Anthony Geisler's Sequel Brands: Five Boutique Brands, Zero Debt, 100% Control

Hey friends, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness and wellness industry podcast for over five years and running. I'm your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the honor of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. If you like the show, we'd love it if you took three minutes of your day to leave us a nice supporter review wherever you consume your podcast. If you're interested in staying up to date with the Future of Fitness, go to futurofitness.co to subscribe and get weekly summaries dropped into your inbox. Now on to the show. One theme keeps coming up. The right technology can make or break your business. That's why I'm thrilled to introduce our new presenting sponsor, Perfect Gym. Perfect Gym isn't just another gym management system. They are part of the Sport Alliance Group, Europe's leading fitness software company that has officially entered the US market. Now, I've seen this movie before, but here's the difference. They've opened up a U.S. headquarters in Boston because they understand that the American market deserves dedicated, localized support. After digging into the platform, one benefit especially stood out. They are simplifying the nightmare that keeps business owners up at night migrations. These guys were able to migrate one mega client with more than 250 locations from six different countries in just 20 days. Between two payment runs, no disrupting operations, no member loss, one seamless operation that simply works. Now, if you have ever switched platforms, you know how terrifying that process can be and how truly impressive that can be.com where enterprise level sophistication meets operator freedom. The Future of Fitness Podcast is proudly brought to you by eGim. In an industry full of noise, with more features, more screens, more promises, eGym is focused on something far more meaningful. Progress that counts. EGM is a global fitness technology leader, building the infrastructure behind real results. The Open Ecosystem connects smart strength equipment, AI-powered software, and data-driven services to turn fitness into measurable, repeatable progress for members, trainers, operators, and communities. Now what really excites me is how EGM brings its ecosystem together with WellPast, their corporate wellness platform. By combining their strength equipment with AI-powered software and their corporate wellness platform WellFast, they're leading the shift to proactive, preventative health. Isn't that what we all want? That's why we're here. To learn more, please visit eGym.com. Alright, here we go. Anthony Geisler, welcome to the future of fitness. How are you doing, man?

Hey Eric, good to see you again, man.

Yeah, very, very good. And uh before we get into this, I want to say you you look great. Every time I see you, you feel like you're getting a little bit younger. I'm not just blowing smoke up your skirt.

I think you're hitting on me. I shaved the head. A little bit yesterday. It's good. I uh yeah, no, look, I'm uh I'm working out. I'm eating a whole food diet. Um, you know, we'll I'm sure get to uh my latest on Ultimate Longevity Center, but um uh we're uh we're living the life, right? Um so we're we're doing what we're supposed to do. And um, you know, my wife says I've got more energy now 10 years later than I did when our you know when our daughter was born. And that's kind of the proof point, right? Because everybody always asks, but do you feel like you know you take a vitamin, does it do you feel the vitamin when you take it or you don't take it? It's like, no, I don't, it's not rocket fuel, but um, but yeah, my uh my metabolic age is going backward every time I test it, and that's my goal. My uh my daughters want me to live to 100, which sounds painful. I'll probably want to go at 85. But um, yeah, so I've uh I gotta age backward. So I appreciate that.

Yeah, well, maybe we'll maybe we'll get into your personal protocol later uh if time allows, because there's obviously much more pressing things to talk about. But I am curious. I am curious because I know you work with Brecka, right? Yep. All right, well, let's start with this. I have a lot of questions for you, but uh I think anybody in this industry who doesn't know who you are probably should just do a little bit of research and we'll we'll skip that. Um coming off exponential and looking at what you guys are doing at SQL. The biggest question I have, and you and I were joking about this a little bit, is like, do you've seen a high level of financial success? Um You could probably do a lot of things, but you are going to do this thing again differently in many ways, I'm sure, but also very similar. Why? Why, man? Why, why do this to yourself again?

Why am I glutton for punishment?

Yeah.

Cardiac doctors asked me the other day. He's like, why why the stress level are you trying to do this? Um look, the the analogy I give, and not that I am anywhere in the business world that Kobe Bryant was to the basketball world, right? But, you know, his his body gave up on him before his mind did. And um, you know, the difference in business and entrepreneurship is it you're really using your mind more than your body, right? Your body's got to stay in check. We got to age backward, but at the same time, you know, the team is young. Um, you know, I'm not quite 50 yet. I've been calling myself 50 for the last year so that I can ease into it from 49 to 50. But um, but I'm not 50 yet. Uh, you know, I take my daughters to school every morning, give them a hug and kiss, put them in class at 8:30. I get here right after that. And, you know, what else would I do all day? Right? They don't get out till 3 30. Uh, they go to dance at 4. They dance from 4 to 7. I get them at 7, right? Uh other than being an Uber for a half hour midday. Like, I'm not really missing out on anything, any part of life that's important to me. Um, this is what drives me. This is what I want to do. I want to compete. That's why Kobe stayed as long as he stayed, because he wanted to compete. And he had that Mamba mentality. You know, he did in business, he did in sports. I'm I'm not gifted in sports, so I won't be doing it there. But um, that's where I have to do it. And the same for the team. The team loved to build, the team loved to compete. Um, and there was some discussion there at Expo, you know, was it the arena, was it the jerseys, or was it the players? Um, and so the players left, they have a new arena, they have a new jersey, and the scoreboard's a scoreboard, the math is the math, right? And so um, you know, we're over here continuing uh the work that we were doing, the great work that we we were doing, and continuing our legacy in the in the industry.

