In this episode of the podcast, Eric Malzone interviews Jim Rowley, CEO of Crunch Fitness, they explore the core principles of leadership in the fitness industry. Rowley emphasizes the importance of execution, highlighting that successful leadership is about getting things done. He discusses the unique qualities of effective leaders, including the ability to inspire and energize teams, while also reflecting on the evolving dynamics of generational differences in the workplace. Rowley shares personal strategies for maintaining a sharp edge as a leader, from prioritizing health and relationships to staying focused on business goals. He also provides insights into his daily routine and offers advice on how others can engage meaningfully with him.
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[00:02:20] All right, we are live. Jim Rowley, welcome to the future of fitness.
[00:02:23] Thank you. Thanks for having me back.
[00:02:24] Yeah, it's a pleasure. And we just had you on the Afflatech Unscripted series in January, I
[00:02:31] believe is when we recorded. So there's a lot of great information there about how
[00:02:35] crunch is doing your forecasting for 2024 specific to the gym industry. And we're not
[00:02:40] going to cover a whole lot of that today. I'm sure it's going to come up. But I'm
[00:02:43] most excited about what you're most excited to talk about, which is leadership and to
[00:02:47] give people a quick introduction. If they don't know who you are, you've been in the
[00:02:51] industry for 32 years. You're the CEO of Crunch Fitness, we're over 460 locations
[00:02:58] now, which is when you're an eight year Marine veteran, you did a combat tour in
[00:03:02] the Persian Gulf. You've worked with a guy who people may know, Mark Mastroff,
[00:03:07] in the past. And some of the portfolio companies that you worked with
[00:03:11] with Mark were I was reading this list, not just crunch but hard candy,
[00:03:16] yoga works, Crunch Australia, Steve Nash Fitness World, Chili's Energy Fitness,
[00:03:21] Alex Rodriguez's Energy Fitness Mexico. Like man, you've you seen some things
[00:03:27] in this industry. Don't forget UFC gym. I'm a UFC gym. Right there. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:03:32] Great. Thanks for the reminder. So yeah, point is, Jim, you've seen some
[00:03:35] things, you've done some things. So let's get into it. Leadership. Do you
[00:03:40] have a specific philosophy or framework that you go off of when you're running
[00:03:47] these companies?
[00:03:48] I do and I don't deviate much from it, to be honest with you. There's and look,
[00:03:53] most of which I'll share with you today. I either learned in the Marine Corps,
[00:03:57] I've learned along the way in the fitness industry, or I've borrowed
[00:04:02] it from other really successful leaders who've written books or I've gone
[00:04:07] to their presentations and so forth. And I've picked up on some things that
[00:04:10] I'm like, that aligns perfectly with my philosophy.
[00:04:13] Awesome. I mean, one of the things that I think that stands out is when you
[00:04:16] talk about great leaders, I think number one is that they have to have
[00:04:21] a vision and the vision has to go beyond what are we going to do today
[00:04:26] this week, this month or this quarter? Right? You have to be constantly
[00:04:29] looking at your business. I think almost years ahead to try to
[00:04:34] anticipate things, especially in the fitness business, anticipate trends
[00:04:38] and anticipates the expectation of the members, anticipate competition,
[00:04:44] things like that. I think you have to be results oriented.
[00:04:47] This is a sales business at the end of the day. It's a service business
[00:04:51] at the same time. We try to keep our members for as long as possible.
[00:04:55] There's a lot of things we have to do to do that, but it's a
[00:04:58] results oriented business. I think you have to be innovator.
[00:05:01] I think in order to be an entrepreneur or a leader at any level,
[00:05:04] you've got to be courageous.
[00:05:05] And this whole idea behind the buck stops here and I'm the
[00:05:09] last decision maker and so forth. I wouldn't say it's 100% of the time,
[00:05:14] especially if you surround yourself with a great team.
[00:05:16] But a lot of the time, the early mornings and the late nights,
[00:05:20] you're the one making the decision and that takes some courage,
[00:05:23] but it also takes integrity. You've got to have a lot of integrity
[00:05:26] and you can't always chase the almighty dollar.
[00:05:29] That is not the way to run a successful business.
[00:05:31] And finally, I'd say that you've got to lead by example and one of the key
[00:05:35] elements of that is you've really got to be a practitioner of emotional
[00:05:40] intelligence. You can't be somebody that is flying off the handle all the time,
[00:05:45] a hothead just because you're chasing sales goals and budgets and EBITDA
[00:05:49] and profit and everything else. You can't be a maniac.
[00:05:52] You've got to be a good human being as well.
[00:05:55] Those are some of the traits that I try to live by and try to counsel my team
[00:06:00] on to have the same ideology.
[00:06:03] Yeah, you know, I think as we're starting to get into this,
[00:06:07] maybe I want to get some more context on this.
[00:06:08] So when you look at your 32 year career within the industry,
[00:06:13] what are some of the milestones of leadership for you where you felt
[00:06:18] like you really were challenged and you grew?
[00:06:22] Like, is there any particular stages that you that you kind of
[00:06:25] identified over those those decades?
[00:06:27] Every single time I got promoted, I got promoted to my highest level
[00:06:32] of incompetence. Right.
[00:06:33] So when you go from being a sales guy to a manager,
[00:06:38] you've now reached a whole other level, right?
[00:06:40] When you go from manager to district manager, district manager to vice
[00:06:43] president, vice president, senior vice president, senior vice president,
[00:06:47] president to CEO. I've made I've made every leap.
[00:06:49] I started as the rookie sales counselor, right?
[00:06:52] I had a phone book and a rotary phone.
[00:06:53] I had to call for leads out of the white pages.
[00:06:56] So every time I've advanced, it's a new level of incompetence.
[00:07:00] And you don't necessarily have to reinvent yourself,
[00:07:02] but you have to recalibrate and the calibration is really OK.
[00:07:06] In order of magnitude, the priorities don't generally change,
[00:07:09] but the geography might change.
[00:07:11] The number of people that reported you might change.
[00:07:13] You might be taking on marketing and legal and HR and tax and
[00:07:18] FPN and strategy and all these things.
[00:07:21] So hopefully you're you're putting arrows in your quiver along the way
[00:07:25] and you maintain this this theory of being a student constantly learning
[00:07:30] so that when you get to the highest levels, you've prepared yourself.
