Personalizing the Digital Fitness Experience - Adam Zeitsiff

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, where we talk with entrepreneurs, researchers, and practitioners in fitness, wellness, and the health sciences. I'd like to give a big thanks to our sponsors, Level 5 Mentors, helping entrepreneurs achieve the highest levels of freedom in time, money, relationships, health, and purpose. Also, Certified Course Creation, helping entrepreneurs create accredited online certifications that are not only lucrative but highly scalable. Go to level5mentors.com or certifiedcoursecreation.com and learn more. I am your host, Eric Malzone. And once again, welcome to the future of fitness. And we are live. Adam, welcome back.

Thank you, Eric. It's good to be back here.

Yeah, it's it's great to have you. I thoroughly enjoy our conversations, of course. And so our last conversation that we did on this show was released on April 14th. So it's been about 60 days. Tell me, what have the last 60 days been like for you, the CEO of Gold's Gym?

Yeah, you know, that might take the whole hour. Yeah. So it's certainly, I tell you, my friend, it's been interesting and it's been a whirlwind. And I I really feel like we spoke 600 days ago. I think it's been it's been so fast, but it feels so long. And I think so much has happened in this world, uh, other than even COVID during those times, that it's just made it increasingly uh interesting, you know, between what's going on in our world today, between our our company filing for our restructuring, which we're working through, between all the things that are happening. As a leader, you want to stay focused. And um, what I, you know, but after I got through when we were talking, which probably still my denial phase, right? With everything happening, uh coming out of the denial and really into just getting it down. And as leaders, we like to solve problems. So, really for me, I think it's been, you know, the first 15, 30 days when we first spoke was how how is this happening? Why is this happening? Why is this happening to our industry? Why is it happening to our people? Why is this happening to humanity? All the things that are out there. And then I think it was more of just okay, how do we solve the problem? I can't, I can't solve the problem of uh the virus, but I can certainly help solve the problem for my team, from our communities, for our members, for our business, and for the industry, and do my part at least. And I think that's what's kept me going these last 60 or so days is what can I do every day that helps solve maybe one half of 1% more of the problem until we get there.

Yeah, that's a really good outlook to have and uh a really good way to stay sane. So just for so the listeners know, too, today is June 10th, 2020. And it's really interesting. I don't think I've ever referenced the date of recording as much as I have over the last 90 days because things are changing so fast. Within four days, it seems like CrossFit is just getting buried. People can follow that story. That's that's an interesting thing going on. I mean, honestly, you know, like I was telling you, that's my background. I think some kind of major disruption has been coming for a very long time. I guess one of the questions I would love to ask you is how what kind of challenges have you faced? Or maybe just give me an example of some challenge you faced over the last 16, 90 days that you came up, you had to come up with a really creative out-of-the-box solution to tackle it.

I think the biggest one for us, and something we don't want to harp on, but we're right in the middle of was during all this, the shutdown and trying to support our team members as best as possible and trying to support our members as best as possible, delivering unique content that they could consume in their homes from Gold's Gym. At the same time, was just, you know, focusing on this restructuring that we're going through, right? And that was something that we had to do to really make sure that the business was going to be here for the next 55 years, which is what we're focused on. And we had to get really creative as we had team members who were probably going to be distracted by that. We have members who are going to be distracted by that. And we really just focused on what we can do to show that we are still trying to better this business, better this brand, support our franchisees. And what we ended up doing was just building a schedule of things that we're going to accomplish. Whether it was updating a brand new version of Gold Zamp with a ton of new features and functionality and content, whether it was, you know, consummating and launching our announcement with Puma and getting that out there and promoting that. And I think for us, it's how do we know that we have this thing going on over here that's going to take 90 or 100 days to get through, plus reopen the businesses through COVID-19, the pandemic, and you know, make sure that people still focus on the fact that we are going to be a going concern and a brand that's going to be here for a long time. And we just decided we were going to weren't going to let those things stop us. We got creative and just said, here's all the reasons and all the things we're working on, and here's how we're just going to bring these to light, you know, flood the consumers with all great things that Goldstream is doing. And I think it so far it's been really helping. I mean, the new the new announcements, the new relationships we just announced yesterday are challenge winners. We had some amazing winners and transformed their bodies over the course of our 90-day challenge, which always happens every new year, and it was even harder this year because half of the challenge period was in it was in lockdown. And so I think we just always focused on the positive things and got creative in that regard and creative in how we delivered it, what the message was, and and how that would benefit whether it was a consumer, our members, our team members, et cetera. And we're still in the middle of that. And we're going to continue to do that as we hit the summer and as we come out of emerge out of this restructuring, but also emerge into the reopening phase, which as we all know, everyone listening in fitness knows that as of this date, the the US is halfway through and still has a lot of states to go.

