Roger Harvey - The Methodology of Helping Others

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over three years and running. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Please stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. One of the most important and undeniable trends in our industry is the ever-growing consumer demand for personalization. That personalization is driven by health data. If you are a consumer-focused health and wellness company, you know that acquiring and making use of that health data is traditionally expensive, complicated, and full of friction for the consumer, but not anymore. Thanks to the good people at Sprint, a camera-enabled digital biomarker platform that connects any app to the human body. Formerly known as Elite HRV, the patented technology behind the Sprint platform leverages a decade of research into physiology, behavior, and health insights, including collaboration with 117 universities, analysis of more than 4 billion biomarkers across 20 million user sessions. Using the smartphone as a sensor, Sprend's evidence-based machine learning algorithms deliver actionable biomarker insights such as body composition, HRV, stress, recovery, progress tracking, and more, all through an easy-to-integrate STK and API. Health and wellness companies are integrating Sprend to better understand their users' holistic health, make their apps more personalized and adaptive, demonstrate measurable progress, and empower their members to understand their bodies and make well-informed decisions for their well-being. Go to Sprin.com and learn more.com. Hey friends, if you follow the show, you may have picked up on my passion for heart rate variability when it comes to recovery, performance, and longevity. I track it religiously and I'm always looking for ways to improve. Over the past few months, I've been taking this new supplement called HRV Plus by Mode and Method. Over that time, I've experienced significant improvement in sleep quality, faster recovery, and an objective uptick in my average HRV. About two to three points on average. That's a big deal. HRV Plus is the world's first expert-curated, carefully sourced blend of all natural micronutrients to optimize recovery, increase performance, and boost heart rate variability. Formulated by some of the world's leading experts, HRV Plus combines their proprietary hemp extract with omega-3 oil, magnesium, and curcumin extract to target inflammation, improve sleep, and supercharge our endocannabinoid systems. I encourage you to give it a shot. Go to modemethod.com and enter discount code Eric15. That's modemodemethod.com and enter code Eric15 for 15% off. Go get it. Roger Harvey. Man, welcome to the future of fitness. Oh, it's fantastic to be here, Eric. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. I uh I've been looking forward to it. Every time we cross paths, I enjoy our conversations thoroughly. And although I've only known you, I guess, for a year, really, um, I feel like I've known you forever. And uh a lot of great stories. I mean, your experience itself, we were just talking about it. 31 years you've been in this industry. Uh, you you are, you know, as you described it, the force gump of fitness. Like just amazing stories and timing, and and there's so much to dig in on. So, you know, let's start with this, Roger. If you can just summarize your background. I mean, it's hard to do 30 years in a few minutes, but kind of give us, you know, the some of the highlights and lowlights of of your career and how you got to be where you are now in New York City.

Okay, well, I appreciate that and the opportunity to share my story. Just cut me off if I ramble too much. So I started off in schooling with as an engineering major at the University of Michigan. And I realized very early on that I did not like that as a choice. And I'd been guided to it because I was young and I didn't really think about it a lot. A counselor said, You should be an engineer. It looks like you'd be great at it. I'm like, okay. Older brother was an engineering major. It seemed like, yeah, why not? But I hated my classes. Uh, I was not going to a lot of those classes and certainly not giving them my full effort. And I knew that that was going to be a problem. It led me early on to being on academic probation, and all of a sudden I realized this is a problem. I don't know what I want to do, but I know that what I want to do doesn't involve me being a getting kicked out of college because I'm failing. So I began to consider other options, and I thought to myself, I love sports and athletics and sought out a job to be a summer camp counselor in the New York area, which helps tell you how I got to New York. Uh I volunteered, I was working as an intramural sports supervisor, I enjoyed that. I sought out and uh found a position as a student manager for the varsity basketball team in Michigan. Uh and I thought maybe I want to work with kids, maybe I want to get into college coaching. I had played a little bit of high school basketball when I was younger. Wasn't very good, but good enough to know that I enjoyed it. Uh, and found a new major at the University of Michigan and the School of Kinesiology, which at that time was just a division of kinesiology, and study of movement