[00:07:33] So I think preparedness is a big part of it.
[00:07:35] But yeah, I've kept a library.
[00:07:38] I have kept a library all along the way of things that I go back
[00:07:42] to and either use as training or reminders or whatever it might be.
[00:07:49] But yeah, every time I got promoted, I was incompetent.
[00:07:52] It's really actually reminds me of my first management job.
[00:07:55] I was like 24 and I was promoted for into managing two people.
[00:08:01] And I was a young man.
[00:08:02] I was managing two young women and it was a disaster.
[00:08:04] I had no idea what I was doing.
[00:08:06] It was really, really hard.
[00:08:07] I just I'm like, how do I even get them to respect me?
[00:08:09] Then it was spec me when I was doing and it was it was very challenging.
[00:08:12] I mean, is there anything specific?
[00:08:13] Like when you look at that, that your your history and this evolution of your career,
[00:08:17] right, is there any one or two times when you're like, OK, that was a significant
[00:08:22] challenge that maybe I wasn't prepared for.
[00:08:24] And then you had to adapt, you know, through through different ways.
[00:08:29] No. No, I was raised by a Marine who was raised by a Marine
[00:08:34] and I spent eight years in the Marine Corps.
[00:08:36] So when you think about overcome, adapt and improvise,
[00:08:38] I mean, that's just in my DNA.
[00:08:39] So there's been challenges along the way.
[00:08:42] Most of them have been personnel challenges, to be honest with you,
[00:08:45] dealing with different personalities, different capabilities,
[00:08:47] inabilities, things like that.
[00:08:50] But look, the reality is there's only three types of teams.
[00:08:53] So I work in the team business.
[00:08:56] You've got teams that are incapable, teams that are capable
[00:09:00] and teams that are highly capable.
[00:09:02] So whatever you're inheriting along your promotion cycle,
[00:09:06] that's going to determine the challenge.
[00:09:08] If you get a highly capable team, the challenge might be,
[00:09:11] how do I keep them motivated and how do I keep them executing at a high level?
[00:09:16] If you get a capable team, how do I incrementally make them better?
[00:09:21] And if you get an incapable team, are they worth me
[00:09:25] training and developing or do I have to turn over the entirety of the team?
[00:09:28] But that's normally what the challenge is.
[00:09:30] The market conditions are the same.
[00:09:33] Competition is the same.
[00:09:35] Rising, marketing, you know, all those things are the same.
[00:09:38] And if you if you have a moral and ethical compass that you live by,
[00:09:44] you're not deviating much from yourself.
[00:09:47] So then it's really just ascertaining the.
[00:09:50] The ability of the team.
[00:09:53] When you have gone through these promotions,
[00:09:57] when you when you kind of look at the new landscape
[00:09:59] of the job that you've been tasked, is there like a system
[00:10:04] or a filter that you look through, OK, OK, I've just got this new role.
[00:10:08] This is what, you know, do I need new personnel?
[00:10:10] Do I keep personnel?
[00:10:11] So I need new technologies like how do you start to filter
[00:10:14] like what what that vision will start to look like?
[00:10:17] Yeah, that's a good question.
[00:10:19] I think the first thing is I remind myself when I've got this written
[00:10:22] on my wall, no one is coming, it's up to you.
[00:10:27] No one is coming.
[00:10:28] It's up to you, right?
[00:10:29] So if you're looking around corners to see who's going to come help you.
[00:10:33] That's that mean that's the first thing you have to erase.
[00:10:35] So I always talk about this, too, with my teams that on Sunday afternoons
[00:10:39] when my children were small, my children are all adults now,
[00:10:42] but when they were small, so churches over all the sporting events over,
[00:10:47] things are coming down and calming down in the house
[00:10:50] and they're preparing for the week ahead around four o'clock,
[00:10:54] four thirty in the afternoon, I would take an hour or an hour and a half
[00:10:58] and I would be very I would go into a quiet space usually in my office
[00:11:02] and I would just be very prescribed as to what I want to accomplish the next week.
[00:11:07] Right. So that's something I did.
[00:11:08] I practiced that for a long time.
[00:11:10] And if I was taking on something new, I would be very focused on
[00:11:15] what do I want to accomplish near term, short term and long term.
[00:11:19] And I would I would and those plans changed sometimes.
[00:11:21] I would modify, but I would stay very oriented to what I wanted to do.
[00:11:26] But when I would evaluate a team, I would say, OK,
[00:11:28] what are their technical and tactical proficiencies?
[00:11:31] Right. And the only way I would do that is to be in the field.
[00:11:34] You cannot do what I'm talking about from a spreadsheet.
[00:11:36] You have to be a field general and you have to have the in my opinion.
[00:11:41] This is my opinion, right?
[00:11:43] You have to have the ability to know what the best practices are in the field.
[00:11:48] So I was always checked technical and tactical proficiency.
[00:11:51] You have to have the ability to anticipate
[00:11:54] that things aren't always going to go perfectly.
[00:11:56] I don't think you're worth your weight and salt if you're not a culture builder.
[00:12:00] So you've got to build a culture.
[00:12:01] So that really comes back on you.
[00:12:03] Are you a person?
[00:12:04] People can get behind, right?
[00:12:06] You have the ability to inspire, encourage and motivate
[00:12:10] because if that's not your DNA, you should hire a lot of people
[00:12:13] that have that ability if you're just a visionary.
[00:12:15] Right. I think you have to lead with intention
[00:12:18] and you have to lead with intuition.
[00:12:19] And most importantly, I'll never forget this.
[00:12:22] This is not my saying.
[00:12:23] I learned this from someone who I worked for.
[00:12:26] He said, Jim, it's not always your responsibility
[00:12:29] to have all the right answers, but it is your responsibility
[00:12:32] to know what questions to ask.
[00:12:33] That has resonated with me for decades because knowing the questions
[00:12:38] that ask shows your proficiency and what you're evaluating.
[00:12:43] So when you ask those questions, it usually helps lead you to the answer.
[00:12:48] Culture, you brought that up and that comes up a lot
[00:12:50] with with leadership roles and how you do it.
[00:12:53] I mean, I don't know where this quote came from.
[00:12:56] It's always stuck with me.