Who uh when you say compete, ma'am, like when in your mind, who do you see as competition? Is it other players in the industry? Is it, I don't know, sickness, right? Like what what is what is the competition? Who's who's got a target on their back?

To uh quote David Goggins, who we've had involved in the last business and had in our in our uh in our conventions and a guest speaker and just a good dude, um he said it it's you against you, right? That's what it is at the end of the day. So who am I competing with? Myself. Right? And uh we do that all around the office here. You know, we're we're not I'm not trying my marketing team. I'm not trying to have them out market, you know, Orange Theory or Planet Fitness or LA Fitness. I I love all those guys and I I wish them all great success. And I would help them be successful if there's a way that I could. So I don't, I don't look at it that way. But when I get on my marketing team, when I get on my franchise sales team, it's because they're not competing well against themselves. They're not playing full out, they're capable of more, right? And, you know, if a car is capable of going 200 miles an hour and it's going 200 miles an hour and the car's doing its job, and that's top end. But if you're paying for 200 miles an hour and you're going 140 today, then the car's just not doing what the car's supposed to do. And that's just that. So it's you against you. And it's a mental business or not a physical business. And that's what happens with David, right? He's like, look, your body will do far more, right? Gary's son just ran a hundred miles from California to Las Vegas in the last couple of days through the middle of the night, right? Why, why do that? You know, there's no reason. Uh, there's no physical reason to go do that, right? But it's the hundred times he wanted to quit. Um, and then he's gonna go forward and run some triathlons back to back. Why? To prove that he can do it, right? And so um, that's what we're doing. And so we're we're back to supporting franchisees. You know, we own 100% of the company and we have no debt, we have no other shareholders. You know, I gave away 20 plus percent of the company to the team here, just like I did back at Exponential. So it's meaningful dollars there, it was meaningful dollars here, and we're all playing for something bigger. You know, we gave a $10 million pledge, actually gave equity in the company to Miracles for Kids, children with terminally ill sicknesses down the street. And so at Chalka Hospital, so we're also playing for something bigger than ourselves. And so we have to go compete, we have to go do great things to make sure there's value there for those families too.

Right on, man. Right on. So uh when I look at Expo and now into SQL, I I see something, I feel like there's a a recipe. The ingredients kind of change, right? Evolving into what you're doing now. Has that recipe changed a little bit from what you've learned over the you know last 10 years of of growing something within this industry? Like what are you doing differently to to improve and work upon what you built in the past?

Yeah, don't go public. No, look, there it it it is this it's the same players. We're we're running the same formula we ran in the beginning of Exponential. A lot of people don't realize I I sold majority control in 2017 um and never owned more uh than a minority stake at 30 plus percent, 30% uh of the business. So, you know, people don't often understand um that they think, oh well, you're you're the CEO, you're making all the decisions every day for you know 3,000 locations and what they do, and that's just not how it works, right? There's there's 300 people there, there's a board of directors, there's private equity firms, there's a lot of people chiming in on all the decisions. There was no decision there that I made, right? Um, and so what's nice over here is that you know, we can all get together, we can all make decisions, but we don't have to do it um with people that you know don't necessarily know how to operate the business that we're operating.

Yeah, interesting. And we'll get your take on the current market conditions, right? I've I've heard a lot of things about obviously HVLP is booming, right? And I think there's a lot of things driving that. There's artificial intelligence is changing a lot of things. I I don't I think we're kind of on a I think we're feeling it, but we're not sure why yet. Like it's it's you know what I mean? Like I I feel I feel something is changing within our industry, but I can't point to exactly what it is. And I have to imagine it's technology and GLP ones. We just we don't have the data yet to kind of see how that's that's going. Boutique, I hear mixed signals like, hey, there's strong headwinds, but then I see other ones being, you know, great operators doing great work. Um there's, of course, there's hype cycles and fashions within our industry. There always have been. Pilates is one of them, which you have a brand who's you know coming to the Pilates market pretty strongly. So I mean, when you look at the market conditions for what you guys are doing, is that something you take into account and what are you seeing, or do you just have your mission and you're just executing either way?

Yeah, look, so everyone's got an opinion. Mine is it's not the industry that's changing, the world is changing.

Yes.