science and uh physical education were degree paths within that field. And I thought one of those things might work. And I remember at the time thinking there was an advertising on sorry for those of uh members of our audience old enough to remember, there was a uh celebrity at the time named Suzanne Summers who was pitching a product called the Thigh Master. And I remember at the time thinking, seeing that, thinking, that's the Thighmaster seems like a silly product, but somebody must be making money. They can afford to hire Suzanne Summers as their spokesperson. I'm thinking there have to be there has to be a career in there. I think that's the first time that fitness really occurred to me, though I did not know that this is the real path that I would choose. I worked for four summers at a summer camp and I loved it. Working with kids was great, but not so much so that I thought the physical education was a path that I wanted to follow. And I but I'd done a lot of phys ed courses while a student in kinesiology that have helped me a lot going forward. Uh I also working with the basketball team was an amazing experience. Again, Forrest Gump. I've been in a lot of interesting places, leads to a lot of interesting stories. Uh, I was a student manager on a team that won the national title. So I'm officially a member of a national championship basketball team. Seven or eight of the guys on that team have gone on to play in the NBA. One of them was a was you know had close to a Hall of Fame career in Glen Rice. And again, I learned so much about management from that experience. But I also saw what was required to be a college basketball coach and the recruiting and thought, not for me. So I kind of floating around, not didn't know what I wanted to do. Worked at a summer camp in the Catskills. I had everything I own in the back of my beat up 79 Cavalier Wagon, and I thought, I grew up in the upper peninsula of Michigan and it was really cold, and I don't like the cold and the snow. So I'm gonna get into health and fitness or something like that, I think. So New York or Los Angeles seems like the right place to go. But I knew people in New York with whom I could stay, family and friends, or people friends that are like family, and I didn't really know anybody in LA. So that was a strike against going to LA. And uh like I used to call my old car the Terminator. The Terminator was no way in heck gonna make it to California without breaking down. So New York it was. My mother had grown up in the New York area, so I was drawn there a bit. Ended up in New York, worked initially uh as a physical therapy assistant, then my second job, first job in fitness, but part-time was at the uh working at the front desk of Mid-City Gym, which is still in uh business, and proper is to Vince Consalvo, who still owns it, my first mentor in the fitness industry, uh, and taught me things even in the short time we worked together that still stick with me today. Um I got a job at the working with the fitness company at the Executive Fitness Center at the World Trade Center, which was my first full-time job in fitness as a fitness consultant, sort of a personal trainer, and I had some personal training clients, but I hesitate, hesitant, I am hesitant to describe myself as having been a personal trainer. I have trained people and I help people with fitness, but I know some of the best trainers on earth. And so I shouldn't really be grouped as that. If the best trainers on earth are major leaguers, I was like maybe single-a in terms of baseball. I was a single A trainer. I know my stuff, but I also know where my limits are. But I was really natural fit seemed to be in management. I was promoted to a fitness director role and seemed to be doing well there. Uh I was on site at that location uh on February 26, 1993, when the World Raiders Center was first attract attacked. Uh the bomb went off 23 floors beneath where I was sitting. I was in the middle of an orientation with a new member, but that closed that facility for some period of time. And I was lucky enough to find a full-time job as a general manager for a very small but seemed with great potential uh boutique fitness concept called Crunch Fitness. And three studios at the time, they weren't even gyms. Uh the founder of uh Crunch, Doug Levine, again, uh uh a mentor and more, uh, in terms of helping guide and teach me things about business sometimes like boot camp. It wasn't always easy, but the lessons I learned again have contributed a lot to who I am today. Um and uh it was great. So Doug, shortly after I started, promoted me to be the chief operating officer responsible for everything at all of the locations. We ended up closing one of the three locations, so we were actually down to two small studios and then began the growth process and bringing his vision to life with surrounded by a team of absolutely amazing people, many of whom I'm still close friends with, others whom I'm still in contact with, and I consider good friends that you know through the course of life I've lost touch with. But what happened at Crunch was uh an amazing magical experience. I was there for 13 years as the chief operating officer, and uh that contributed a tremendous amount to my growth and development as a professional and as