Let's Get CLEAR - Annick Magac

One thing that entrepreneurs, especially in the beginning stages, get really stuck on is that they need to know exactly what their message is from the get-go. And that's a disservice because you can't possibly know when you're first starting what your audience is going to want. It's important to be open to that evolution and to know that you don't have to have all those answers because over time, based on your experience and who you talk to, you're going to get the topics and language that you need to be talking on.

Hey fitness fans, welcome back to the Future of Fitness podcast and interview series. This is your host, Eric Melzone, and this is episode number 49. And I talked to Anik Magal. And you can get that spelling through the notes, but uh she's awesome. I really enjoy this conversation. Uh her route and her uh path that she's taken is unique, and where it's leading her now is truly uh working with her passion. So fitness professional to uh a leader in women's uh motorcycles and that culture that's evolving right now. So it's really interesting. Before I get into a little bit more about her, um I just want to have a quick call to action for you guys. So if you are a fitness professional who's been in the industry for over seven years, and you have some sort of online revenue stream that you want to build in a big way, uh we have a solution for you. It's called our Level Up Mastermind Group. And you can find more information at fitnessmarketingalliance.com forward slash mastermind. So this is for people who are fully committed that really want to show quick progress and leapfrog a lot of the issues that happen when you are starting an online business. And trust me, I know. And there's a lot of them. A lot of them are unexpected. I've dealt with a lot of them. Doug is my business partner, has dealt with a lot of them, and our goal is to help people get success online faster than they possibly could on their own. So yeah, it's called the Level Up Mastermind Group. Go check it out at fitnessmarketingalliance.com forward slash mastermind. So back to Anite. She is an author here. It's called Clear. Uh, she is a speaker. Um, she was an on the floor trainer, took her business online with content, blogging, online coaching for fitness. And now she's really found her path and a voice within the community of female motorcycle. And it's it's awesome. I mean, it's the American dream, right? She's truly turning her passion into an occupation and a living. And I just love it. And she talked a lot about her book and the power of simplifying and gaining clarity, uh, which I can tell you uh is huge. I mean, every day I live it, uh, the more clear I get, uh, the better life I live, and it's very powerful. And plus, she's just a really cool person. So without further ado, let me get into it. Enough of me talking. This is Anique Magak, episode number 49. Hey fitness fans, welcome back to the Future of Fitness Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Malzone, and today I have Anique Magak. Did I get it right? Hi. Yes, you did.

You did it perfectly.

Um welcome to the show. I uh I've been thinking about this interview for a while since we talked a few months ago as the day of recording is February 7th, uh, because you uh you you've embodied a lot of what we we message to people, you know, um going online, um, doing uh you know strong digital um online business and now things are shifting according to your lifestyle. So uh just to give people some background before we dive deep into that, um, you know, tell people who you are, what you do, and and who you serve.

Okay. So I came on to the online space with an interest in health and fitness. I was going through some changes in my life. I was working corporate, and I was incredibly unhappy with the way that I was living my life. I was traveling a lot for a sales job, and my relationships were suffering, my health was suffering, everything. So I really became interested in health and fitness, much more so. It had always been an interest in my life and something that I did naturally, but I really focused and studied on it and got nutrition degrees, you know, the certified personal trainer, like all that great stuff. When I went onto the online space, the people that I really wanted to focus on were people who were in a similar situation as myself, which is what most of us tend to do. We tend to coach or go towards, you know, the issues that we have so that we can serve back. And I ended up writing a book that was called Clear, How to Simplify Your Life and Live More Fearlessly.

I have it right here.

And he's got the old version, I got the new version. And part of my background before Incorporate was that I was in the design world. So this book it talks about how you create an environment that will support the success that you want in your life. And that really became the the core of my coaching. And from there, I love speaking, I love talking to people, which is why I'm totally excited to be here and be able to talk to your audience. And I did a lot of speaking gigs and got onto that platform, which was which has been probably one of my favorite aspects of all of all the work that I do. And I think that's sort of embodies what you're looking for, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what type of audiences do you speak for when you do live speaking? What type of events?

And it it has changed over time. Initially, when I was focusing more on the health and fitness, I was talking more about actual health. Over time, so it was serving crowds that were in gyms. I would do a lot of talks for small groups, either at a at a local library, or I would go to specific community clubs like a QANUS or something like that, that would want to learn more about health and fitness. But over time, what really, you know, as you get into coaching, it's really much more about the mindset. So the audience that I was speaking to started to change and get narrowed down a little bit as my focus changed within my business. So still serving a lot of those small clubs, but instead of focusing so much on the health and fitness, it's more the mindset of why do we end up overweight, out of shape, unhappy in life? And how what kind of mindset changes can we make to create more success for ourselves?