Right. Um, when I was a kid, you were a good parent if you took your kid to McDonald's, bought him a happy meal, and let him play in the disgusting little balls outside in the playland, right? Today, if someone takes your kid and takes him to McDonald's, gets him a hot apple pie and a drink and a cheeseburger that'll last forever outdoors, um, and then plays in disgusting little balls, they come home sick and you know, and full of garbage, right? So the world is changing, right? Regardless of what you think about politics, people did vote in Bobby and Maha and all of those things, right? And right, wrong, indifferent, right? I I do believe that we shouldn't have people using food stamps to buy soda and candy and potato chips and MM Mars bars, right? I feel like at the very least, they should be buying clean water, whole foods, vegetables, fruits, things like that. So, you know, the the people, the world is learning more about the body, right? Longevity became a keyword. Biohacking became a keyword. UBS just said that the longevity space is eight billion or eight trillion, sorry, dollars over the next 48 months. Like that's insane. I don't know how that stacks AI, but I guarantee it's probably pretty damn close, right? And so um my opinion isn't that the fitness industry is moving. My opinion is that health is moving post-COVID. Our knowledge of the body is moving like every four weeks, it's like technology did uh back when we invented PCs and the iPhone, right? So, you know, if you're talking about longevity and wellness from six months ago, you should be just talking about from six years ago. It's outdated. And so people are very curious about how my particular body work? How do I live healthier, right? You look at this sauna uh stuff that's coming out now, you know, 50% drops in morbidities, right? It's it's it's insane. And so, you know, I I think the world is shifting. You're seeing these massive tailwinds in January, right? If you look at Athletec and the the great work Eddie's doing over there and publicizing what's happening, you're you're seeing participation be, yes, big in January, great, but bigger than other Januaries, right? And so I think there is a material shift that already happened. Like you said, people are wondering about the effects of it. There's a there's a ship that already sailed, a train that already left the station, depending on where they are, are starting to hear about it, right? And starting to feel it. When my dad at 79 years old tells me, who eats like garbage and has his whole life, tells me, hey, I think I need a personal trainer. Hey, what do you think about peptides? Right? Like the fact that a 79-year-old retired guy is thinking about peptides or even knows the word peptides or whatever. And this is a guy who has no social media, he still has that a drug dealer flip phone that he got for free 10 years ago. You know, you're not talking about a guy that's connected to a Gary Brecka or somebody like that, right? You're talking about a guy who tries to be disconnected from planet Earth and he knows what these things are. Right. And so the world, I believe, is shifting. And so for some people, at the lower barrier to entry, it's going into planet fitness, right? It's going into a crutch. It's, hey, I got 10 bucks, I got 15 bucks, I got 20 bucks, I'm gonna throw at my health. Um, I heard I'm supposed to get 10,000 steps a day, so I'm gonna start walking more. I'm gonna start walking after I eat. I'm gonna start trying to buy organic fruits and vegetables where I can. I'm gonna try and eat whole foods. I'm not gonna eat the bag of chips anymore. Those are the ways people are starting to process this train that that already left the station.

That's a really good point. It kind of segues into my next conversation is with these converging or these these the world is changing. I agree. A thousand percent. And I think one of the things that we see this big boom in HVLP is that we have a more educated consumer and they just want access. They want access to these things, right? They're kind of putting together their own, maybe they more and more people now are sitting down with ChatGPT and saying, hey, give me a nutrition program, give me a wellness program, like here's my blood work. Like that's just happening at a rapid pace, and ChatGPT just announced their uh health one that they have a waiting list for. I don't know if you saw that, but I'm sure that's gonna I mean I I think it was I'm I put this in a LinkedIn post. I think it's 230 million people per week have a health inquiry into chat GPT. A significant amount of people pursuing their own health and wellness, right? So where I'm going with this is as you're now building out SQL and you're deciding on which brands you want to go, how is that factoring into your decisions of which types of brands you want to bring on board?