a as a person learning through mistakes and uh learning from successes that were enjoyed on a team effort. I finished that uh in 19 and 2006, I finished at Crunch and was really drawn to rather than pursue another uh senior management position within an existing organization, I was compelled and driven to continue to explore the entrepreneurial side of the business. And by working as a consultant with people who had on smaller businesses that were hoping to evolve, or people who had ideas for businesses that they might want to start and working with them. And it wasn't uh neither path necessarily would have been better or worse, but for me it was the right path. And I really began a process of analyzing what I had experienced at Crunch and almost as a case study, and so that I was learning and direct and creating a process because so much would have there happened there because it was in hyper-growth mode, uh, I wasn't able to, or I wasn't even aware that I should be noting what I did along the way so that I could learn from it at a faster rate, and even more importantly, share what I learned with others. And that's really what I've been doing since then through a number of different projects. I had a two-year sabbatical where I left and was a primary caregiver for my parents in their final years. Again, the lesson I learned in making that choice, and having done so with the full support of my ex-wife and my two daughters, understanding that that was an important thing that my parents needed, helped help me understand who I am and evolve and grow, which is you know, learning from uh from history and mistakes of my own and those I observed of others, and continually to focus on increasing my awareness and be better at practicing the practice of living. Came back to New York, I worked for two years outside the fitness industry for an event business called Shecky's Girls Night Out, large-scale shopping events, uh, primarily uh uh women were the customers of Girls Night Out, uh, all over the country. Phenomenal event-based business, and that experience again continued to build on what I've done. And then back into fitness, I'd served for the uh a company called Psych Fitness, an indoor boutique cycling studio as the chief operating officer for five years. I served for two years with a uh another boutique studio called Switch Playground as the CEO, and that one was interesting, and we could go a little bit more down that rabbit hole if you'd like, but that was more of a crisis management situation at Switch. Uh we were turned solved a lot of the crises, not all of them, but a lot of them, and we're making great progress when in March of 2020 uh the industry basically got shut down by the pandemic. And so I turned back to consulting for a bit, seeking uh and waiting, sort of preparing myself so that I'd be the best available version of myself for the next large-scale project that arrived. That arrived uh just before Thanksgiving in 2020 when I was uh contacted uh by the private bank that was bringing uh the former New York Sports Club chain, Town Sports International, a lot of people may know it as. Uh they were bringing 60 of those gyms out of bankruptcy. They had sort of happened into uh that opportunity. They weren't seeking to necessarily enter the fitness business as operators themselves, but that's what ended up happening. And uh they brought me as an interim CEO for originally for 30 days to just help them figure out what they were gonna do. Uh and then I ended up staying there as the CEO for 14 months, uh, helping the organization through the worst price of the crisis with focusing on the things that were most important and doing my best to work with the board as they uh established an expectations what they're looking for in the long-term position. Uh, they found their long-term CEO. Uh, my successor there, a guy named Bill McMenemy, is done, I think, uh is doing and has done so far an excellent job. Uh, I've you know had a great relationship there, served as an advisor to their board for the next several months, and then now uh you know, in the position where I've have a few clients that I'm working with on a consulting basis, and all focused on, and I can wrap up here, this segment is focused on fulfilling my purpose, which is to help others. And so I wake up each day with the intention of doing my best to help others, to be a better version of myself today than I was yesterday, and to prepare so that tomorrow I can be a better version of myself tomorrow than I am today. There's a lot to that and a curriculum that I practice and follow sometimes with more success than others. And uh also with the intention of being invited back today, right? So I intend to be invited back tomorrow. So I do the things that I think accordingly are going to align with that. Um it's a great process, it's a lot of fun. Again, along the way, I meet amazing people like yourself, and I'm part of an industry that I think is just now entering its infancy and having been a part of it for 30 some years, so I've been with it since it's sort of its embryonic state, somewhere in there. And uh exciting and the topic here, you know, future of fitness, you know, this is this is great, right? Because uh where it's gonna go from here, I think is pretty amazing.