[00:12:57] It's like, I guess maybe they're talking about things like culture is what happens
[00:13:01] in the locker room.
[00:13:02] Right. Community is what happens in the stands.
[00:13:06] Right. Like there's there's there's a separation.
[00:13:09] I think a lot of times people get mixed up between culture and community
[00:13:12] and are we a family?
[00:13:13] Are we not a family?
[00:13:15] You know, there's a lot of different styles of leadership.
[00:13:17] So what is like when you talk about culture, it can be an ambiguous term.
[00:13:20] What does it mean to you when you talk about culture
[00:13:22] and how what ways do you I guess maybe tactics and how you create a solid culture
[00:13:28] with your team?
[00:13:29] Probably the most powerful question that I've ever been asked.
[00:13:32] And it's it's intimate in many respects.
[00:13:35] It's overused, right?
[00:13:37] I think Peter Drucker said it best called culture, each strategy for breakfast.
[00:13:41] So what does that mean when you break that down?
[00:13:43] If you haven't built a system highly capable individuals
[00:13:47] that believe in the mission, they believe in the vision,
[00:13:50] they believe in the purpose, they believe in the leader,
[00:13:53] then you haven't built a culture and you can have the best strategy in the world,
[00:13:57] all the marketing dollars and everything else.
[00:13:59] But if you don't have that belief, which is what happens in the law,
[00:14:02] you don't have that belief when you're driving leads and guests
[00:14:06] into the gym specifically from my industry.
[00:14:09] You're not going to have people that can deliver
[00:14:11] the cultural experience that you're trying to communicate now
[00:14:14] to in the sales process, right?
[00:14:15] So this notion of we're one big fan.
[00:14:19] Welcome to crunch.
[00:14:20] We're one big family.
[00:14:22] I don't subscribe to that.
[00:14:23] We're a big team and our team has got an offensive coordinator,
[00:14:28] a defensive coordinator, a special teams coordinator.
[00:14:30] We've got specialists, right?
[00:14:32] So we're a team of highly specialized people
[00:14:35] who have the ability to inspire others,
[00:14:39] to motivate, to encourage, to teach.
[00:14:42] And another element of our culture is we try to always remind ourselves
[00:14:46] to be kind and to be fun.
[00:14:49] If you can do that right,
[00:14:50] who doesn't want to work for a company that's growing,
[00:14:53] crushing into business, kind, fun, inclusive
[00:14:58] with a no judgments philosophy, right?
[00:15:00] So our values, our core values, our mission statement,
[00:15:04] our purpose, our vision is aligned around this culture.
[00:15:08] When we deviate from it, it's problematic and it's not authentic.
[00:15:13] So you have to be an authentic leader at the same time.
[00:15:15] So we press very hard to stay true to our mission.
[00:15:19] Awesome. Are we perfect?
[00:15:20] No, because we're in the sales game and we have private equity partners
[00:15:24] and they have expectations and we have competition that creates challenges.
[00:15:28] Sometimes you have to turn up the heat
[00:15:30] and sometimes that heat comes across as working against the culture.
[00:15:35] But even if the culture is one of inclusiveness and kindness and fun,
[00:15:40] it still has to perform, right?
[00:15:42] So that's the whole idea behind, you know, the culture that you built
[00:15:46] that still is built with expectation.
[00:15:48] It can have all the words that feel good,
[00:15:51] but it has to come with this idea of expectation.
[00:15:54] And that comes from your ability to inspire, encourage, motivate.
[00:15:57] Jim, outside of crunch, when you look at cultures
[00:16:01] for different companies or organizations that you really admire,
[00:16:04] ones that are doing it right, is there anybody that comes to mind?
[00:16:07] I don't know. I've never worked for them.
[00:16:09] So I don't know what their true enterprise culture is like.
[00:16:13] Like, what's it like in the boardroom?
[00:16:15] What's it like in the management meetings and so forth?
[00:16:18] But I could tell you at the front line in and out is impressive
[00:16:22] because of what they're able to deliver.
[00:16:24] The experience that they deliver does not deviate
[00:16:28] whether you're getting a cheeseburger in Los Angeles or Los Alamos, right?
[00:16:32] It doesn't it doesn't change.
[00:16:34] So there's a level of repetition associated with that.
[00:16:38] And it doesn't it doesn't degrade.
[00:16:41] It doesn't degrade from where you go.
[00:16:43] And that's got to be something that's either in the training,
[00:16:47] in the culture, in the DNA and the management team somewhere.
[00:16:50] And if the culture was really screwed up,
[00:16:52] you would think it would disintegrate as you went down the line.
[00:16:56] It doesn't. So but again, I've never sat in their boardroom.
[00:16:59] I don't know what their conversations are like.
[00:17:00] I don't know how they treat their executives.
[00:17:02] I just know what the consumer experience is like.
[00:17:04] Nothing else really comes to mind in terms of, wow,
[00:17:09] that culture is amazing because it's really hard to sit from the outside
[00:17:13] and say, oh, that culture is amazing.
[00:17:16] Well, if you're not in the boardroom, you don't know what it's like.
[00:17:18] It could be it could be like a terrorist organization in there.
[00:17:21] But they just they fake it till they make it on the consumer side.
[00:17:24] I'm thinking about this if I'm another executive or leader and
[00:17:28] and I'm looking at my culture.
[00:17:30] Is there any early warning signs, red flags when your culture is going the wrong way?
[00:17:37] You know, things that maybe if you picked up early, you could fix.
[00:17:40] Well, I think any leader worth their worth their position.
[00:17:44] Right. So if you are the leader, the founder, the owner, whatever it might be,
[00:17:50] I would ask four things.
[00:17:51] You know, are you self aware?
[00:17:53] Because if you don't have self awareness,
[00:17:55] you're likely going to have probably a gap between what you think your culture is
[00:18:00] and what the actual culture is. Right?
[00:18:02] I think you have to and self awareness is how do I feel?
[00:18:05] Right? How do I feel about my culture?
[00:18:07] And then you've got self regulation, which is what can I do?
[00:18:10] What can I do if I need to round some things out or square things, some things up?
[00:18:16] And then you have to have situational awareness.
[00:18:19] How do others feel about my culture?
[00:18:22] And that's usually a hard question for leaders to ask, which is, OK,
[00:18:26] I'm going to get the opinions of my team.