I love it. So let's talk about the book. Um what are what are some of the pillars that the book stands on? What it what what is, you know, when you I guess what I'm what I want to ask is obviously without the book, but when you started writing and you had the was there did like let's tease that out. Like what was the was there like an idea and then you started writing pillars and then what how did that work?

Because my design background, I was doing furniture interiors. I actually went to school for that and then worked a number of years in the in the New York City interiors world. Okay. When you're creative or you you view life in a certain way, there's a part of you that kind of thinks, oh, everybody thinks this way. The way I think, right? Because we're all the same, and of course I'm brilliant, so everybody thinks this way. Ends up not being the truth, probably the brilliant part, but that's okay. And I was at a I was actually at an um uh a weekend retreat, and I was listening to all these different speakers on stage. And I there was one particular speaker, I don't even remember who it was, but they were talking and they were going on and on and on about something. And I sat there in the audience and it it finally dawned on me that I have always thought about your environment really being a true reflection of what's going on in your inner life. And yet I just it like occurred to me as I was sitting in the audience, I was like, I don't think that everybody thinks that way. And maybe this is exactly what I need to write a book about. And I got home from that weekend retreat and I started to do the outline for the book and really put into words what I have actually just always felt, and that is that you know, when there's chaos or there's anything going on in your life, it it is truly reflected in your environment, meaning that either your, you know, your house is a mess, your your car is a mess, you you're disorganized with all your online digital stuff, all of it. And it, you know, most people just think, oh, I'm just like a messy person or something like that. But usually there's something more that's actually causing that. And I wanted to show people that, you know, if you can create beauty around your environment and where you live, it really enhances your life and makes you feel so much better. And you actually have control over this, which so many people in their lives feel like they don't have control over a lot of matters in their life, whether those are circumstances or where they live, how they live, and you do, you actually have options.

Is this something that you personally struggled with and kind of came up with your own solution, or is this something you noticed?

It's something I noticed, and it's because when I was working in the design aspect, you become almost like a therapist to the people that you're working with. So I would I would go in, the you know, couples would want, say, you know, their home to be redone and or to to change something. And once you get into somebody's intimate environment, you're standing in their living room, there's a whole lot that they end up telling you there's a trust factor that gets crossed, and you learn a lot about people, and more than anything, you really observe the way that different people live. So it's just something that comes naturally to me. This is actually you know something that I don't have to force in my life where I can walk into any environment and kind of see maybe what the issues are. And I think that that is just like a natural knowledge that I want to share with people and say, okay, you know, once you're aware of these key points that I point out, you will also see them and become aware of them, and they they'll just end up becoming part of your natural vocabulary.

Awesome. So reading uh, you know, I I haven't, you know, I haven't read the book cover to cover, but I have picked it up and read certain pieces of it. I think I was talking about it.

It's a short read, so it's not it's not too bad. Yeah.

Yeah, the used copy that I have has it's nice because it's highlighted. So for people like me, it's like the cliff note. So I've picked up you know concepts and things from it. But are there like, you know, if if you if someone's listening to you and they're like, well, that's starting to resonate. What's the where would you tell someone to start to start uh building awareness around this part of their life?

I think the best part would be is that anywhere you are, if you are watching or listening to this interaction that you and I are having right now, to just take a second and just like look around and just take a look and see, like, you know, do I have piles of paper? Is there, you know, is there a door that doesn't really work in the room that I'm in that every time I try to go in and out of it, it like squeaks or it doesn't close all the way because there's stuff behind it. That you just start to say, okay, are there things that I'm living with that I'm uncomfortable with, but I'm just living with them because it's it's easy and I don't have to think about it, but actually it's causing me pain. Like the fact that you can't close the door all the way becomes really annoying when you're in the middle of a meeting or taking a call and you're trying to get the door closed and you can't. So that would be the immediate place to start. And then from there, you know, the book gets more into how do you identify that that's related to how you live or in your life, and maybe where you're feeling stuck emotionally or mentally in your own in your own life.