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Okay, so it it all plays in my life. A great term, by the way, because I do approach it as playing. I approach life as a game. And in my opinion, in this game, the best storyteller wins, or best storytellers all win, which is even better, because the way that the game that I play, you can win, you can really win, or you can really, really win. But there is actually no losing in the way that I approach things. Because if I lose, then I win too, because that means somebody else has won and I'm happy for them. And if I fail, then I get better, which is fantastic. So there's not really approaching it with that approach, and I I wrap that up into something I describe as level four awareness training. And so the practice of this awareness training begins with some fundamentals. So on a daily basis, I remind myself of the things that I believe in, uh, often stating them verbally and sometimes listening to the recordings of it that I've created so that I can reference them on days where I just don't have the I have difficulty making the time to do it. I always could. Was that Lao Zhu said uh time is a made-up thing. To say that you don't have time is to say that you don't want to. So I always could make the time, but I don't always manage to make the time each day. But reminders of the of what I believe in, so that I'll act accordingly with those things. Uh reminding myself of uh what I've chosen to stand for and am willing to stand for again if need be, uh, and then how I intend to behave. And then you get to the intentions part, and it starts with I intend to practice accepting experiences, which uh I have simplified to a six step process of loving, learning, appreciating, forgiving, teaching, and serving. There's then next in line is the process of understanding expectations. Now that it's a circular process. The order in which I follow that circle starts with organization, leans to my OCD that is that is there. So I love to organize things. So I start with organizing and then practice communicating, educating, evaluating, and modifying, and then reorganizing, recommunicating. So somebody uh who is a friend and a mentor and a colleague in the industry, when he and I have discussed this, because he's heard me uh talk about this for many years, he said, I still think you have it wrong. I think you should start with education. And I laugh and I remind him, I said, Yeah, but it's a started education. It's a circle. So you go education, evaluation, modification, then organization, communication. I said, and somebody else might have a system for understanding and expectations that's a completely different system. I don't think that what I do is any better or worse than anybody else's, but it works for me. And when I'm helping people, I tell people, I make like to make them aware of my methodology, that that methodology continues to evolve, but also that I'm willing to, if somebody, if I tell people what I believe we should do and they choose to do something else, no problem. I'm still gonna do my best to help you along the path that you've chosen, even though it doesn't align with what I've recommended. But if at some point that way fails, then I'll do my best to help you out of it. But I'm also gonna point out and make you aware. Like, okay, well, listen, we didn't do what I suggested, so maybe next time we we do try what I suggested. I said, because if you do what I suggest and it fails, then I'll back it up. That's because now it's on me. And generally, when I know that when I think that the system isn't working, then I realize that actually the system would work if I was had was more diligent and disciplined with my practice of it. So we start off with the process of accepting experiences and then the process of understanding expectations. Then we get to the game, right? Life is a game, best storyteller wins. So I have a practice and methodology of storytelling. Uh eight steps encapsulate this method, again, not better or worse than any other, but it works for me. It's valuing the audience, it's remembering my purpose or our purpose, it's pausing strategically, it's practicing often those things that I andor we intend to do. It's investing more than just words, it is being ready to evolve and being willing not to. That's standing for something. It is occasionally doing the unexpected. Remember, the only advantage ultimately that we have over artificial intelligence is that we can think and act illogically. A computer cannot. And so sometimes we have to press that advantage, or Terminator's judgment day will become a real thing. And Skynet is definitely online. Uh, but really, the most important part of the storyteller program is to live a story that solves problems. And solving problems starts with recognizing and accepting that there are problems, because once you've accepted that there's a problem, the solution must also exist. Like they can't be one without the other. So now it's just a matter of finding the solution, which becomes a game. And it can be challenging, it can be fun, it can be frustrating at times. But I do that. And then from there, with the intentions and the purpose, uh, then helping others. And the methodology there is a simple acronym, wham, right? Uh I intend to help others, so I do my best every day to be welcoming, honest, attentive, and always doing my best to make someone's day better. And then there are more of a curriculum and steps beneath all of these things, and some of which I've already organized and detailed, and I'm reminding myself of them every day, and I practice following them. I do a conversation, you know, interview format for you and I. So I always get self-conscious because I'm talking a lot. Don't get me wrong. I love to talk. Ask my fiance or my daughters, they'll tell you, oh, yeah, he likes to talk. But I really focus over the past several years of focusing and practicing listening. So I enjoy listening to the experiences of others and learning from them and listening to what's important to them. That's how I find out how I can help them. Then I offer my help, and if my help is accepted, now I have a practice that I follow.

When you so when you apply this methodology, maybe you can construct it all, you know, unpack it even a little bit more in the form of a story or an anecdote that, you know, when it's been applied and it's been successful. Because I think, you know, a framework for uh I'm actually going to be talking at the metabolic uh conference in October, and the topic that I chose and they were happy about it, was you know, um, how to build a professional network, right? And really it's not too different than what you're talking about. It really just comes down to being willing to help people without any expectation of anything in return, right? That's it. And that's a really hard thing to do. I think as humans, we always have this, you know, whether subconscious or not, like this law of reciprocity that plays out. Like, well, if I help Roger, you know, I down the road, I know down the road I can, you know, tap him on the shoulder and be like, hey, buddy, you remember when I helped you out that one time? Well, now I need something, right? And that's not really how it should work. You know, I think when you're helping others, that the reward ultimately comes down to how it makes you feel. And uh, you know, that that's that's always what I found. And um, sometimes to my own detriment, I feel like I'm helping too much, maybe not thinking about myself enough. But I guess yeah, anyway, well, let's get back to it. Like, can you give us, you know, in the form of you know a story or anecdote, how has this methodology worked out for you?