[00:18:29] I'm going to get the opinions of my team members down the line.
[00:18:32] And then finally, situational regulation, which is what can I do?
[00:18:36] Right. So it's how do I feel?
[00:18:38] How do others feel?
[00:18:39] What can I do about self regulation and then what can I do about situational
[00:18:45] regulation that feels heavy sometimes?
[00:18:48] Sometimes people just want to sell and gross and hit the numbers and everything else.
[00:18:53] I go a little bit deeper and I think about these things and I wear
[00:18:58] they're heavy on me.
[00:19:00] And again, I'm not perfect, but we ask our members and our team members for insight.
[00:19:04] We get consumer insight and we get team member insights so we can regulate.
[00:19:08] And sometimes that feedback hurts.
[00:19:11] It says that we're not doing all the things that we need to do.
[00:19:13] But I think it's critically important.
[00:19:15] I don't know if I answered your question, but that's what comes to mind to me
[00:19:18] is you've got to be self aware and you got to self regulate.
[00:19:20] Yeah, no, it does.
[00:19:22] I mean, there's there's there's always insights in this stuff.
[00:19:24] And as you look at your career too, you know, as as a leader,
[00:19:28] you're going to have to do hard things, right?
[00:19:31] At times, is there anything that sticks out in your memory of times?
[00:19:36] I was like, that was that was really fricking hard.
[00:19:39] I didn't want to do that.
[00:19:41] I had to do it hurt, hurt emotionally, hurt other people,
[00:19:44] like maybe give us some examples of how that went and how you got through it.
[00:19:47] Yeah, I mean, a couple of things just came to mind.
[00:19:50] One is I've had a failed business.
[00:19:51] I've had a business that didn't perform well, didn't resonate and we lost money.
[00:19:56] And that's painful.
[00:19:57] And you've got to be critical of yourself to understand why that happened.
[00:20:01] You still have to be resilient.
[00:20:02] You know, I talk about kind of these these five things that are necessary.
[00:20:07] You've got to be resilient.
[00:20:09] You've got to be present.
[00:20:10] You have to be confident.
[00:20:11] You have to be grateful and you have to be hyper focused.
[00:20:15] And sometimes you can do all those things and your business still doesn't work, right?
[00:20:19] You can have everything we talked about in the last half an hour
[00:20:22] and still it doesn't work.
[00:20:23] Maybe it doesn't resonate with the consumer or you miss the mark, whatever might be.
[00:20:26] So when I've had a failed business, it's been painful.
[00:20:29] But probably the things that have
[00:20:32] humanly touched me the most is having to let go of people that I really liked,
[00:20:38] like good human beings who worked hard for a long time,
[00:20:42] who just finally came to a point in their career where they weren't effective
[00:20:45] anymore and they weren't going to be able to do the things that were necessary
[00:20:49] going forward when you have to look at someone who you really like.
[00:20:53] If you're a culture leader, right?
[00:20:56] If you've done all the things we've talked about and you've built this
[00:21:00] thing the way that we've talked about it, I don't want to reiterate it.
[00:21:03] But if you've done all those things and then you're sitting in your
[00:21:06] office with someone that you're going to terminate, that should be a painful feeling.
[00:21:11] If you just build culture on paper and it sounds good on podcasts
[00:21:17] and you have no relationship with that team member, then it's not a painful
[00:21:21] experience, right?
[00:21:22] But when you're letting someone go who's been proficient for a long time,
[00:21:26] but their proficiency is they've been loyal for a long time and that's
[00:21:31] maintained, but they're just not the right person going forward.
[00:21:35] That's painful.
[00:21:36] And I've had to do that on two or three occasions, probably more than that.
[00:21:41] Three to five occasions where they were memorable, they were important,
[00:21:46] they were difficult and each time I know the right decision, each time.
[00:21:50] And how do you go through that?
[00:21:52] And I mean, I brought a little context from my own experience.
[00:21:55] So my dad was a dentist, he owned his own business in San Jose, California,
[00:21:58] which I know you're from the Bay Area, that's where I grew up too.
[00:22:01] But I remember as a young age, when my dad had to fire someone in his office,
[00:22:06] it was hell in our household all week.
[00:22:08] Like, you know, he would wait till Fridays.
[00:22:11] He would just be emotionally distraught because he was very caring,
[00:22:15] very, you know, he treated his staff like gold.
[00:22:17] And when he had to do it, even if it's someone maybe who wasn't performing
[00:22:20] well or had done something, he still had a hard time doing it.
[00:22:23] So when you go through like, how do you steal yourself essentially
[00:22:28] to do something like that?
[00:22:29] And do you have any ways or do you just, as soon as you make a decision,
[00:22:33] you just call them up or get them in your office and do it?
[00:22:35] Like, is there any way that you approach those hard moments?
[00:22:39] Yeah, I probably wait too long because I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.
[00:22:43] I coach and encourage and create new strategies
[00:22:48] to see if they can meet the new expectations.
[00:22:50] So I give people, I think more of an opportunity maybe
[00:22:55] to where when I come to the final conclusion, it's not a knee jerk reaction.
[00:23:00] It's like, OK, I started to go through kind of this, you know, listen, watch and learn.
[00:23:05] Right. Listen to what's being said.
[00:23:07] Watch what's happening and then you'll you'll learn a lot.
[00:23:10] And then I'll give them a second opportunity.
[00:23:12] And if I still don't see you, I mean, generally,
[00:23:14] when you're arriving at this conclusion, it's a foregone conclusion.
[00:23:18] Right. But as a human being and somebody who's who's leading teams,
[00:23:23] I want to get somebody the benefit of the doubt.
[00:23:25] But once I've arrived at the final conclusion, I don't really I don't have it.
[00:23:30] Ha, you know, we make the decision and I try to make the decision.
[00:23:34] I think about the timing.
[00:23:36] I think about kind of where that where we are in the calendar.
[00:23:39] Like these are things you want to do around new years and the holidays and so forth.
[00:23:43] Right. And I think about is there is there a caring?
[00:23:47] How would I want to be let go?
[00:23:50] Right.
[00:23:51] I would want a full explanation of why I would want some financial
[00:23:54] consideration if I've been there a long time.