Yeah. I would love it if you could maybe expand on restructuring and what that means. I think a lot of people saw uh announcements or articles on chapter 11 and a lot of people thought that that meant something completely different. And I'm not, you know, I'm not sitting here I'm not fully educated on all the nuances of restructuring, but maybe can you give us some insights for people listening? Like, what's the difference between just closing down and restructuring and how does that affect, or how does that what are the the guidelines you have to work with and what does that mean for a company?

Yeah, I mean the B word is a scary word, right? I'm not even gonna say it here. I'm gonna say it's a restructuring of through the chapter 11 process, but it's a scary word, the B word, and because people think, oh, they filed for that and they're gonna go out of business. And in some cases, and and to answer your question, the differences are people file for that because they have to protect themselves because they can no longer be a going concern as a company and they have assets and they're just gonna sell those off and shut down and a company will no longer exist. And we've seen that happen, we as consumers in any industry all over this country for years. And so that's one way. The other way is that hey, you've got a business that can and will survive, but it but if you don't restructure and remove some liabilities and clean up your balance sheet and get leaner, you're gonna have a hard time doing so. And this was something that was not on the table, wasn't even a consideration pre-COVID. But the pandemic was hard on the fitness industry, not just Gold's Gym, every single person in the fitness industry, big or small, it was hard on the restaurant industry, retail. We all know the industries it was hard on. But for us, without having to have with having zero revenue at all, you don't have curbside pickup, we don't have delivery, and I'm not saying restaurants were thriving during this, but they were at least having some revenue come in. With our industry, with zero revenue coming in and a brand like Gold's Gym, which is an operator of our own gyms, which is a franchiser, which is a licensor, and a provider of digital content. The one area that was going to really impact our business if we couldn't solve for these liabilities and cleaning up the balance sheet was in some of the clubs that we operated. It just for our long-term viability, we had to restructure and remove some of the liabilities of some of those clubs, which we announced a while back that we shut them down, about 30 or so. Um again, those were company-owned gyms only, not um not franchise gyms or enough of that. And and so that's really what the difference was. You can either file for this and go away, and then the business is just not gonna be there anymore. But for us, it was file for this, restructure, remove some of those liabilities and clubs that we just knew were gonna potentially cause us some issues long term and make sure that once COVID lifted and we're reopening, which is happening now, and we'll should be through this process in the next six or seven weeks and be done with it, we come out of it clean with a uh a clean balance sheet, much leaner, and return the company back to much more stable business. So that's why we did that. We we looked at it and said, we want to be here, we want to be out of this, and which is about what we did, and we'll time it so that we'll be out of this, just as the world is really coming back to life from being in lockdown, and we'll be in a really strong position to grow our brand globally.

Nice. Yeah, thank you for that. I think that's really in 24 hour fitness did something very similar or is doing something very similar. Is that correct? Or diff, or would you say it's different?

Well, I mean, I I can only read what you're reading, and I certainly don't want to comment on that. But I I've read articles that says they're preparing to do something like that. And and and I think look, and and and they have a great leader. Tony's a great leader. He's trying to look out for his ownership group, he's trying to look out for his members, his team members, his brand, and I respect him for that tremendously. And I think he's gonna do a good job in whatever they do, whatever they decide to do, because all I've seen so far is the same rumors you're seeing, but I think he's gonna make sure that brand comes out stronger. And I I completely respect him for preparing to do that if that's what's happening.