Uh it's worked out really well and continues to get better every day. That said, uh, it is a leap of faith. And so often, in order for me to understand that it's uh to reach the point where I'm like, oh, it's worked really well, there has been a lot of challenges that I faced along the way. And so it hasn't always been easy, but I base my I balance my perspective. And every time that I think that it hasn't been easy, then I'm reminded of the stories and experiences of others, some people I know, uh some people I don't know personally, but I know of their stories, and I think of how much more difficult others have had it for me. So then I do my best to just shut up, be thankful and appreciative of what I have, and move along. Um, so it is a it is a process that's never done. Uh in terms of approaching things where there are no expectations, that's it is difficult. And I'm not sure that that's always true. And if even the most altruistic of people, do they really not have any expectations? And I don't really think that's true. So I like to, that's why a fundamental part of the methodology is understanding expectations and preceded by accepting experiences. One of the key steps of that, if we go back, that process of accepting experiences starts with love. So you can hate any, you can apply any emotion that you'd like or that happens instinctively to any experience that you have. There's hundreds, thousands of different ways you could describe emotions. The one that I find to be the most effective and efficient, the one that has the best return on investment, is to love every experience that happens, regardless of how much it might feel like it sucks when it's happening. And that is not easy. There are tough things that we all go through. And it's hard to say, oh, I love that that happened. But you practice it. So first you tell yourself, oh, I should love it. And then you think, yeah, I don't love it. But eventually you're gonna work your way around to eventually the best thing, the best thing to do, the best from business terms, best return on investment is to love it because the more you love it, the more you learn from it. Now you start to learn from it, and they're like, oh, wait a second, I didn't just make a mistake. I made a mistake valuable. Or somebody on my team, my boss or other people that report down to me, uh, down, not up. We'll talk more about that uh approach as well. Um, then everybody can make mistakes, and we can make those mistakes valuable, which is great. Now we appreciate because increasing the value means now we're appreciating. Love, learn, appreciate. As you begin to appreciate them, you recognize the value, so you become forgiving, forgiving of yourself when you look at yourself in the mirror and say, Oh, I created most of maybe almost all of these problems myself. And so you have to learn how to forgive yourself. And then there are going to be other people who, by choice, subconsciously, whatever you hold some other people responsible, you blame other people for things. And even if they were the cause of it or involved in the cause of it, you become forgiving of them as well because you realize, oh, like they helped teach me lessons. It wasn't, it wouldn't maybe easy for me to hear or experience, but ultimately it was good for me. Now you sort of practice forgiveness. And now the more you practice forgiveness, you have this knowledge, there's a somewhat of an enlightenment. I've had plenty of epiphanies. Like, oh wow, I have now information that I know is valuable, lessons that I can share with others from my experiences to help increase the value of what they're doing and what help they need. And so you'd like to teach people, but you can only teach people that are willing to accept lessons. And so the more that you want to teach, you get to your point where you're like, oh yeah, I can want to do something like I can try to teach, but again, as Yoda said, right, to do or do not, there is no try. So I don't try to teach. I do my best to prepare to teach. And so that when I have an opportunity and I think I can help, then I offer somebody help and explain to them the methodology that I'll use. And if they accept the help, now I can help them. And then that's service, right? So that gets us through like through those six steps of service. And again, to coming back, circling back, I apologize because it's too late to say it's a to make a long story short, to make a story shorter that I could have made much longer. Uh the process of helping others is not necessarily easy. Uh, ultimately, for me, it starts with my base sort of primal uh instincts, which are selfishness and laziness. I'm not proud of those things, but I recognize it a lot that sometimes my instincts drive me to do things that are selfish and lazy. Selfish because I like to do what's going to make me feel better. It's it's it has taken and will take another the rest of this lifetime of practice, but I've learned that helping others makes me feel better than anything else. It makes me feel great. Sometimes to my detriment because I will help others above myself. And it's trusting that the people, the family and friends and the people that are around me, they'll take care of me when I need it. Right? What's there's a saying that uh take care of the name on the front of the jersey and it'll take care of the name on the back. That's that leap of faith and that balance. And so I've gotten better about that. And the leap of trust and leap of faith with people is great. So people are looking up for me and helping, encouraging me to do things to eat better. I'm on a weight loss journey right now again. Uh and I'm but I'm doing it with better awareness. And so I