of um identifying needs. and and wants from our clients, identifying passions uh of our coaches and then matching those two or fusing those two. So now we have a pretty in-depth, I guess, or we have a uh a deep breadth of offerings within our excursions and uh it just allows for again novelty. I always liken CrossFit to the like the MM MMA of uh of fitness. Right. Um so you know if if MMA has jujitsu, Muay Thai, boxing and and all of that, and have to learn a little bit to be really good at MMA, you know, CrossFit is very similar in the fact that you could dive deep into any of those disciplines, but they'll all make you better at CrossFit, right? If you do that.

Yeah. You know, it's funny my old my uh former business partner Traeber he he he referred to CrossFit as MMA for guys who don't like to get hit in the face. That's it. That is it. Or people, sorry.

People, guys and girls guys and girls who don't like it's very similar and it's you know again it's this uh it's this moment of survival or moment of zen. You know Joe Rogan talks about it in jujitsu um CrossFit you know when I hear Joe Rogan speaking about jujitsu in that way it it it connects with CrossFit as well. It's that that you know maybe five minutes of your entire life where you are in survival mode and you're not thinking about anything you have to do. You can't afford to right you're not thinking about your honeydo list or your bills or your problems it's you you are present for that short amount of time and I think that's the same thing that people get when they are you know doing MMA or whatever it might be in jiu jitsu.

Yeah I agree I mean when you're trying to put uh if you're trying to snatch over 200 pounds you're sure as shit not thinking about the dog food you have to pick up on the way home right that's just you're multi you're very present. Uh Brian you you've done um you market your your business in a lot of interesting ways how have you because the name of the show is the future of fitness how have you um kind of harnessed the digital age and technology and how have you used that to grow your business um both from a marketing standpoint and from the people your current clients internally and then how do you see that changing or what are that your eyes looking at moving forward right that's a huge question but go ahead.

That is um so being that I I enjoy I would say uh incubating anything and everything so if there is a better way to do anything you can you can be sure I'm spending hours researching or playing around with the new software or trying something um I'm not afraid to spend a month or two months or three months working on something that I think may help the business or may help our marketing or whatever it might be. But if it doesn't work I'm also not afraid to after three months abandon it and then begin something else right um so we're we're just starting to you know dive into the world of uh digital marketing um but before that it would just be member stories um organic shares that whole you know that whole story which is very important still yeah um Facebook algorithms I remember that the the point when they began to apply their algorithms where all of the sudden your reach was way less I'm like wow that is so smart because what we used to get for free um we're gonna realize we really missed that reach and we will pay anything to get it back. And uh they were dead on right um it's it's amazing once you give somebody something and they get used to it uh and you take it away and if it was useful to them they will do anything to get that back just to get to back back to a baseline right. So I remember that I remember as it was happening I'm like wow that is genius and I hate every second of it because they're they're taking from me what I I was using as a free tool but I appreciate it because I'm like that is that is exactly what they should do right they have the leverage. Yep but for me it's all about always been about technology like when we first opened our gym the gym I belonged to had like you know paper and uh journals and people would write it down and half the people would use it half wouldn't it be impossible to go back and look for your old scores and times and when I when I opened I saw Whattify at the time and and um they've been through their little ups and downs they're they're on the the right path right now. Okay it was it was you know it was different than anything out there when we opened our gym and I'm like wow this is this is a great tool we need this because it solves a problem. So the way I approach everything is I try to solve uh business problems whether they exist now or if I think they may exist later and I try to do that using technology and people.

Cool. Where do you see uh where do you see your business in the next two years? And do you have a roadmap to get there or are you just kind of taken day by day?