Yeah. Okay. So, you know, when we talked last time, Adam, we talked about, well, what's what's the what's the future of the industry gonna look like? And we I think we both agreed, and I think anybody who's been in the industry agreed, you know, some sort of hybrid model, right? I guess a two-part question is beyond the hybrid model, what are you seeing now, maybe from a technological perspective or an entire new model? Well, what do you what do you think is gonna come out of this? Anything changed in your mind?

No, I I still think we're I I agree wholeheartedly. And 60 days after now that we've spoken, it's been 60 days. I agree with that, even stronger, number one. And GoldsGym has taken and made tremendous strides in that effort. And we we announced a new version of AMP early uh May, as I alluded to already. And we've got a whole bunch of things in the works that we'll be announcing and really gonna accelerate our approach to that by a good 18 to 24 months. So, number one, to answer your question, I stand firm, I agree. Hybridization is key. If you can't go into a gym and get an amazing experience in the gym, which many of my colleagues in the industry all around the country and around the world provide that, they have great services, great amenities. But if you also can't get a digital solution that allows you to work out when you're not in the gym, work out at home, on the road, run, whatever it is, but it also coincides with that brand's persona, right? Whatever you do inside the gym, and this is what Gold's Gym is striving to do with our hybrid approach, it should feel similar when you're in the app or you're in the digital solution. The same voice, the same way you speak to a member, the same way you talk about fitness in your clubs should be the same way you talk about it in your in your digital approach. And so I I agree with that, and I think that that's not gonna change. And beyond that, I think we're going to see people taking that to the next level. It's not just how can I get, you know, some core and some uh yoga workouts and some HIIT workouts and some lower body and upper body? It's it's not gonna be as general as that. I think the part two to that is gonna be people who are gonna make it more personal. How can I personalize the experience, not just in the gym, which we all strive to do already, whether it's with small group training, personal training, programs, etc., but how can I personalize the experience from a digital perspective? How can I have the consumer engaged from the digital perspective? How do I implement gamification, which some people have done well and some people are still working on that side? So people, it's not just a flash in the pan. It's not just somebody jumps in and does a workout and there's no engagement. There's no nothing that wants them to come back. So I think it, I think it's still around digital, Eric, but I think what it is is it's it's around how do you make that experience more personal and more specific to that person and more specific than just to the you know the everyday active person as well.

Yeah, yeah, that's a really good outlook. You know, the the word that keeps coming up is experience, experiential. How do you increase that? Because there's there's a lot of people, obviously, a lot of gyms, both independent chains, franchises who went straight to Zoom, right? But now they're starting to feel, you know, if they're not, if their state's not reopening, like, well, how do I people are going to lose interest really fast unless we give it, you know, some kind of uh some kind of boost. So I guess that is Gold's AMP, is that the project or the answer that you guys are working on to this digital fitness solution?

Yeah, I mean, certainly Gold's AMP has been the foundation of our approach to digital fitness since since I launched it back in 2017 with our team here. And I think we have a bunch of plans in the works to really take that and accelerate its development, the features, the functionality, the content, the programming, the experience, and all that is happening now. And so, yeah, we will be building upon that, and you'll see some exciting things come out over the summer there.

Awesome. And did you say that you had a partnership with Puma?

Yeah, so we have a uh terrific team here that works on licensing and retail and tying our brand, which we feel strongly is not just a fitness brand, it's a fitness and lifestyle brand. And we love to do collaborations with various companies. Some of it's long-term licensing, like with you know, some basic apparent with apparel and with nutritionals and equipment. And then some of it is more experiential and one or two time uh type things like with Puma. So we've been working on this for a while, and we launched a really iconic line of Puma gear that's co-branded with Gold's Gym and Puma. And they're two iconic brands. I mean, we're 55 years old, Puma's even a little older than us, right? So we're two of the more iconic brands in our spaces. So we collaborated with them. It's a really cool line. Uh you could, it's it's uh t-shirts, it's shorts, it's sweat jackets, it's really cool and very comfortable sneakers for whether it's running, cross-training, et cetera. And we're selling this online in our gyms, and certainly not trying to make a commercial here for we didn't make that much. So if everyone in the world wants some, we're gonna run out really quick. But but it showed, and and and the the cool thing about it, it was these two iconic brands coming together. We collaborated, we have influencers talking about it, and it really shows what two brands who you know aren't competing in any way, shape, or form, but who live in the same area in the same space can come together and bring their consumer base together and talk about the iconic history of both brands and represent that in a in a very cool power line. So it's out there, it's uh we it's it's actually selling really well. Uh influencers are helping with that in our clubs, you know, and we're really proud of the results and what it's uh what it's done for both brands. It kind of shows us what we can do and on a global basis. They are actually very, very global and have a really strong presence, even more so outside the US. They're very strong.