accepting help from others is a part of the process. And uh practicing these things and being open to change, but no, he's not being willing to change. There are times I'm you know I'm gonna stay, I'm gonna hold my position. I believe that it's gonna be okay. Like I'm in the middle of a road, yeah, and I might get hit by a car, but I'm but I'm thinking that they're gonna go around me. And if I get knocked down, and then there are other people who are agree to help lift me up, toss me off, they're gonna forgive my failures, they're gonna lift me even higher. So I have a perspective, and from there I can recognize the progress that I've been able to make, and then I appreciate the people that are there to support me. It's uh it's a constant practice, like a martial art or uh uh arts of any form or sports or athletics. It's it's a daily practice. Um, there are no days off from practicing living. Um, and so that's the approach that I use, and it is a reward unto itself, and the sacrifices are involved, and they're worth it. And so as long as I remember that and I develop practice my remembering the important things, I'm not so worried about forgetting things that uh that I might have deemed less important. It's okay. I'll remember them if and when I need to. Or someone else will, and they'll remind me, remind me. Ideally gently, but with a bit more of a forceful jostle if needed.

Yeah. So uh it's it's great, man. I I I love well thought-out philosophies from people who have, you know, uh done a couple circles uh around on this planet, you know, it it it it always comes back to, you know, what does it all mean? And that's a you know it like I said earlier, it's so easy to get into the grind of business and entrepreneurship that sometimes you kind of have to pull back and be like, okay, well, how am I evolving as a person, as an individual, not just the the revenue and the you know locations and the the staff numbers and all those things. And um just to to slightly shift to you, because I want I want to make sure that we get into this because it's something that we've been looking forward to talking to about, you know, this show is aptly named the future of fitness. And you know, with 31 years of experience in the industry, and you just described earlier that it's still in its infancy, right? Um, which a lot of people don't have that perspective. A lot of people have probably gone into the industry in the last five to 10 years, maybe, right? Maybe not even. So when you look at that, you know, from your perspective on that timescale, why do you think it's in its infancy? And what's it going to take to be a teenager here?

Okay, well, first, uh relative comparisons, comparisons to other industries. Compare the size and scope of the fitness industry or the wellness industry, the halo sector, as my great friend and uh lifelong friend, really, almost at this point, and uh industry professional Pete Moore describes it as the halo sector. However, you choose to describe it, what we're in right now, what led to this conversation. Compare it to pharmaceuticals or sports, and you know, the NFL, soccer, uh, governments are in industry, and there's the medical professions. There's so many other industries that on relative size are just dwarf the fitness industry. It's one of the reasons why the fitness industry didn't have as much success, and maybe getting some very specific tailored support during the pandemic just on us, because we don't have as good a lobbyist as everybody else. We're you know, there's a benefit of the PPP programs in the US that helped a lot of people, and so we got the benefit of that. But specific things to help boutique studio chains and larger gyms that had to shut down, and there are so many that did, and it's sad. We're in our infancy. We don't have a good enough lobby yet behind us. And not that there aren't people out there lobbying on our behalf, and boy, they're doing a great job. But comparatively speaking, it just seems that we're much smaller than everybody else. I also think about it in terms of how the industry has evolved. I've had three decades here and I've seen it. I also have an appreciation for the fact and have done some historic research to know that even though I've been in it for three decades, a lot of other people have been doing it for a lot longer, right? So I most recently finished uh working with New York sports clubs. Uh, that company will be entering its 50th year of existence next year, which is amazing. Um, I worked at Mid City Gym, it was a front desk. Mid-City Gym's have been around for 50 or 60 years. And I'm old enough to remember I met once uh in person, uh, Jack Lelane and other people, Joe Weeder. Uh, there are so many people who were doing amazing things in fitness long ago. And the development of uh tools of the trade, strength tools, whether it's treadmills, which have some awful historical uh development context, and people didn't know that treadmills were first developed, so far as I'm aware, as punishment for prisoners or workhouses, so they could generate power by climbing under these treadmills that evolved into the tools we have in our gyms and studios today. Uh, tools like the kettlebell, which have been around for you know more than a hundred years. So the roots of this industry go way, way back. And at a rabbit hole, we could probably keep going back. I'm assuming back in cave person times that fitness was important, that you know, somebody's in better shape and lives longer and is healthier, then it is those are the people who had the most success and who probably had the largest families. And those are all probably a lot of our descendants. And while they may have done and said a lot