Wow. Yeah. I mean, as you're speaking, I started taking a look around. And at this point, my wife's on a business trip down in in LA. Like a lot of things that I'm like, God, when she's not around, I let a lot of things slide. Right? All my shoes are cluttered in the corner. And uh yeah, and it drives me crazy. Anyway, okay, that's that's my issues. Um you're evolving, you're constantly evolving. I think anybody who takes the first steps and like, you know what, I I want to go in this direction, I want to be a digital fitness pro. I want to, you know, I want to start changing my life trajectory and my career trajectory. Right. It's just you gotta start taking those steps and then you kind of figure it out along the way. And I feel like you're you're going through a point in a shifting of your uh voice, of your audience and and what you do on a day-to-day basis. So explain to people what you're up to now and how that that's evolved with you and your life.

I've been probably on, I would say online, working actively online for at least five, six years at this point. And again, when like you said, when I first started, it was health and fitness because it came directly from what was going on in my life. And as things evolve, things change, and also the digital space has changed. Who I've connected with uh has also changed just from a business perspective. So that being said, I started off just with the health and fitness. The mindset part started to come up more when I wrote the book, but then I also borrowed this design aspect from my way past. So that kind of got pulled in. Then from there, as I kind of evolved away from the book, I had an opportunity come up. And again, these are all the, you know, when they say people say, and I I hate this term actually a lot, follow your passions. I hate it because most people are like, you know, I don't I don't know what that means. Like, what does that mean? You know, what should I be doing? But in the aspect of this, I'm gonna say that the following your passion thing actually worked. I don't think it's a good way to explain it.

So you could be passionate about Xbox, right? Yeah, exactly.

Right. Like, how does that you know, how does that fit? And then you're gonna maybe find out 10 years later in a really weird way it does. So all this time I have in my life, I started uh riding motorcycles when it was in my early 20s. I mean, I'm only 25 now, so you know it hasn't been that long. So uh I just did it, it's it's a natural interest for me. I raced motorcycles. I ended up getting out of that. I used to do these, uh host a motorcycle night at a bar in Brooklyn, New York. And I I was always involved with it. And then over the years, I kind of got a little bit out of it, just out of the community. I was still always riding, but I, you know, things evolved because I became more interested in fitness, and there's only so much you can do in a day. Then I had this opportunity come up where an old old contact from about 15 years ago said, You I have a friend who's starting this, uh starting a women's motors um motorcycle magazine. They're resurrecting this brand. Would you be interested in being a contributor? So I started it writing for this magazine and it opened up this whole world. So one was that I just something that I had always been involved with and was natural with and very connected with. I never really thought about it in an online space or that actually being a good platform for me to speak from because it's like, you know, somebody's like the Xbox thing. You know, if you just play an Xbox and you're really good at it, you don't really think that you might have value to other people about your perspective. So I start writing for this magazine, and what has evolved is that it's now combining the whole motorcycling thing, is other opportunities are coming up for me professionally, but it's also combining a lot of the mindset and the online business and this passion and the fitness and health. Like it's actually all coming together. It just wasn't something that five years ago, if you had said to me I would be involved in, that I would even think of. So the point is that you should never underestimate your contacts that you've had in your life. And being on being online is great because you stay in contact with people through all the social media platforms, whether that's Instagram, Facebook, that's a really good way to continue to network and have conversations that might not be specifically what you are actually working on or studying or or is your main focus, but that you still keep a toe in because you don't know how all the dots are going to connect over time.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's uh that's so cool. And it's it, I'm sure Tate, like you say, it kind of takes time, a little bit of chance, a little bit of a lot of things. But we, you know, we're developing something which I I feel is, you know, my personally is a passion for me, is how how do people get to uh a digital nomad lifestyle? How can they get, you know, which is what I do, which is what I love. Um so we're developing, you know, like a five-step processes and that people can start to follow. And the number one thing that we talk about is uh the first step is is which I think what you would probably call passion or we call it the core competency. What is the one thing that you do really, really, really well? And maybe it could be anything. Maybe it's you know, I don't know, maybe it's cooking an amazing souffle. I don't know. You know, maybe whatever that is, I don't know what that is because now the opportunity that we have in front of us is that you're you're you know, um a leader in in you know the area of women in motorcycles, right? Right. Um you can now find those people all over the globe because we're all connected. Versus like if you're in a local market and you said, well, okay, I know I'm the leader in uh in you're in uh upstate New York. And upstate New York for for women with motorcycles, you can find like, okay, maybe I'll find like a hundred. Now you can find thousands, hundreds of thousands of people online who speak what you know, want to hear what you have to say. And I think that's that's really interesting.