Yeah, where is first of all, I love Puma, man. They've been one of my favorite brands since I was probably a preteen. Where is Puma strong? Is it Europe for mostly? I mean it's big in like the football soccer community, right?

Yeah, no, they're very strong in Europe, they're very strong in the Asia-Pacific markets as well, and they're strong in this country. To your point, they've got pro soccer players, they've got pro golfers, they've got folks that aren't even athletes that are in entertainment who love their brand, musicians. And they've got a great following in that regard. So it just made sense. And the gear is cool. Like the the original uh address of the very first goals gym is on every piece of gear. It's on the inside of the shoe, it's on the jackets, um, the logo and the iconic logos are there together. So it's just a great collaboration and it's selling well both in this country and and outside.

Yeah, that's great, man. I'm always, you know, I think in times like this, I think a lot of people look to strategic partners and collaborations to fill in, I guess, spots that blind spots or just weak areas that uh an organization may have. And I think it's brilliant. I I love it. Ricky Fowler, that's what I was trying to think about. Ricky Fowler in the golf world. He's really uh he's brought Puma to a whole new, whole new generation. Thank you.

Yes. They're looking for it.

Yeah, it was killing me too. So my personal experience is that the gym I go to is is a uh in Whitefish, Montana is a big health club, probably very similar to some of your larger gold gym locations and three pools, racquetball courts, uh great weightlifting and all that stuff, right? All the things. It reopened about two weeks ago. I was one of the first people in there, first two, three days ghost town, right? And then now you're starting to see kind of a slow trickle. Definitely the committed gym goer, right? I'm not seeing people in there who look like they don't know what they're doing, but it is slowly trickling in. And I'm I'm wondering, you know, and after I talked to the director of fitness there and just to see how they're doing, and they did have a lot of cancellations, and you know, he's wondering how many people may never come back. And I guess my my question to you is, you know, for the certain percentage of population that may never come back to a gym, you know, once again, two parts to this is if you could put an avatar or a type of person that that is, like who are the people that may never come back to a gym? And then how is Gold Gym trying to get in touch with these people and communicate with them?

I think those who are not gonna come back to the gym, if they don't ever come back, is a probably people who respectfully maybe never were not that committed to begin with, um, which I can understand because it's makes it easier to make that decision, not knocking them at all. Or the folks who really just can't get comfortable with the fact that I don't know if it's safe for me to be at a gym, to be in a Walmart, to be in a grocery, whatever it is, and they're just never gonna get comfortable in that. And I think to your point, we are seeing our traffic is certainly down, of course, just with everybody's. Depends on the on the market, though. In some of our markets, we're at 35 to 45 percent compared to last year. At this time in some markets, like in a lot of our Texas clubs, we're more like 60-ish, 65%. So it just depends on where and who. And so I think some of those people just may never feel comfortable. And we're reaching out to them, we're emailing them. Our media is not hard sell, right? We're not hard selling anyone. We're just saying, look, look at what we're doing. We're doing our best to make it as safe, as comfortable as possible. Come in, check it out, give us a world, see how you feel. And we're trying to let them know we relate to them, we respect them for maybe have being cautious about these things. And all we're saying is give us a shot, come in and see our team members in masks and gloves and see how much we're cleaning and not just us. I mean, I gotta give kudos to our entire industry. And um, you know, I'm talking to industry folks every week on a you know on a Zoom call that some of the industry folks have set up, and it started as five or ten, and it's now 40 or 50 of us, and everyone is is they're busting their butts, their gyms have never been cleaner, never been safer, and everyone in the industry is doing a great job representing our industry. And so hopefully people can come in and see that. And I think the thing is you can only control what you control. And we can't control people's feelings, we can't control how they feel about you know whether it's ever going to be safe, whether they really want to commit to their journey. We can only reassure them, we can only show them, we can only give them social proof of other people in the gyms and other people working out right now and showing how it's helping them and improve their health and wellness, and then the rest is up to them. And so I think that's what we're the the approach we're taking right now and try to just communicate as positively and provide as much social proof as possible that Gulf's gyms are and all gyms are a safe place to be right now. Yeah.