of things that we may not be proud of, or we look back now, like, oh geez, my lineage, maybe it's not a lot of things that we can be proud of, but we can learn from it and we can be better and we can go forward. And so I think fitness will always have a home because what we do is we help people feel better, live longer, move more efficiently and effectively. It's a pretty compelling product. And you can sum it up into what are we doing? We're attempting to help people feel better. That's the same thing that every one of those other industries is in, whether it's the makers of the technology that's allowing me to speak to you 3,000 miles away right now, or it's the pharmaceutical industry that developed the vaccines that help us through a pandemic, um, and so on and so forth. When I think about the fitness industry, if we are in competition with anybody, it's not each other. So when I was at New York Sports Clubs, I didn't think that, you know, Equinox or Crunch or Orange Theory or any other soul cycle, I didn't think any of them were our competition. I think of them as our companions. We're all working together to lift this industry forward. And there's sibling rivalry kind of uh competitiveness between us. But there are so many people out there that need the benefits of health and fitness in what we do. Like some people, like myself, we're living in the industry, but sometimes we forget and we let our we're so focused on helping others that we don't help ourselves. And I hit not proud of it. But again, I had an all-time weight high for the second time I've reached that weight in my life earlier this year. And I'm like, I've there were some other issues that led to it. I'm like, I need I need to fix this, and I'm in the middle of it. And if I'm in the middle of it, then there are so I know there are so many other people, and I've been out to different parts of the country and I see so many people that aren't doing these things. And I experienced the aging of my parents. My mother was a dancer when she was younger, but she forgot about her movement habits as she got older that led to issues. So there's so many people that need our help. We are decades away from this industry being so overcrowded that there's too many people attempting to help others, then there are people to help. So let's work together as much as we can. Let's push each other to be better as much as we can, but really understand that we're focused on getting people to invest their time and attention in our stories. And so if they're investing more time and attention in technology or coffee or sporting events or movies or television or technology, then they're investing in us. Let's not think that everybody that everybody else's product is better. They recognize that everybody else's industry is apparently telling a better story. Let's focus on what we're doing, tell a better story, which ultimately means live a better story and realize that we can solve other people's problems for what I feel is the best return on investment scenario. Because in fitness, all we really need to deliver on our promise to the customers is we need somebody to trust us. Because if we've done the hard work, and we either ourselves or the team of people that we've surrounded ourselves with, know the business, know how the body works, know the important aspects of how to actually give people valuable advice so that if they follow it, they get the results. So if we have done that work and are committed to it, then people trust us, they do what they say. That's the only investment they need to make. The gyms, the studios are all great. But again, in in cave person times, that would have been all you needed then. I could here lift this rock, run to that hill, etc. And so that's all we have to focus on. And it's I'm an Occam's razor guy, right? All things being equal, the simplest solution is usually the best one. Our formula for our industry can really be summed up: eat more, exercise less, and be better a version of yourself every day. That's it. And it but whereas to bring a new uh product to market in all these other industries can really require an investment of millions or hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. But also, we just need to be good enough at what we do to get people to trust us, be honest about the fact that we're going to make mistakes along the way and it's a learning process, but but standing there and being there for those people and bearing the weight and responsibility of the promises that we made, so that when we do fail, we learn from it, we get better, and we're still there to help those people.

So here's a topic I'd like to get in with you, Roger, is that you know, over your experience over these decades, it commonly on this show, and I know amongst a lot of other conversations that happen in the industry, we we talk about this, you know, uh, for lack of better term, the 80%, the people who don't engage in in fitness really, you know, consistently. And how you know, we just haven't been able to reach these people, right? It's it's you look at, you know, particularly look inward into the United States is we're not getting healthier, right? As a population, people within, you know, our industry seem to be getting healthier. Like if you're working in the fitness industry, you're probably, you know, training and getting better optimal diets and all kinds of things that you can get now. Uh but over your have you seen over the last 30 years, have you seen that that I see you see progress in that area? Like people who haven't typically engaged in fitness engaged in it more and more. And how do you think we can take a bigger bite out of that part of the population?