Yeah, I think it's a a healthy balance of fitness and then wellness, right? What I think you're seeing in that shift is that I think people for the first time really in you know in history view that there is a path to living longer, and there is a path to living healthier as you live longer, like real life. Like no one wants to be hooked up to a machine and made it to 110, right? Like that's not that's not how people want to live. Most people would rather die if that's how life is, right? And so when I talk about living longer, I talk about you know living a higher quality of life as well as the extension of the years themselves. And so that's what we take into consideration when we're building the portfolio. So, yes, we look at things in the fitness space like Pilates, right? And why are we looking there? Why is Pilates hot? Because for people, it is the most entertaining kind of piece of boutique fitness today and has been. Obviously, I built Club Pilates from, you know, a couple dozen locations uh, you know, at best to 1,400 in multiple countries. And I took it from $250,000 of average revenue a year to a million plus, right? So the revenue four X, uh, while the locations, you know, billion X or whatever that, whatever that math is when you go from 20 to 1,400 in climate, right? So um, you know, that is an entertaining workout and it is an efficient workout, right? So the juice is worth the squeeze for people. Where I think that has changed today is that something like a club Pilates is great for that 40, 45-year-old and up crowd that is trying to get quality of life or longevity of life, and that's kind of a great workout and always has been. Where I feel there's a gap in the marketplace is the people that are 18, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 years old. Uh, they've realized that that workout is is not uh efficient enough for them. They want that kind of soul cycle of Pilates, right? What Soul did that revolutionized the cycling world. Um Pilates addiction is doing our brand to revolutionize a Pilates world, right? And so it makes that workout even harder, right? It is a hit Pilates type workout. So, you know, we just had people through uh this last week that are, you know, buying franchises. And they're like, yeah, I've done, you know, I've done the Club Pilates workout and I've done 500 classes, and I'm at the top of my game, and that's at the bottom of our Pilates addiction game. Right. And so it really is kind of taking it from beginner to intermediate to intermediate to advanced to expert, right? And so the efficiency is there for your time. The workout is harder, it's way more entertaining, way better looking, you know, and just an overall better experience. So we want to do that. When you look at what sauna is doing, and you guys can Google this, when you look at what sauna is doing for morbidity for, you know, 20 minutes five times a week, six times a week at the end of your workout, it's insane. So we want to be in the sauna space. When you look at what red light is doing for people, real red light uh is doing for people, not a Christmas light that people tend to put up and go, oh, it's red light. But real red light is doing for people, it's crazy, right? So we want to be in that space, and we are with Beam. With flex and recovery, right? We have eye flex. So um, you know, we have a stretching modality for people because flexibility, especially as you get older, is definitely a key. And recovery, people have understood is a key, right? A key for athletes and performance people. So we want to be in that space. And um with body 20, we want to be in a tech forward EMS space, right? This electromosctimulation is massively huge in Europe and other parts of the world, just not here, right? And we own the biggest one here. Uh, and we're gonna make it one of the biggest in the world uh with the team that we have and the tech that we have. You know, when we bought that, you had to get wet in your suit and you were connected and it was one-on-one and it sucked. I mean, that was reality. And now we have FDA approved, disconnected, dry technology where we have eight people in a class. So the labor model has gone down, the boutique fitness piece, the community is now there, um, and the technology is phenomenal, right? And then you couple all that with the launch of our latest brand, Ultimate Longevity Center, um, with Gary Breca and Tony Robbins and Life Force and Dougle and the team there are phenomenal. So you, you know, you couple that together, and now you say, okay, now I've got this holistic approach because to your point, everyone's going on Chat GPT, right? A billion people a month asking, like, hey, I know this is out there. I know there's the Fountain of Youth. I know there's the Promised Land. I don't know who to believe because there's a bunch of knockoff Gary Breccas, you know, kind of all over the internet. Um, and so, you know, Gary and I have been friends, and you know, Gary wants to um get this down to the masses. He wants to democratize uh this longevity space. He uh, you know, he loves Dana, he loves Tom Brady, he loves Steve Harvey, he loves the Kardashians. They're all great people, they're all his clients. Took a couple hundred pounds off Jelly Roll, right? Um, so like he loves all that, but he wants this to be for Susie in Nebraska, for Bob in Idaho, uh, not for LA and Manhattan, right? We'll be there uh and we'll absolutely produce there. But him and I got together and said, hey, look, I there's probably no better person than me to franchise it and scale it. I've proven that. I've built thousands and thousands and thousands of locations across multiple countries and done it well while we increased revenue for franchisees. So it's not careless. It was pre-programmed and stable, and we did a great job. So, you know, we could do that in this space. And we can have a brick and mortar and a telemedicine piece because Life Force is, you know, the leader in that telemedicine space. And Tony and Gary are probably the two biggest legitimate mouthpieces, right, for this longevity part. And so we said, why do one when you can do both? And so the three of us together are, you know, going to be able to go operate in this longevity space. So people don't have to chat GPT and hope to God whatever pops up is true and does work, that we can run genetic tests, we can run blood tests, and we can find out where people are deficient and we can supplement for those deficiencies and not just supplement for supplement sake.

Yeah, so let's get into that. I I love I've been following the longevity, the evolution of the longevity offering for many years now. And I think it's it's it's fascinating. We haven't quite, it's still, we're all figuring it out, you know, pricing, packaging, all that stuff. It's it's really exciting space to be in. So I guess a couple questions on that. I was like, what is the client experience going to be like there? Maybe you could just walk us through that. You mentioned a couple different qualities of what that is. And then you kind of address this as well with some of the names you brought up, but what do you think your right to win is in a space that's competitive when you got someone like Lifetime Imure or you got you know uh Jim Donnelly at Humanaut, you know, who's got a ton of experience scaling up to. I mean, not that there can't be competition and everyone can win, but like, yeah, specifically, how do you think you you win in this space?