You know, as you are developing that, one thing that uh entrepreneurs, especially in the beginning stages, get really stuck on is that they need to know exactly what their message is from the get-go. And that's a disservice because you you can't possibly know when you're first starting what what your audience is going to want, uh, who you are actually going to connect with. You might make assumptions and you know there's a whole there's a whole way of doing surveys and like trying to figure that out. But it's important to be open to that evolution and to know that you don't have to have all those answers because over time, based on your experience and who you talk to, you're going to get going to get the topics and language that you need to be talking on.

Yeah, yeah, that's incredible. So talk to me about your day-to-day now. What's your day-to-day like?

Okay. Well, you were talking about the digital nomad. And this also kind of ties back to my book because you one of the parts of when I was really unhappy in my life and things were not going well at all, is that I was saying yes to the way that I thought I should be living, versus actually taking the power back to myself and saying, you know what, this whole idea of a traditional corporate lifestyle, not you know, corporate can be good. I'm not saying anything like that, but that, you know, maybe the cubicle, there, I'm not fitting in with that. You know, I've been in creative type, I went to design school, you know, much more open to different ways of living. So how do you decide, okay, I'm gonna do this nomadic life, but how do you actually stick by it when there's a lot of people that are going to be the, you know, the little voice on the side that says, can you really do that? Maybe you should, maybe you should get a job that's got health insurance, maybe you know, all these things that you're giving up, but also the fact to say, like yourself, where you, you know, you live in a specific area and travel, you know, as you want, to be very true to that. So this fits into my current lifestyle in that I now have this parameter in my life is that I will not take a job that doesn't allow me to work from home in some capacity. I travel a lot for work, but I like being able to come back to my home. And I'm okay with going in for corporate meetings or doing anything like that, but I don't want to, I will not work in a cubicle setting because it doesn't, it doesn't align with my personality and how I want to live, and it makes me really unhappy. Cannot take that fluorescent lighting. Yeah. So standing by and saying, okay, you know, this this is a value to me that's really important. And no matter what, I'm going to make my decisions based on that, whether or not I do or don't take a job. So currently I do a variety of things to bring in income. And if anybody believes, and I think that this is also a huge thing that uh when you're first getting started online, it looks like people are incredibly successful. Like everybody's talking about their you know, seven figure, yada yada yada, and like they're living this lavish lifestyle. Let me tell you, that is that is such a small percentage, and you're not even guaranteed that they're actually really living that way because where's this, you know, where is actually the social proof when you can create a lifestyle online? So most of the people that I know who are entrepreneurs in the scope that we are is that they're pulling in income from different areas, and that's what I currently do. Having written a book, you know, I get some some of the book sales from speaking gigs, I get some of that. I also I work for a corporation in as a sales manager and I do that, and because I work from home, I'm able to you know bring that in as an income. I also I do a lot of writing, so I get paid from that. And I have made a decision in my life, okay, for in the next 10 years, I personally want to make as much income as possible. So I'm going to entertain any opportunity that comes to me, given that it doesn't affect my health or where I want to live, that I will entertain it to see if this is a revenue stream that makes sense to me and fits into what I'm actually doing, so that it's not a burden. It's not something so left-field that it pulls all my attention away from the other things that are important to me and that I actually do.

Yeah. Wow.

That's a good one.

That's amazing. It's it's really good. Uh yeah, it's impressive, and I think it's honest. And one of the things that we stand, you know, we we know what we stand for as an organization, you know, my business partner. Three things I do, right? I do this podcast and interview series, uh, I do business coaching, and then we do we have a full stack digital agency. And one of the things that we stand against is the um the people you're talking about. They're like, look, I'll make you a million dollar trainer. Right. Check out my Bentley. I'm driving around Bentley. Look at me. Be like, no, no, that's not the way it works. We don't even know if it works for that person. We just know that that's probably at least Bentley. And uh, you know, it's something that fires me up because it doesn't matter what if if you're thinking that, you know, in 90 days I'm gonna have a million dollars, I'm gonna make a hundred thousand dollars a month or something like that. You know, maybe, maybe, right if you were able, if you were in a situation where you could leapfrog a lot of things, but that that's the end goal. But the best part is the process is right the whole process of doing it, of learning and failing and putting yourself out there, finding out what people like. If you weren't putting yourself out there, you wouldn't find out that you know, women in motorcycles is is a big thing, right?