Yeah, that's that's awesome. As you're thinking, you know, I have to give the wave, the the gym I go to here in Whitefish, Montana, a big kudos and credit because they've they've I've felt nothing but safe and welcomed and warm and all those things since I've come back. People have come out of their way, come over and talk to you, you know, as you're resting between sets, just be like, hey, you know, how are things going? Good to have you back. Like it's just been a really seeing the kind of community coalesce and and come together and and be really welcoming and safe. I mean, there is people cleaning constantly. There's always someone visibly cleaning the gym. Great to hear. Yeah, so they've been doing a great job. I think if you were going to talk to maybe an independent health club owner or somebody who, you know, owns a couple facilities, is there any through your experience over the past few months, is there any blind spots or anything that you think a lot of that leaders within the the health club industry are missing?

Yeah, I I don't know if it's a missing, or I just think I would say don't let's not forget that, you know, I think we we are on the hot seat right now. Not because we did anything, just because we are in the place where that we were shut down. People feel that gyms are dirty, people feel the germs can spread there. And listen, we know that, you know, with proper cleaning and uh paying attention to things, you can be just as safe as anywhere else in public, right? Or more so because we're so focused on cleaning. And I and I think so. I would I would just say that we we can't forget that we are under the microscope right now. We can never take our eye on the ball with social media off the ball, excuse me. We always want to have it on the ball. We can if it's social media, the one time that you have someone, and and you mentioned you always see someone cleaning in in your gym, and and kudos to them. And and the one time you don't, or the one time someone just sprays only like a half a spray instead of a full spray and didn't even wipe and just walked away because they were tired or late, whatever, it's the one time some kid's gonna pick that up with a camera and it's gonna be on social media, and it's not only gonna give that brand and that local gym a problem, but it's gonna give the industry important. And I think we shouldn't lose sight right now that safety for, I mean, for the next couple of quarters is still gonna be the most important factor with when we're welcoming members back and the experience you build around showing them that it's safe. And I bet you went into your gym. I'm guessing, Eric, and I'm sure some things were shut down, but it probably, if anything, it was minimal, but probably not at all. It didn't really impact your ability to get it, crush a great workout, walk out of there feeling like, oh my goodness, thank goodness I'm back because I can only do so much push-ups and use my my small dumbbells at home. And and I bet you you were just happy to be there. And I think we don't want that to stop over the next few quarters, so we really just got to focus on that. And yes, we all want to sell. And I would say certainly don't be afraid. I think we as an industry cannot be afraid to sell. I think we just need to be cognizant of how we sell, what we say, how we say it, and be you know, recognize the fact that people are still cautious and we should just still be careful with that. But listen, we're in business to be in business and make a profit and help our members achieve their fitness journey. That's what anyone who's in the gym business is all about. And I think we still shouldn't be afraid to do that. We just need to be cautious and be careful what we do and how we do it and what we say.

Yeah. And you're right, man. I was uh I was ecstatic to get in there and get my hands on a barbell, do some back squats, do some Olympic living. Because that's that's stuff I can't do at home. I just can't. I don't have a platform and that many bumper weights and all that. Not that not that I'm that strong. You know, what's interesting to me is, and and you pointed this out as I was listening to you, is that for some reason Jim's got this uh notoriety of being dirty. And I don't know where that came from, you know, any more than the supermarket or I don't know, name a thousand things, right? Liquor stores. Like, how is it less or more dirty than a liquor store on the corner? I don't know where that came from. Do you have any idea?