Yeah, so twofold, we'll have a bifurcated model. So there'll be what we're calling the playground, which will be the you know, cold therapies, heat therapies, you know, hyperbaric chambers, things of that nature. And so you'll be able to go there and, you know, buy something, a membership that allows you to come and book any of the machines, you know, four times a month, eight times a month unlimitedly. And that'll be cost effective, right? In the $300 a month range. It's what we're targeting right now for unlimited use on the playground side. And then there'll be the clinic side, which will be more a la carte, right? Where you can just stop in and get an IV if that's what you want to do today. And you're at Starbucks next door, and those will be nice leaders for us to be able to put people on the protocols they need to be in and not self-protocoling, right? Like, I don't feel great today. I'm gonna go get, hmm, B12. I heard B12 would be good, and so I'll get some B12. Well, maybe you don't need B12, right? So that'll allow us to look at people's genetics and test their blood and figure out what do you actually need, and then supplement for where you're deficient, right? Um, which is gonna come back down to whole food diets and supplementation and movement and sleep and community and connection relationships, right? And so that's what we'll be driving on the clinic side for people to be able to do that, right? And then the protocols were will include the playground side because that is a part of where people are deficient. And so we will test that on both sides, you know, in-body scanners, things of that nature. So we'll know where people's baseline is clinically, and we'll know where their baseline is in the playground, and we'll give them a roadmap that we will continue to retest to make sure, you know, life is pretty simple. You figure out where the ball is on the field, you know where the end zone is, and then you have a plan to move the ball from where it is on the field into the end zone. And you constantly check in. In football, it's every four downs, right? This is where we are. We got two yards, we got two yards, we got two yards. Cool, that's six yards, and we're getting closer, right? And so, but people don't do that in this space, right? They look at it and they say, Oh, I need a multivitamin, and they go to their grocery aisle and they get a centra multivitamin, which I don't know if that does more harm than good, right? And so, and so that's why we want to do it. Why do I think we'll compete? Because there is, from a data perspective, just flat out, full stop, face value, there is nobody bigger in the longevity space than Gary. Period. Whether you want to look at his 225 million views a month or his millions of followers or his client lists or the work that he's done, uh there's nobody bigger and call it mass media motivation, you know, the longevity space with life force and telemedicine. Who's bigger than Tony Robbins? So if I walk into a Starbucks and there's 10 people in line, I'm gonna guarantee nine out of 10, maybe 10 out of 10, I've heard of Tony Robbins, right? And so um we absolutely have the ability to broadcast Life Force and what amazing business that it is that'll be inside of our box, going from telemedicine to brick and mortar, and Gary to promote what we're doing on the playground side, right? And how those those two kind of interact together. And so that that's what we're up to. Um, and I love Barom at Lifetime. I love Jeff. They do a great job at kind of skipping the rock along all the different things that are great. I'm a member of theirs and I'm happy to pay $600 a month, even though I wish Barom would charge me zero. So if he's watching this, I'll take zero. But uh no, they're they're great guys and they they have to cater to people that want to do Pilates, want to play basketball, just want to lift a dumbbell, want to walk on a treadmill, want to do the alpha workout, which they have there, you know, which is amazing, um, that want to do a stretch, that want to do whatever, and they'll get in the longevity space and provide, you know, the benefit that they possibly can. We're gonna be focused on longevity only, right? We won't we won't have basketball and we're not gonna have dumbbells. Um, we're gonna be focused on this longevity space. And you know, we're planning to go with that at full bore.

But what's the pricing model looking like for this?

Yeah, so like I said, on that playground side, that's that's gonna range from about $150 to $300, depending on usage, right? And then the clinic side's gonna be all a cart, and there'll be a membership there too. So if you say, hey, look, I this is my protocols, and you know, I need two IVs a week, I need this, I need that, I need quarterly blood draws uh from Life Force, which is great because we can do it in the brick and mortar. We can come to your house, we can come to your office, you can go to a facility if you want to. Um, so we'll have 360 opportunity for them. And then when they run their protocols, if they want to talk to a doctor like you and I are, and they want to do it on their phone in a parking lot on their lunch break, they want to do it on their computer via Zoom, they want to come to the brick and mortar and have the conversation in person, we'll be able to do that for them. And that's nothing anybody else is currently able to do. And so we'll be able to, you know, facilitate whatever they want wherever they are.

Right on. Yeah, so that it makes a ton of sense. And Pilates makes a ton of sense, uh, the sauna makes a ton of sense. Stretch the iFlex makes a ton of sense. Like that's we we've prune these models. What I'm curious about is EMS, because I've seen this one come through multiple times over the years of like people have tried to bring it into the U.S. market. I still don't know why it's so big in Europe, but it can't get traction here. So I mean that that was the one I was like, that's curious. I want to get Anthony's take on that because I I didn't see that one coming.