No, I want it. I want it. And there, you know, there were there are times where I went to go do a launch and it totally failed because what I thought people People wanted wasn't actually right. And it also wasn't it didn't feel right for me either what I was pushing. I was just kind of again going, getting into that trap of uh just following, oh, you know, like what the guru's doing in that, and there's a certain point where you you have to have you have to kind of go back to yourself and really feel intuitively like, does this actually feel right despite what people are telling you you have to do? But also like that transparency, because most people are not actually honest about what they're what they're doing or how they're living, because there's too much social pressure to make it look like everything's glorious and perfect. And you know, they're super successful no matter what. And the fact is that we all fail and struggle with certain aspects of our life, whether that's again a personal relationship, a business, uh and a health issue, any of it.

Yeah. So way off topic here. Well, it's still on topic, but I've heard a lot of people talking about a social media bubble, right? Where you know it's all of these fake things or these these points and highlights of people's life that they're putting on there that eventually, in some way, whether it's our social structure or it's the social media platforms themselves, where it's just gonna collapse one day. Um do you have you thought about that? Has that ever come in your mind?

Yes, I have a lot. And especially in this in the past year, because as I as I've said, you know, this evolution into this women motorcycling niche, I have found that, and especially with speaking too, and this is why I love speaking so much, live speaking, and not just doing webinars or interviews like this. When you are in a room with people, you know, we all crave community and to have connection. But you know, mostly that's coming nowadays from social media, and it's not actually a genuine connection. Like for you and I to actually be in a room, video is great because I do feel like I get much more of a sense of who you are through your facial expressions, you know, where you are and all that. I have found that going to motorcycling events, I have connected and grown a community that is so much more in alignment with who I am, what my message is, and who I want to be with, that I can I could never do online. So it ends up I go do these live events, I'm with the people, and then my social media grows from it because I have a connection with that person and now we're following each other, but we have a common bond. So that might just be, you know, because of that motorcycling event. Oh, you remember that weekend, or you know, this happened, or we met that person and we rode here. And that just it's so much more of a deeper connection than if I had just tried to find them online by liking them on social media and just kind of following them and trying to start up a dialogue. So that bubble, I do think is something. I don't know that it'll be a uh there's too many people hiding behind social media so socially. But I do think that there's going to be it at some point that people will start to realize that the the in-person deeper connection is something that they crave or want.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, being completely transparent too is the one thing that with my wife and I traveling around, we and we love each other, we get along really well 97% of the time, which I think is you know pretty much pretty great for a couple.

Yeah, we're doing all right.

You know, I'm sure I have my little annoyances. Um But you know, one thing people I when I tell people how we live and how we we kind of move from place to place, and the one thing they always come with and uh is like, well, don't you miss a community, especially coming from me, because I I had a gym where I I, you know, kind of manage a community of 200 plus people and uh they're like, Well, do you miss it? And and parts of me say yes, but one of the reasons uh I do this podcast, which I didn't realize until I started doing it, is I actually get to go and build relationships with people as if we're in the same room, you know. Right. I can't shake your hand, but I feel like I owe you a much deeper level just from having a conversation where, you know what, I haven't looked at my phone in 24 minutes, right? You know, it's just been one on one. And actually what I find, which is odd, is that getting these interactions uh tend to be more meaningful because it is one-on-one, there's no distraction, right? You can't because we're recording. And that's the power of it. So it's uh it's it's that give and take that the social media internet age is giving us. But um, I think if we need to, you know, we can find fulfillment in a lot of different areas. But I absolutely believe, you know, uh that that one-on-one um interpersonal um face-to-face is really powerful too.

It is. We couldn't even get into what we're we're talking about in in 10 words that you know you're texting on your yeah, exactly. So it is it's amazing. This is this is what this is what really lights me up, to be honest. Like again, this and the speaking, because it's it's all about the connection, which is what we all want.

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. Um so Anique, where do people find you? Where where if they want to ask you questions, they want to dive into what your world looks like, where where can they get a hold of you? Where can they reach reach you?

Well, you know, on that bubble. Which is how we connect it. So it's always a great starting point. Uh my preferred media is Instagram, which is at my first and last name, Anik Magak. And Facebook is my second favorite. But I really Instagram is really because of the visualness and coming again from a design background, I just that for me is an easy connection to people, which is why I enjoy it the most.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This was really fun. It was really good getting into some of these topics. You know, I never know where these these interviews are gonna go, they always go somewhere good. And uh yeah, so I appreciate your time and uh yeah, I'm sure we'll be talking soon. Thank you, Anita.

Excellent.

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