[00:23:57] I would want you to be thoughtful of the calendar,
[00:24:01] like your dad on a Friday instead of doing it on a Monday, you know, things like that.
[00:24:04] I wouldn't want to do it around the holidays.
[00:24:06] So I just I just kind of apply.
[00:24:08] You know, the go.
[00:24:10] Either way, the golden rules almost work 100 percent of the time in leadership.
[00:24:15] Treat people the way that you would like to be treated.
[00:24:19] There's there's something that keeps coming up in like my business
[00:24:22] career, the coaching and mentoring that I've done along the way.
[00:24:26] And it is like you have an organization.
[00:24:29] You've had people who have maybe been there with you from the beginning, right?
[00:24:33] But as the company evolves, things change, right?
[00:24:37] And there's an adage wherever comes, you know, people who got you to where
[00:24:40] you are not the people who need to you're going to take it where you need to be.
[00:24:44] So when you look at like someone maybe who's been with you for a long time,
[00:24:48] but they're not quite up to snuff or where this company needs to go.
[00:24:51] Do you try?
[00:24:53] Are you trying to find the right person for the role or are you trying to find
[00:24:57] the right role for the person?
[00:24:59] Like what comes where do you sit on that paradigm?
[00:25:02] What's more important, the people or the role?
[00:25:05] I mean, I think it's
[00:25:06] if you've got the right person and they've got high versatility,
[00:25:10] you can you can identify the role.
[00:25:12] You can even cater the roles to the person.
[00:25:14] But look, I've had this happen
[00:25:18] in the last 24 months where I've had to come to the conclusion
[00:25:23] that the team I'm running with has done an amazing job
[00:25:27] getting us to where they where we are.
[00:25:29] Amazing.
[00:25:30] They've outperformed the expectation that they've hit the ceiling,
[00:25:34] but they don't they don't have the next gear or
[00:25:40] the business is moving so fast, they can't they can't keep up
[00:25:44] or their pace of life has changed.
[00:25:47] They just reached a point in their life where the the pace of how they want
[00:25:51] to do things has changed and I'm still running, you know,
[00:25:55] some five minute mile and they're running eight minute miles.
[00:25:58] Right? It's not that they're bad people.
[00:25:59] It's not that they're capable and that they're not intelligent.
[00:26:03] It's just the pace has changed.
[00:26:06] And yeah, I've had in the last 24 months,
[00:26:09] I've had to do that two or three times.
[00:26:11] And I don't necessarily call it upgrading the talent.
[00:26:16] Sometimes I call it top grading the talent where it's just a lot of different
[00:26:19] people are very smart.
[00:26:21] They bring a different skill set, they bring a different mannerism,
[00:26:24] they bring a different lens.
[00:26:27] What they hear might be different.
[00:26:29] That's refreshing.
[00:26:30] And I think you have to do that.
[00:26:32] You know, I've read, I think every book that Jack Welch ever wrote,
[00:26:37] you know, chainsaw Jack Welch.
[00:26:38] Imagine getting your you can't choose your own nickname, right?
[00:26:42] Imagine your nickname is chainsaw.
[00:26:45] And he he wrote something that I will never forget in my life,
[00:26:48] that your best leaders, your best people have to have an edge.
[00:26:53] And in order to keep that edge sharp, right?
[00:26:55] You've got to be a practitioner.
[00:26:57] And sometimes people let their edge dull.
[00:27:00] He said, you have to you have to have energy.
[00:27:04] You have to bring the energy.
[00:27:06] You have to have the ability to energize.
[00:27:09] And finally, and most importantly, you have to be able to execute
[00:27:13] four simple things all starting with the letter E
[00:27:17] that are impossibly amazing to me.
[00:27:21] Edge.
[00:27:23] Sometimes we call it X factor, right?
[00:27:25] Edge energy, the ability to energize to get the system going
[00:27:30] and finally to execute on your goals.
[00:27:32] Unbelievable, the simplicity behind that
[00:27:36] and the perfection behind that by a studied CEO
[00:27:40] who ran some of the biggest companies in our country, right?
[00:27:44] But he was also the one who said, you know,
[00:27:48] every year you got to call the week, right?
[00:27:50] You got to call the herd.
[00:27:51] You got to take 10 to 20 percent out, right?
[00:27:53] So it's I don't know.
[00:27:55] I just I share that with you with enthusiasm
[00:27:57] because I think it's possibly smart
[00:28:00] to be able to boil down into four things
[00:28:04] that are critically important to success of any business.
[00:28:08] Yeah, when you're building teams anyway,
[00:28:12] I've never heard those and they're awesome.
[00:28:15] I mean, how are you reacting to what I just shared?
[00:28:18] I have more questions really.
[00:28:20] I mean, that's kind of how my mind works, right?
[00:28:22] Like out of those four E's,
[00:28:24] what do you think is the most rare or hardest to come by?
[00:28:28] One thousand percent, the ability to execute.
[00:28:31] I have been surrounded by strategists and tacticians
[00:28:34] who can't execute, right?
[00:28:37] I have seen some of the best laid plans
[00:28:40] that don't do anything.
[00:28:41] The ability to execute is number one paramount, you know,
[00:28:46] sometimes not to be crude, but I just say the ability to get shit done.
[00:28:50] That's the reality.
[00:28:52] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:53] And there's a there's a difference, too,
[00:28:55] from my experience of people who can just get shit done
[00:28:58] and people who need to follow a framework.
[00:29:00] Like some people just intuitively will be resourceful to get it done.
[00:29:04] And that's a quality that is really hardest to come by from my experience.
[00:29:09] But if you met, if you ever met anybody who's got a bit of an edge,
[00:29:13] like a little mysterious, they got that X factor.
[00:29:16] There's they just, man, they walk into a room.
[00:29:19] They walk into a conference.
[00:29:21] They're leading a team.
[00:29:22] They can engage people and then just got that edge.
[00:29:25] But they also bring this energy.
[00:29:27] They're a source of energy.
[00:29:29] And it's so dramatic that they can energize other people
[00:29:33] and get the whole system going.
[00:29:36] And finally, they hit goal.
[00:29:38] They execute right when you see those types of people.
[00:29:43] It's amazing. Yeah.
[00:29:44] I can feel your energy excitement when you find these people.
[00:29:47] I try to live by those standards.
[00:29:49] I try all the time.