Look, I think, like I said, I think where the tech, I wouldn't have bought the business that the tech was going to stay as a tech, right? Because the things that were hammering the business, like I said, is you had to put on a wet suit to conduct the electricity, right? Yeah. So you're you're kind of quasi-wondering, it's like putting on a wet boxing glove or a wet bowling shoe. You're kind of like, is this the cleaner in the water or the last 10 people's sweat, right? It's just not a good customer experience. Then you're hooked up and connected, which then keeps us from also having community with eight-on-one. The franchisees are paying one-on-one labor, so the business model is tough, right? The technology would break, the old technology would break, right? Um, the new tech is FDA approved, it's dry, it's disconnected, it's eight-on-one. The warranties are five times as long as you know, they used to be. And so the technology has really evolved. And I think that's where we needed to get in the US to have that community, to have the boutique, where we are rolling out the technology, you know, the AUV, what we call AUV, just you know, fancy word for revenue, but average unit volume for the franchisees was in that $350,000, $400,000 space. The people that are following our new protocols, like new ways to operate, right, as a franchisee and rolling out the new technology and adopting it, these new stores are seeing $550, $570, pushing $600, right? And so you're you're seeing the revenue go up because the experience is way better, right? And the way we operate. I mean, you've got at body 20, the first, second, and third in command, we're all X exponential brand presidents, right? So there's a million dollars in payroll that is just sitting in the top three of a business that, you know, that has a big org chart. I we have 75 full-time employees over here at Seq. Well, our payroll is a million dollars a month, right? And so in all of our brands, we have really stacked the deck. So what we're starting to see now is revenue going up from better business operations, right? From the team that's here that knows how to operate and scale. We're seeing the technology evolve into something really good, right? And we're seeing the customer experience be way better than it was. And the labor model go down because now I'm paying one instructor for eight customers, right? As opposed to one-on-one. Imagine if a restaurant had one server for every table. How would you make any money? They make money because there's one server for eight tables, right? Um, and so that's the evolution that we're seeing. And from that adoption, we're going to see scale, right? And as we see scale, there'll be availability like you have in Europe. Um, and then I think we'll see that here. And there's no one better to do it than Body 20. I mean, we're by far the US leader in that EMS space.

Yeah, that I'll be keen to watch that because I'm curious about how you package it up, how you market it, you know, what who's a consumer who's going to walk in the door? Um, you know, I've heard a lot of promises of for people who are overweight, it's a great way to burn a lot of calories in a short period of time. Um I've tried it multiple times. I don't know if I'm the right candidate for something like that. I just didn't have pack enough punch for me personally, but I could see if maybe someone hasn't been trained their whole life got it.

Well, we will uh we'll get you in one of the boxes. I'll make that my mission, and we will put you into a 220 and we will light you up.

Yeah, you'll make me eat my words, right? All right. That's fair.

Big, we definitely got to get that done because I want you to get the experience. And we actually find a lot of times that the people that are in better shape and leaner will actually get more sore. It's opposite of what you think, uh, because you're gonna penetrate that muscle and you're actually gonna work out harder, right? So, yes, it is for people who aren't in great shape, uh, but sometimes we get the people like, oh, I'm an athlete, I'm in shape. Whatever it's like, cool, I'm gonna light you up, right? Um and so uh that's that's kind of what it is. But yeah, it it has amazing benefits um outside of just putting in 20 minutes and and getting 90 minutes of results.

I want to ask you, so and this is this is a delicate topic, so I'm gonna walk it gingerly. Um, you know, with the new administration came in in 2024, there's a lot of excitement, right? Maha, you know, it's been a little bit quieter, mainly due to there's a million other headlines, so people aren't following as closely. But I've heard great things coming out of the Maha movement. I've also heard things I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. Is that even true? So, you know, how are you uh walking step by step with how they're doing? Are you paying attention to what Maha is doing? Are you aligning with with some of the things they're doing? Like, is there is there interactions there?

Look, like like any hot topic, you know, when you when you get into Maha and you get into Bobby and you get into all that, it it becomes very complex, right? I mean, you're you've got Bobby Kennedy running the FDA, the CDC, NIH. Um, I always joke and say the only thing he could have taken on was the DMV and the Postal Service, right? On top of that. I mean, it's just it's such a massive job. Um and there's politics involved, there's opinions involved, there's a lot. Um, do I think they're moving in the wrong direction or the right direction personally? Yes, I do. The the I do believe that you should eat a whole food diet. I do believe that sugar is bad for you. I do believe that Coca-Cola is not a preferred drink. I think water is better. And so it aligns with what I eat. It aligns with what I give my family. But if I knew everything Maha was doing and every decision they were making, which is thousands a day, would I agree with all thousand? I'm sure I wouldn't, right? And I'm sure Gary wouldn't. I'm sure Kelly and Bobby probably wouldn't agree on, you know, a thousand decisions a thousand times, right? And so, look, I I think it is very tough. It is very complex. It's heading in the right direction, no doubt. Um, and then are there the fringe things that Bobby deals with on the politics, whether it's, you know, abortions or vaccinations or, you know, all these kinds of things? It's it's very, very tough, right? It's it's very tough because, you know, if you decide that everybody, you know, that all the cows have to eat a certain diet and be raised a certain way. So the meat is a certain way. Well, you got a bunch of farmers that aren't making money already anyway. So then who pays for the farmers' losses, right? And so there's just there's so many things that you just you don't have. Most people don't have all the information to understand how complex these jobs are. Um at the end of the day, these are human beings, right? They're they're trying to work their 12, 13, 14 hours a day, be a dad, be a grandpa, be a son, be a brother, be a whatever. Uh, and I think people forget that too, that we're all humans. You know, everybody puts on their cape and goes to try to be Superman for the day, but at the end of the day, they're they're going home to a house and a family and a life that they have to live too.