Yeah so we do um typically a year out of timelining. So we identify you know I've I've really spent this entire four years building the perfect archetype of the business that I think is going to uh you know be a a guiding star for many other gyms to follow right um by innovating and and in innovation is painful because literally incubating any idea innovating is painful because you are the first one right there's no there's no path to follow but I'm creating that path and I'm I'm documenting it all right so the gyms I have two gyms right now um our group CrossFit our individual design our specialty programs our nutrition program our workshops that's kind of like the the the meat and potatoes of it all we do goal setting sessions um you know everything that we built up until this point now we can uh allow to run very well it doesn't mean I'm not gonna find more trouble to get myself into when it comes to innovating but I I think we've uh we've outinnovated most people and now it's time to kind of you know work on just I I call them buckets but the the backstory on that is I once thought that 300 gym members was going to be like you know heaven right I'm gonna be filthy rich and this it's gonna be amazing maybe 300 group crosswork members right um but when I got there two years ago or a year and a half ago I realized that I wasn't happy with what I had built right it's like creating this piece of art art artwork and realizing it's not quite right and you know I'm the kind of guy that will just wipe the whole damn thing clean and start over rather than just try to fix things here or there. And I realized you can do it a lot smarter and a lot better. And I started creating these programs right so you know if we have group CrossFit I I think I can manage 200 people really well with that. We have the infrastructure the coaching the systems processes all of that. But then I think I can have about 75 Spark members and Spark members are our non-barbell kind of hit functional training it's uh we call it the enlightened approach to boot camp. But then I I think I can have 50 to 75 Legends members who are 50 years old enough and they can be in their own little group and then 20 ID clients and then you know nutrition is its own beast that can dip into the existing pools or we can pull from the outside. And when you begin to piece it together like that and it's a little easier to strategically fill those buckets up you know when you sit down and talk to somebody in a no sweat intro you know what bucket is best for them to accomplish their goals and since you have many different options it's easy to say this is your best bet not we have CrossFit we can make it work for you.

Now we have legends we have Spark you know we have all these different programs that is best for them not we can make it work for you right yeah so whenever when when people are interested in joining your gym they they always start off with with a consultation right yeah and then uh and I was it you that that kind of coined the prescriptive model um so Chris yeah okay but we worked on the goal setting together um it was just a need or a gap that that had to be filled for sure because I think it's interesting when you start looking at the client path right from start to finish um you know and what was different I think when you look at a lot of any kind of whether it's CrossFit or any kind of group model it's like okay we're just gonna hammer that square peg into the into the round hole just way we it's all we knew. And then you guys start thinking about well maybe if we just sit down and talk to people right do a little bit of investigation find out what they want and then as the coach as the professional that you are uh you tell them what they should be doing right uh I mean not in any kind of forceful way but I think in a way that people will understand. So is there um you know if if you're talking to like a kettlebell trainer right now right or someone who's listening who's not in CrossFit how would they take that model and and run with it on on their own?

So I mean kettlebell would be a little unique and different but you know a lot of the principles would remain the same really and just sit down and talk to people about what their specific goals are and then ask them point blank you know are you more comfortable in in group classes or one-on-one personal training? The mistake I think many gyms have made for forever is you know our biases because group fitness and crossfit did so well for me or for you that it should be for everybody. And if people just give it a shot and if they just try hard enough and they don't quit for long enough they're gonna see the results. In theory CrossFit could be for everybody I believe that 100% in practice uh it doesn't quite work as black and white so you can apply CrossFit or kettlebell training the first step is what do you feel more comfortable with group classes or personal training? But beyond that there's so much more to it right so if we can just talk and identify what people's goals are we can begin to say well you know what maybe like this person has no business doing a three by five back squat at 80% or an overhead squat um if she's you know I always use the 45 year old soccer mom who has 50 pounds to lose should we be making them overhead squat with an empty uh PVC pipe like if they need to lose weight is that going to elicit any response to help them lose weight or are we just teaching them like a really cool party trick? Yeah you can overhead squat greater she can snatch with a PVC. I don't disagree that it's important for people to learn new skills. So I don't want to be missing for that but I promise you that if you have somebody in that uh situation doing a five by ten heavy goblet squat with the kettlebell you're gonna get a much better result and you're gonna help them achieve their goals faster rather than forcing you know Sally into doing an overhead squat with a PVC pipe for 100 reps because she can't load it because she's has shoulder issues. Or even worse, uh the soccer mom that hurts herself and tears a rotator cuff because she's doing kipping pull-ups and all she wanted was to lose some fat, right? And now she can't work out for two years and she's you know just drawn about it and she goes off on an eating binge and you never see her again. So everything we do at Illumin is under constant scrutiny and that's why we changed so much because if there is a better way to do it we have to like there's there's no question about it. We have to scrap what we've done in favor of the better way to do it right and this is how you you you evolve.