[00:29:50] And, you know, it the downside is
[00:29:54] it takes a lot to be full of energy and an energizer.
[00:29:59] Bring that mysterious X factor and execute.
[00:30:03] You are going to dedicate your life to whatever your mission is.
[00:30:06] And there's going to be like, I'll be honest with you,
[00:30:08] I woke up this morning.
[00:30:09] I was I was on fire yesterday.
[00:30:12] Like I was just like it was just having a day today.
[00:30:15] The batteries were a little low when I woke up this morning.
[00:30:18] And I just had to look in the mirror and say, hey, suck it up, buttercup.
[00:30:22] Let's go. We got we got things to do. Right.
[00:30:24] So back to that self-regulation, back to that self-awareness.
[00:30:28] You know, do I call and cancel the podcast three hours
[00:30:32] because I, you know, I woke up with low energy? No.
[00:30:34] You you march on.
[00:30:35] You made a commitment. And plus I like talking to you.
[00:30:39] So you have to ask yourself that stuff.
[00:30:43] And I hear about all the time, you know, leaders who are like, oh,
[00:30:46] I'm tired, you know, been a long month or quarter or whatever.
[00:30:51] The same people that asked for more responsibility, more titles,
[00:30:54] more pay are the same ones generally.
[00:30:57] They're like, you know, I'm burnout. Right.
[00:31:01] So I don't know. I'm off tangent now.
[00:31:05] So I'll bring it back to center here.
[00:31:07] But yeah, no, these are amazing.
[00:31:09] Yeah. I mean, your your energy's up now, Jim.
[00:31:11] So don't worry about that. Yeah.
[00:31:14] Well, look, you want to be the spark, right?
[00:31:16] If you want to be the culture builder, you got to be the spark.
[00:31:19] You have to be passive.
[00:31:20] And if you're not, if you are self-regulating and self-aware,
[00:31:24] if you're not, and that's just not in your DNA,
[00:31:28] find someone who's got it.
[00:31:29] Put them put that let them be the spark.
[00:31:31] You be the vision. It's OK.
[00:31:33] You can be the guy behind the curtain or the girl behind the curtain.
[00:31:37] It's OK.
[00:31:39] You know, in a slight pivot, I want to ask you this.
[00:31:42] I wrote down my notes this morning.
[00:31:43] I feel like now in today's DNA age, there's more focus
[00:31:47] on the difference between the generations, whether you're millennial
[00:31:50] or Gen X or Boomer or whatever it may be.
[00:31:52] I don't even know all of them. Gen Y is somewhere in there.
[00:31:55] Do you? Is that something that you a notice and then kind of factor
[00:32:00] into how you work with people or do you think it's a bunch of hogwash?
[00:32:03] No, I mean, a little bit of both.
[00:32:05] I think there are some poor differences.
[00:32:08] Look, I was born in 1967.
[00:32:10] Like my parents were born in the forties.
[00:32:13] Their parents were born in the, you know, whatever, teens or 20s.
[00:32:18] So depending on what era you were up in,
[00:32:22] I think from kind of the reset, great depression
[00:32:26] through the forties, fifties into the sixties, there was this mentality
[00:32:30] that you get a good job with a company that has a pension
[00:32:35] and you stay there for 20 or 25 years. Right?
[00:32:37] So that's how like I've got kind of a depression era mentality.
[00:32:40] You just have only had two jobs in my life.
[00:32:43] I've been a Marine and I've been a fitness.
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[00:33:59] Now on to the show,
[00:34:04] which makes me a practitioner and hopefully a perfectionist when it comes
[00:34:08] to my practice. But so I kind of grew up with grandparents who, you know,
[00:34:13] those of my grandfathers retired from the Navy 20 plus years.
[00:34:18] And then both of them oddly went into corrections, like prison corrections
[00:34:22] and both of them retired as correctional officers.
[00:34:25] So they were triple dipping.
[00:34:26] They got their Navy pay, their, their state of California pay.
[00:34:30] And then they got their Social Security or whatever it was.
[00:34:33] So that was kind of the mentality.
[00:34:35] I don't know if that was right for me just to be like just singular in that.
[00:34:40] But I've stayed in the same industry for 32 years.
[00:34:42] I think today's young team member, whether it's it's I'm generation X,
[00:34:48] then it's Y, then it's Z or millennial or whatever it might be.
[00:34:52] I don't think that they believe in the ladder.
[00:34:54] I don't think they believe in staying for one company for 20, 25 years.
[00:34:57] I think it's more a circuitous route.
[00:35:00] I think they have expectations around open communication.
[00:35:02] I think then, you know, I grew up in a world where you didn't talk to a CEO
[00:35:07] like the CEO wasn't talking to frontline employees and so forth, right?
[00:35:13] There were executives below him creating a layer and there were executives
[00:35:16] below her creating a layer and they were executive.
[00:35:19] And then there was field level and the field level created a layer
[00:35:22] to the frontline, right?
[00:35:24] There were all these layers chains of command, right?
[00:35:27] And you didn't, you didn't speak to the top.
[00:35:29] Today's team member doesn't get that.
[00:35:31] Like they want access to everybody and everything.
[00:35:33] They want all the knowledge.
[00:35:34] But I'd say in terms of like what's really changed is the leadership style.
[00:35:40] Kind of between 20th century leadership and 21st century leadership.
[00:35:45] I think 20th century leadership is like the mindset was like, I know the answers.
[00:35:51] And 21st century leadership is like they know the answer.
[00:35:55] So we've shared the information and we prepared them.
[00:35:59] And then 20th was like, I tell them what to think and do.
[00:36:03] And 21st is more like I set goals and teach them how to think about
[00:36:08] achieving those goals.
[00:36:09] So there's more of a of an eye mentality in the old school of leading
[00:36:14] versus a weed mentality.
[00:36:17] Like it's we over me is a way, you know, kind of think about it.
[00:36:21] And I think that the old school was like about disempowerment, obedience,
[00:36:28] short term gains and even managing with fear, with a heavy hand, right?
[00:36:32] All those things.
[00:36:33] And now it's more about, you know, empowerment, self motivation.
[00:36:37] It's inspiration, pride.
[00:36:40] So that goes back to what we started with on the culture side.