Yeah, great answer. So there's one thing that I'm surprised I haven't seen come out of SQL yet. And maybe it's part of Ultimate Longevity Center. But there's one massive elephant in the room in our industry, and that's GLP1s, right? You know, have you looked at aligning any of your brands with medical? I know you had Lindora, you had experience with them in the past and medical weight loss programs. Is that a model that you're like, that's that's sticky, or is this something that maybe you're you're thinking, you're looking at, you're conceptualizing and recognizing as probably one of the most significant underlying currents that our industry's ever seen?

Right. I mean, look, my personal opinion is there is a time and a place for peptides, right? There's a time and a place for that. And should you be taking peptides, whether it's GLP1 or it's RETA or it's anything that's out there that people are talking about, you know, in the world and the internet, are there peptides that are good for you as supplementation in the right place and the right time? Yes. I think that's the answer. Should you take a GLP one and then go eat a half a gallon of ice cream and watch TV for 10 hours? Probably not. Right. And so where I think the place is for peptides is am I getting sleep? Right? Am I eating a whole food diet? Am I moving? Do I have connection and community and relationships and purpose? And if you're checking all those boxes and you're not moving the ball down the field, then the conversation becomes is there supplementation that I need? Right. And so what you won't find from us at ultimate longevity, and you won't find from us at SQL is roll out of your car with your donuts and let's hit you with a GLP one and send you back home to the couch. I don't think you'll find that, right? From us. Uh what you will find is let's test your genetics, let's test your blood, let's find out where you're deficient. Are you deficient in connection and community? Are you deficient in sleep? Are you deficient in a whole food diet? Are you deficient in magnesium? And then let's supplement for where you're deficient, and then let the body heal itself. Right. I think that is the first steps. That is the first protocols. If none of that is working or some of those pieces aren't working, then is there a world of peptides? Absolutely.

All right. I want to ask this again. This is something I feel obliged to ask. And you and I talked about this prior recording. I actually I loved your answer. So I know you're ready for this, but there's critics out there. And I'm not going to say it's it's not just you or Expo or any like Peloton, right? I whenever Peloton started to take a shit, everyone was just couldn't wait to just grab them, a piece of them, and tear them down. I never understood that. I'm like, this was a category leader. They defined a category, right? Same with exponential. You took boutique to a whole new level that we didn't even think. The whole concept of having multiple brands under one roof, it was really anything. So when people are critical of what you what you do or things you've done in the past or moves you made on the public stage, like what do you have to say? What's your commentary?

Yeah, I mean, look, for first and foremost, I'd have to know what the critics are saying. Um, I don't have social media. That's not a part of my life. So um, I would imagine that's where majority of the critics lie today. Um, I'm not getting phone calls or emails or faxes. So I would assume the uh majority of criticism for Peloton or for Gary or Tony or me or the space or, you know, um whomever is getting criticized. I would assume that's a primarily a social media situation. And I don't have that, so I don't see it. That's that's kind of first. Second of all, you know, you see this on the internet, you you know, you hear about this, that, you know, typically it's not the people, you know, in your industry that are doing well that call each other to criticize each other, right? You know, Dave Long, who did an amazing job at Orange Theory, Baram, who does an amazing job at Lifetime, you know, Chris, who I think revolutionized Planet from the ground up and really created that space that we all talk about today being hot. Um, we call each other, we text each other, and we lift each other up, right? Because we understand the game, we understand the complexities, we know what's going on, we know how hard the job is, we're doing the job. Um, I don't find typically that the people that would be on social media criticizing people are people that are qualified in the space to have an opinion. And so it's usually people that are here looking up saying, hey, I don't like what that guy is doing, but I'm not running around criticizing, you know, Becky in Nebraska for, you know, how she's a mom or something. Like, I don't know. I've never been a mom. I can't be a mom, so I'm not gonna criticize mothers, right? And so um I think criticism is great if Baron called me and said, Anthony, you did a horrible job, right? If Chin called me from LA Fitness and said, Anthony, I think you've got this all wrong. Um, that's criticism I want to get. That's criticism, mentorship and coaching I want to get. I want to hear from Dave Long. I want to hear from Chris Rondau. I want to hear from those people, right? I want to talk to the guys who have gone to space, who've flown in space, who have seen space. I want the coaching and criticism and mentorship from them. Um, I don't want to be sitting in space and someone's criticizing me from Earth, right? Because they got to get to space before they get perspective.