I don't know. I I think it's because people feel like, oh, people are sweating everywhere, therefore it must be dirty. Well, I I'm not a doctor, I'm not a scientist. I cannot tell you what, and I could probably Google it like you can, but I can't tell you what germs live and sweat, what germs don't live and sweat. How does COVID does it transmit through sweat? Don't I'm never going to be quoted on that because I don't know. I just know that I I I would challenge any other retail establishment like you mentioned, whether it's a grocery store, whether it's a liquor store, whether it's, you know, whatever they are, I would challenge them to have the attention to cleaning that we have right now, because I think no industry has the um put a better attention on clean other than healthcare, of course, than we have, just to get ourselves back open, even though we clean and we have, you know, minus the one bad apple which every industry has, we we Everyone in this industry has a nose. You don't want before before COVID, it was MRSA. You don't want your gym to be known as where someone got that got Mercy or got this. I mean we always focus on that. And I think I think it was a bad rap. And I think it was a bad rap because, and I'll and I think because people, whether it was local municipalities, leaders, the general public, looked at fitness as it's a recreational thing, it's sweaty, people they don't care, it don't clean as much. We should shut it down until it's safe. And that's the wrong approach because we all know, and the world knows, especially in fitness, that exercise is not entertainment. It can be entertaining, but exercise is medicine, exercise is wellness, wellness. Exercise is exactly what you need to make sure that even if you catch a virus, that you can recover as quickly as possible and your immune system is healthy. And I think if people had thought about that from the get-go, and I don't want to generalize, but people who are making decisions to close and things like that, we would have looked at this completely different and we could have been ahead of this as an industry, but also as our local communities, and we could have worked together to make sure that this medicine that is exercise was made available to people during this crisis.

Well said. I do feel now when I walk into my gym that it kind of feels like a hospital, it's so clean. So good job to that.

Yeah, especially with the masks and everything. Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting times. I I can't imagine Gold Gym having a better person up front being, you know, the former CIO, right? Like you know tech, you have a good eye for that, you understand it. So as fitness or as technology has been now been thrust right to the front of the fitness industry, outside of what Gold's doing with Gold's AMP and the tech that you guys are working on to make it, you know, um, you know, a more personalized digital experience, what what other leaders in the industry as far as technology are you keeping an eye on? Uh any companies or uh names that you'd like to highlight?

Yeah, I mean, for me, I thought you always have to look at what the ERP and the club management software providers of the world, but the motion soft's the ABCs, the Jonas's, big guys, uh, mind bodies, even what are they doing? Because they're at the forefront of our businesses. They help run our businesses, we'd be lost without those players. So A, you have to look at them and you have to say, hey, what are they doing to help support? And I saw all of uh MotionSoft, uh, ABC, Jonas, I saw all of them release things over the course of this pandemic to make sure they could um deal with capacity limits and track that. And I mean, kudos to them. It's a simple thing, but they reacted quickly and they responded to help their customers. And so I think they're those type of providers are always at the forefront of our business and they need to be innovators now more than ever. And that innovation Eric doesn't mean they have to recreate and do all sorts of things themselves. It means they have to be innovators where they need to go out and find third-party folks that you wouldn't think normally you'd have to deal with, like facial recognition and contactless ID. So if I could just walk in and a camera recognizes me and tells Mosa or ABC or Jonas, hey, Adam's legit and he this is him. And as long as he doesn't owe us money, that's soccer, then let him in. Like things like that. They need to be thinking about those things. They don't have to create that themselves, but they have to go partner with leaders who are doing that and helping, even if this is a temporary minimum, even when a vaccine comes out, it's still going to be ingrained in people. Contact lists and you know, facial recognition and all those things are gonna be important. So I think those first and foremost, those guys need to help and they need to innovate and lead, even if it's not stuff they're creating, but they're integrating with. I take a look at someone like a MyZone. I I utterly respect the group of guys that run that business, and Dave and his team, and I think they've done a great job in responding, but also they're innovating, not just for now, but for later. And I think it's not just gonna be in the gym, but I think they're gonna be innovating outside of the gym, and you got to look at folks like that who are going to help and who are going to provide, you know, the not just the heart rate tracking, but the engagement, the gamification, all the things that are gonna help both gyms, both in this hybrid approach, in the gym and out of the gym, engage with consumers. And then I I do think without going through them because there's so many, but any any type of technology that helps a club or a brain engage with its members consistently, whether it's AI driven, whether it's just whether it's uh uh journey driven, whatever it may be, that's gonna be critical because engagement and communication now is more important than ever. So off the top of my head, I think those three key areas are gonna be important going forward.