[00:36:43] Like you and I grew up probably in a culture where you were obedient,
[00:36:48] you were subservient, you ran the play, you did all these things.
[00:36:51] That is not today's employee.
[00:36:54] If that if they're feeling that they are leaving you in a heartbeat.
[00:36:58] So I think it's much more around what I shared, which is, you know,
[00:37:02] long term improvements, empowering the teams,
[00:37:06] allowing for self motivation, providing inspiration and pride
[00:37:11] and recognition. That's another big part.
[00:37:13] Yeah. Interesting.
[00:37:14] This has come up in leadership all the time.
[00:37:16] I think a lot of people have different opinions about it.
[00:37:18] But as like the at the top, right?
[00:37:21] At the CEO or the founder or this even if it's a small business,
[00:37:24] right? And you're the owner and you have several employees.
[00:37:27] Is it lonely at the top?
[00:37:29] Is it a question that comes up?
[00:37:30] Right. Because sometimes you feel isolated, you know, and you make,
[00:37:33] especially when we're making these hard decisions, like having to let someone go.
[00:37:37] Like, do you do you feel that it's lonely at the top?
[00:37:39] Or is that something that, you know, there's maybe just an overaction to new
[00:37:43] leaders? Such an interesting question, right?
[00:37:46] Because for the long time, we heard this, it is lonely at the top.
[00:37:49] The buck stops here, but, you know, all these things.
[00:37:51] And then and then in order to be interesting or to write a new book
[00:37:55] or have a new theory, you need to be counter to that opinion.
[00:37:59] It's not lonely at the top.
[00:38:00] You need to surround yourself with the right people.
[00:38:02] But it's not lonely.
[00:38:04] Like, I'm not looking for companionship in my business.
[00:38:09] If, you know, I feel the void of loneliness with my wife of 28 years
[00:38:14] and my children and my friends and family, right?
[00:38:17] So I don't look at businesses being alone.
[00:38:19] Like, I've never been like, I'm so lonely, right?
[00:38:23] Is it quiet?
[00:38:25] Yes. Are you alone with your thoughts and decisions?
[00:38:28] Yes. Does it create more pressure to have to make not only the final decision,
[00:38:34] but you damn well better make the right decision?
[00:38:37] Absolutely. I sit in this office seven days a week.
[00:38:41] I look at my style reports.
[00:38:42] I look at my strategies.
[00:38:44] I look at my vision.
[00:38:45] I look at my dashboards and I look at the I'm already working on 2026
[00:38:50] and working on 2026.
[00:38:53] So I have to anticipate where my business is going to go.
[00:38:57] Domestically, internationally with my franchise owners,
[00:39:00] what the member expectations are going to be, what the team member expectations
[00:39:04] are going to be. We're executing things now at 2024 that we worked on in 2020
[00:39:09] and 2021. My business cycle is evolutionary.
[00:39:13] There's a flywheel here.
[00:39:15] So when I'm writing things down and I'm very contemplative and I
[00:39:19] and I still write things a lot, right?
[00:39:21] So I still use the old pen and paper and I journal things, right?
[00:39:28] So and I build I build decks, crunch decks, right?
[00:39:34] I'm always testing these theories more, more crunch decks over here, right?
[00:39:39] And then I'm making notes.
[00:39:40] And am I doing that with my entire team?
[00:39:43] No, I do that in isolation.
[00:39:45] So there is a level of isolation to that.
[00:39:47] Then I bring it to my team.
[00:39:50] And I say I've got a flat organization.
[00:39:52] My work is flat.
[00:39:53] So when my executive team is in the boardroom, they can all have opinions.
[00:39:56] They can all weigh in on what what I may be bringing to the table and so
[00:40:01] forth. And then I'm going to ask them to bring things to the table.
[00:40:04] And then who's ever got the best ideas is going to one was going to lead it.
[00:40:07] So yeah, you're alone a lot of I mean,
[00:40:11] this is what works for me.
[00:40:12] I can't say that that anybody who's listening should be doing the same
[00:40:15] things. I'm just telling you what works for me.
[00:40:17] So it's it's evolutionary.
[00:40:19] And I've got very capable executives who can't do what I just described.
[00:40:24] They can't.
[00:40:25] They can't sit in isolation and come up with new ideas.
[00:40:27] And they definitely can't write a strategy and a tactical plan that's
[00:40:30] going to lead to execution.
[00:40:32] One of the four E's doesn't mean they're bad executives.
[00:40:35] It's just not that's not who they are.
[00:40:38] They can run the play, but they can't write the play.
[00:40:42] So really good segue into on the more kind of final topics
[00:40:46] I want to get with you is how do you keep your edge as a leader?
[00:40:50] I mean, obviously, you know, CEO's pretty well compensated.
[00:40:54] Right. So that's nice.
[00:40:55] That kind of helps you stay motivated.
[00:40:57] But the stress, right?
[00:40:58] The time, you know, just the grind of it all, right?
[00:41:02] And how do you maybe on a daily, weekly basis between managing your health,
[00:41:07] managing your mind, spirituality, like all those things,
[00:41:11] how do you keep your edge sharp to continue to show up for your team
[00:41:14] and your company and your brand?
[00:41:15] I don't rest on my laurels.
[00:41:17] I've made more money than I ever, like ever dreamed.
[00:41:19] I didn't even dream of the lifestyle that I've been afforded,
[00:41:23] but I work like I'm paycheck to paycheck.
[00:41:25] Like I don't I don't work less today than I did when I was broke.
[00:41:31] I it's the same mentality doesn't change.
[00:41:34] This doesn't be like, oh, you know, you've got all this, you know,
[00:41:37] you've got money in the bank and, you know, your kids are set up or whatever.
[00:41:41] And you go on nice vacations, work less.
[00:41:44] Like how does that even like I don't get that.
[00:41:47] I just don't get it.
[00:41:48] Like my work mentality today is the same as it was in 1992.
[00:41:52] Brian, run your face off.
[00:41:55] It's going to come to an end at some point where I've got to just
[00:41:59] start to enjoy, you know,
[00:42:03] enjoy the achievements and so forth.
[00:42:06] But I'm still pretty hard on the grind side.
[00:42:09] I I'm a person of faith, so that helps restore my mindset.
[00:42:14] I do take vacations in the last 15 years.
[00:42:17] I think I've only taken one two week vacation.