Good. Good. I'm glad I asked that. That was excellent. We do have time. And I did tease this in the beginning. What's your protocol, dude? What's what's Burecca changed in your life that you're feeling incredibly healthy and energetic and your bioage is going backwards? What's going on?

Well, look, I I always got to give credit where credit's due. And, you know, I've known Gary for a couple years, but prior to Gary, I was eating salt for the last almost 10 years, every morning. And that came from a trainer I had, Damon Sewell, who has now since retired, much that I'm not happy about, and has moved on to Texas to live a second chapter of his life or another chapter of his life. Um, you know, today people are like, hey, you know, you gotta have lean muscle mass. Hey, you gotta eat a whole food diet, you gotta have salt in the morning to hydrate. Uh, the very first time I worked out with Damon, I've been in this space, you know, two decades. And the first time I worked out with him, I thought I was gonna need medical attention. And I was leaning up against a shelf in his gym, and he brought me a red solo cup with Himalayan pink salt in it eight, nine years ago now. And I was surprised how it brought me back to life within minutes. Minutes. And so, you know, it makes all the sense in the world, right? I love stuff. There's so much out there, but I try and follow things that are logical, things that are common sense, right? If you go to the ER, what's the first thing they give you? An IV. What is it? Saline bag. What's saline? It's salt. So why is everybody passing out salt as the first protocol? Why? Because 99% of the people are dehydrated. So you've got to stay hydrated. You've got, I thought Damon was crazy. He's water. I'm like, what an idiot, right? You've got to be hydrated and you got to have your salt. Uh, you know, you have to take, you know, from Gary, I use perfect amino, right? Because your protein, very, very hard to get 150, 170 grams of protein, which is what I put down, without drinking some, you know, protein shake that typically has a bunch of garbage in it. And when I used to ask Damon what protein shake I should eat, he's like, it's called the steak, you know? And so, you know, being on a whole food diet, getting sleep, having community connection, and movement, right? Um, he had me running wind sprints uphill eight years ago, right? And now everybody's like, hey, you need to run wind sprints, hey, you need to walk. Um, so I've been on the Gary Brecka protocol, unbeknownst to me, for about eight plus years, thanks to Damon. And so um, you know, today, like from a Gary, I'm looking over my desk right now, you know, I have a methylated multivitamin, right? I have my magnesium, I have my vitamin D with K2, I have my omega-3s, I have my perfect amino, I have my Baja Gold salt, you know, and so that that's my protocol. And I'm walking 10,000 steps a day. You know, everybody here in the office takes phone calls. I'm like, you're actually smarter when you're walking and talking, right? And so I'm at a stand-up desk now. I don't sit. I have a chair that I bought when we moved in here, you know, eight months ago, and I've literally never sat it. It's there for decoration because it would look weird to have a desk without a chair behind it, right? But that's it. So, you know, I'm standing, I'm walking, I'm eating a whole food diet. I fast through breakfast. It's a preference, it's not a hard chore for me. I'm not massively hungry. Um, I could eat, but I also believe I should keep my calories in check. And I believe there's something to fasting. In the mornings, I go stand outside in the backyard in the grass and I get first sunlight and I get grounding. Um, it's a little bit voodoo for people. Paul Saladino just posted, you know, he's another good guy in the space. And, you know, he just said, like, hey, I kind of thought it was a bit voodoo, but I've been kind of walking on the beach lately, and there's just some kind of connection to Earth, and I think it makes sense. I think it's logical. I think we're getting sun. You know, vitamin D is the only vitamin your body actually manufactures. It doesn't manufacture anything else, right? So Gary talks about all the time like how vital it must be to the human body if it's the only, right? And so, you know, go out, get the sunlight, get the connection to the earth, get the connection to your family, get the salt and protein in. That's the first thing, that's the first hour of my day. And then go to work and compete, fight like hell for franchisees success, and you know, create community connection and team and family here at the office and fight for something bigger, like Miracles for Kids, and you know, and and that becomes a protocol.

Amazing. We'll wrap it right there. Anthony, man, thanks for doing this. Really appreciate it. Enjoy our conversations and getting to know you during more interviews I get to do with you. It's it's yeah, I I like what you're doing, man. I think you you obviously have a really good head on your shoulders. You're very committed to this. And man, uh I talk to people like you're like, I should probably work harder. No, I should probably do more. And it's uh but you you get out what you put in. So good for you, man. Thank you. Congratulations on all the success. I'm really excited to see how you guys do with SQL and thanks for doing the show. Ladies and gentlemen, Anthony Geisler.

Thank you for the opportunity, Eric.

Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This was your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minutes. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it and want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more or get in touch with me, simply go to the feature of fitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the Future of Fitness. Have a great day.