Yeah, yeah, those are really key areas. And I I do believe I have an interview coming up with Emmett from my zone soon. The guys at um, you know, Crescent and Moto Sumo, they're doing a lot of really cool things and really cool stuff. Yeah, it's all it's all really interesting. And uh I've I've been keeping my eye on technology ever since I started this podcast in 2017. It's been my my interest. So let's focus on Adam for a second. I mean, I've been seeing your name pop up in different articles and interviews, and I mean you've been in some high profile publications, right?

It's uh yeah, it's been it's been a war win. I gotta give credit to our brand team, our PR team, our PR partners. And it it leans back to that question you asked me a little while ago. How do we be creative and what do we do? And I think for us to get through not only COVID and stay relevant, but the restructuring and stay relevant, this has been a big part of it.

Yeah. Or what what were some of the bigger news outlets that you were on?

Yeah, I was uh CNN uh with John King, he had me on twice. It was a lot of fun. I really appreciated that. I was on ABC, I was on the ABC Nightly News. That was really cool. I enjoyed it. It was tremendous. It's certainly a little intimidating because you know that lots of people are looking, but I I really enjoyed the chance just to represent our industry. Not of course represent Gold's Gym first and foremost, but represent our industry, represent what we're trying to do to help people.

Yeah, yeah, it's fantastic. With that level of exposure, how has your life changed over the last 90 days?

Well, yeah, listen, you have to stay humble. My wife makes sure of that. I love it. And she makes sure of that, and she sat there watching all those things and then and was proud of me, but then it was right back to let's get back to regular days. So, and I appreciate that, and that's certainly a way to stay humble. But you know, I think I think if anything, it's just helped me first and foremost, is helped me realize that I we I have a platform because of this amazing brand that I represent and that we're stewards of, and I think I can do my best to use that to help this industry at a time where it needs it the most. And it's not just me, there's so many people who've been out there, Brown's been out there doing a great job, Chris Rondo, people in the industry, big and small, it doesn't matter who you are. Uh Francesca InShape has been out there just you know being an advocate for the clubs in California trying to get open. I mean, you name it, these people have been doing that. I think we've been we've been blessed to be running these brands, whether they're regional, national, or global. And I think we we have a chance to help the industry. And I think that's what I've realized first and foremost is I want to make sure we do that because we need this industry to be here for the long term for our businesses, but more importantly, the I think humanity needs us more than ever now. Like I said before, exercise is medicine, humanity needs us now more than ever, and the more we can do out there and use these vehicles to show people that it's safe to be in the gym, to show them what we're doing, to show people working out and enjoying themselves, and to to talk about that, I think is something that I'm happy to keep doing because I think it'll only help.

Yeah, that's that's great messaging, and I think that's a good place to finish it off. So, Adam, anything else you'd like uh the fitness industry to hear?

You know, I would just say, look, we've we've we've been through a lot as an industry for a long time, and probably nothing ever like this that we could ever thought. I would just say we just keep we keep buckle down, we keep fighting a good fight, we keep doing what we do and we're doing now because we know we're doing it for the right reasons. We know we're doing it because what we do helps people in their daily lives, and we can make a living at it, and we can also help them. And I think that's the best of both worlds. And we have a chance to help define our industry again, because we've been defining it and redefining it for a long time. And I think that uh we should all just take that as an honor and just dive in and keep doing it right on.

Well, Adam, I know you're a busy guy. I I appreciate you coming on. It's always a pleasure, and uh, I'll definitely be reaching out another 60 to 90. Hopefully, we won't be talking about killer hornets or any other kind of alien invasion.

Hopefully, we do all do well by that point.

Yeah, once again, thank you for your time. Uh I appreciate it, Eric, and thank you very much for having me on. It was great. Uh my pleasure. Hey, it's your host, Eric Malzone. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Future of Fitness. If you enjoyed it, please do me a huge favor by going to the website and signing up for our newsletter. The website is featureoffitness.co. Again, that's featureoffitness.co. We've got some big, big announcements coming down the pipe, and we want you to make sure that you are on top of it. Thank you again. Signing off.