Yeah yeah I totally agree and then just you know looking from a personal anecdote I I'm 41 now and uh my when I go into we drop in across the classics my wife and I are traveling quite a bit right now so we'll drop in and I've I've finally got to the point we're like how strong do I need to be right how strong is strong enough and then at what point am I risking injury and what about all the other things that I love to do meanwhile Eric of five years ago would have been like I got to trans in the open dude I don't care if my knee hurts I don't care if my shoulder hurts right so it's that you have to catch people where they are within their life too and that's a big part of it. So kind of staying in that realm tell us what you're up to now because I know you're working on the blueprint to success right I think you said is that still a project you're working on or it is yeah so tell me about that or tell us yes the blueprint is um you know I I hesitate to call it life coaching but it it it really is it's why do you hesitate?

I just it's kind of like the word personal trainer I just I I think there's a lot of crap out there that are associated with these terms right um really what it is it's sitting down with people and having them identify um specific actionable goals for specific you know what we call them pillars of of your life whether it's travel and leisure health and fitness business and financial um career we have six different pillars and you can't just focus on one or two of the six and have a a fulfilled life right or you can't be happy if you're heavy on two and light on on the other four. So we try to teach people how do you nurture all six so first you have to identify like what you think you want your life to look like in each six of those categories and then we help them identify specific action items to help them get there and then we hold them accountable right because we know all of the best lay plans are useless without accountability I know it myself I'm a highly motivated individual I'm a self-starter but um if somebody's not holding me accountable like for nutrition or other things it's easy to put it off and it's easy to uh just brush it under the rug and say I'll get to it later right but when somebody's holding you accountable uh it really really pushes you to stay on on target with your focuses and and then you know every year year over year if you're actually doing these little micro things to get you to these bigger goals you're gonna look back and you're gonna be glad you did it but you first you have to start right yeah and I I think that's a huge uh a huge component of having client longevity too is getting them to see hey it's not about the next 30 days it's about the next 30 years and I'm gonna help you I can offer value there.

And if I was in the Chicago area I would train your gym hand down. Brian where where do people get a hold of you? If people want to talk to you they want to ask you questions or um just kind of follow you what where do they go?

So the the main address I try to funnel everybody through now if it's not to sign up for the gym is just Brian at twobrainbusiness.com. Awesome that's the the easiest for me I have way too many emails out there way too many you know Slack channels and and and all that but yeah that's typically the easiest way to get hold of me.

Okay. Great well I uh I have a lot of respect for what you do Brian I think you do a great job and um probably in your own your own mind you're you're your biggest critic I would imagine absolutely my wife my wife would agree yeah so just keep it on man just keep doing what you're doing keep refining systems and uh thank you very much I appreciate your time and it's been great talking to you.

Awesome.

Thanks for having me on man yeah thank you for listening to this episode of the Future of Fitness podcast and webinar series uh we're working really hard here to keep great content coming out and we'd like to express our gratitude by offering you a free seven day marketing crash course. So here's how you can claim it. If you go to fitnessmarketingalliance.com forward slash free gift f R E E E G I F T and you enter the promo code FitMARK F I T M A R K, you can claim it that way. The other way is you can text us. So you can text the phone number 80561950 and you text the word Fitmark F I T M A R K. So thank you keep listening go claim that offer it's a ton of value and if you ever want to get a hold of me or if you have suggestions for guests topics or anything else or if you just want to ask me questions uh I always respond you can reach me at Eric E R I C at fitnessmarketingalliance.com and keep listening. We have a lot more coming down the pipe and we'll make sure that we're keeping the value great for you guys and farewell till next time