[00:42:19] I'll take like, you know, seven days or maybe, you know, nine days or whatever.
[00:42:24] I listen to my body.
[00:42:26] I do Pilates twice a week, which makes me stretch and bend and and focus.
[00:42:33] I lift weights three days a week, which is a outlet for me
[00:42:36] to be able to exhaust the demons.
[00:42:39] My kids are very restorative for me.
[00:42:42] They're adults when I spend time with my children.
[00:42:44] It restores a lot.
[00:42:46] You know, it fills my cup.
[00:42:48] My wife and I have been dating since she was 17 and I was 18.
[00:42:52] We've been together 40 years, married for almost 30.
[00:42:56] So there's a lot of things in my life.
[00:42:57] And then I've got hobbies.
[00:42:59] I've got outlets and those things are restorative as well.
[00:43:03] So probably not the greatest example of all those things.
[00:43:07] But I try to I try to have a multitude of things that can be outlets
[00:43:13] for me that are restorative in nature.
[00:43:16] But I also love my business.
[00:43:18] I love it. Right?
[00:43:19] I like doing what I'm doing.
[00:43:21] I like my teams.
[00:43:22] Oh, here's the other thing.
[00:43:23] Greenfield, like the office is weighing a million pounds on my head.
[00:43:27] I go to my gyms and that's amazingly restorative to get out
[00:43:31] with the front line and see what's happening and talk about all these things.
[00:43:34] I meet my member.
[00:43:35] I talked about how we're doing.
[00:43:37] And that can fill my cup.
[00:43:38] Right? So that's probably the other thing that that and guess what?
[00:43:44] One of my team members reminded me that she worked for me for years
[00:43:48] and I called her probably 10 or 12 years ago and I was like,
[00:43:51] I just don't have anymore.
[00:43:53] And she's like, well, it's nice time you're in the gym.
[00:43:56] And I said, you know, it's been a couple of months.
[00:43:58] I've been grinding. We're doing this, this.
[00:43:59] I'm traveling all over the place.
[00:44:01] She's like, you're at your best when you're in your clubs,
[00:44:04] get out in your clubs.
[00:44:06] And that reminder changed my life.
[00:44:08] It changed my life.
[00:44:09] Last but actually second to last mental.
[00:44:11] I know you have a busy morning here, but how do you start your day?
[00:44:15] What does that look like?
[00:44:16] I get up and this is probably not a best practice,
[00:44:19] but I check my emails to make sure nothing burned down overnight.
[00:44:22] Right. So my office is in New York.
[00:44:25] I live in Lake Tahoe, so I'm three hours behind my office.
[00:44:28] So there's usually a relatively significant amount of catch up to do.
[00:44:32] So I'll catch up on that.
[00:44:34] And then I generally start with a cup of coffee.
[00:44:37] I'm not a massive coffee guy.
[00:44:39] Like I didn't even have my first cup of coffee till I was probably in my 40s,
[00:44:43] but I like to have a cup of coffee in the morning.
[00:44:45] And then I watch, I watch business.
[00:44:48] I want to see how the market's doing because and not just
[00:44:51] because of my stock portfolio, but you can get a lot of intelligence,
[00:44:54] like consumer intelligence, what's happening with credit?
[00:44:57] What's happening with debt?
[00:44:58] What's happening with interest rates?
[00:44:59] What are people talking about?
[00:45:00] So I like to stay informed on that.
[00:45:02] I generally work out in the middle of the day.
[00:45:04] I don't work out in the morning.
[00:45:05] So and then I'll just jump in and go right to work.
[00:45:07] So six, thirty seven o'clock, you know, I'm hitting emails
[00:45:12] and then I usually poke my head up, you know, around 12, 12, 30,
[00:45:16] grab something to eat real quick and then I go to the gym
[00:45:18] and I'll get an hour, hour and 15 minutes, come back
[00:45:21] and then work the rest of the day.
[00:45:22] Yeah, you look great, man.
[00:45:24] They do.
[00:45:26] So here's the last question, you know, as a community, as an industry,
[00:45:32] how can we help you, Jim?
[00:45:33] What would you like to hear from people about they want to reach out to you?
[00:45:37] And yeah.
[00:45:38] And then where would you like them to go?
[00:45:40] Well, I mean, they can go to the LinkedIn.
[00:45:42] I probably is the most is the best place to find me
[00:45:47] and you can send me an email there.
[00:45:49] I've got Instagram and everything else, but I don't even know what my
[00:45:52] handle is or whatever they call it.
[00:45:53] So I couldn't even give that.
[00:45:55] I would give you my mobile phone number or my email.
[00:45:57] But the problem is some people who listen to these podcasts just want to sell me
[00:46:01] shit and I don't necessarily want to get sold, right?
[00:46:04] So LinkedIn's probably the best place.
[00:46:06] I mean, my emails out there, if anybody thinks, you know,
[00:46:09] that they want to send me a message or they want to share some inside
[00:46:12] or have a question or whatever, I'm going to Ursa next week.
[00:46:16] I'll be on the floor next week at Ursa.
[00:46:18] I don't know when this podcast is coming out, but I'm relatively accessible.
[00:46:22] But I just don't want to be delused with, you know, people who can send me
[00:46:26] more leads and send me all these new people that we can hire.
[00:46:30] And like every my email fills up every day with every solution.
[00:46:34] I guess I've never thought of, you know?
[00:46:36] So anyway, just poking fun a little bit.
[00:46:39] Look, I appreciate the time.
[00:46:40] You guys are good guys and I have a lot of respect for what you do.
[00:46:43] So thanks for having me on.
[00:46:44] Yeah.
[00:46:45] Yeah, it's my pleasure.
[00:46:46] And this won't air before Ursa, but I will be there.
[00:46:48] So hopefully I'll run into you.
[00:46:50] And, you know, we can share beverage or something like that.
[00:46:53] So thank you, Jim.
[00:46:54] I know you had a busy day, so I'll let you get on to CEOing.
[00:46:57] And yeah, this is awesome, awesome conversation.
[00:47:00] Ladies and gentlemen, Jim Rowley.
[00:47:01] Thank you.
[00:47:03] Hey, wait, don't leave yet.
[00:47:05] This was your host, Eric Malzone.
[00:47:07] And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Feminist.
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