It's great. Right. So uh for perspective, yes, we've made a lot of progress. Um, but we could also then say, could we have made a lot more progress? Of course. That's balance, right? So part of acceptance is hey, uh, accept where we are, for better or for worse, or whatever, like, but this is where we are, and now we can move move forward. Uh Einstein said uh a man, or to paraphrase, a man or a woman or a person uh should look for what is, not what they think should be. So this is where we are. And however we got here, now we can plot a course. So that's why positioning is really important. Where are we now? What do we stand for? Because if we're willing to stand for it, we're going to remain in that spot. And what are we willing to move or to change for? So part of the acceptance of where we are is important. The There's so much more room to grow. And again, that's why I think of us as in infancy. But yes, it's definitely changed, especially so for young people, the younger generation. And there are a lot more people now who think of a fitness membership investment someplace, or at least a fitness routine, as something that they have to do. And it's a, well, yeah, if I'm moving to a new town, city, whatever it is, I'm going to have to rent or buy a place to live, I'm going to have groceries and I'm going to have a phone bill and probably some kind of internet service bill, and I'm going to have a gym membership or I'm going to be paying. It's starting to become more commonly accepted. And that's big because 30 years ago, gym membership, why would I pay for a gym membership? You're going to be like, I should just get maybe I can work out at the local high school or college for a very low cost. So people weren't really investing a lot. But what people have done is they've invested and then they realize that they get not everybody realizes it, but they get a better return on investment with what they invest in health and fitness than they do with a lot of those other things. So slowly, I think with with a with a progress where it is accelerating, the people are more willing to invest in it. Sometimes tragedies help. The global pandemic is going to help because people are going to take away from this. One of the lessons from this global pandemic is to be like, wait a second. So if I'm just generally healthier, have a stronger immune system and less obese, if I'm just generally healthier, then I'm more likely to survive and or have a maybe a better experience with a potential pandemic-causing infectious disease than somebody who's not. With or without a vaccine, right? Again, not for me to tell people what they should and shouldn't do. But again, just healthier increases your odds of living longer. The majority of people would like to live longer. Anybody who doesn't want to live longer probably needs to seek some mental health counseling because that's it's a bad place to be. So we just break it down to the simple basics. We've made progress. Yes, there's a long way to go, but to lose faith in the fact that we've made all this progress is important not to do. And from here forward, I think we're going to continue to build on that momentum. Uh 30 years from now, I think it'll be a more measurable difference. And we'll have whittled away at whatever that percentage. I think you said 80% of the people aren't doing things. That's going to be, I don't know what percentage that I don't want to I don't want to predict the future. Uh but prepare for it. That's also pair. I reference quotes a lot, by the way. And so I apologize. Anyone in the listening audience, if it bothers you, I maybe I'm not even going to apologize. I'm going to continue to do it because it helps me organize my thoughts. These are lessons that I learn and I reference them for a particular context. It's a quick way to sort of condense a very short story into something. So I bring them up a lot. Again, I'm not planning on stopping, so maybe I shouldn't apologize. I'm aware of it. Like it's the way it goes. But uh a writer named Nassim Nicholas Taleb said uh in a book called The Black Swan, not about the movie, but to great read, difficult read, but very rewarding. And in it, he's the best, most valuable piece of advice that I learned out of it was to invest in preparedness, not in prediction. So I'm not going to worry about predicting where this industry might be. But I know enough and I can see the vision in my head, it's going to be, it's an amazing future. Uh I'm not a good enough storyteller yet that I can always explain that vision to people. But I can see it and I believe it, and I've committed to it 100%. Everything I'm doing is attempting to commit it to making this what we do and help more people. And along the way, I think other people are going to see it as well.

Yeah. I love the optimism and I agree. I mean, it really we have such a huge opportunity just to get to more people. And you know, what you said that I think is very favorable and very optimistic is that you know it is true. The the younger generations do see, you know, more often than not, see gym members. I mean, I go to the gym now at a certain time of day, and it's all young people, you know, and that that was like two years ago was significantly different. Like, I don't know if it's a population change in particular where I live, but man, two, three years ago, I would go to the gym and you know, I'd probably be in my 40s, one of the younger people in there. And uh now it's like, you know, at five o'clock, it's just it's just bustling with young people doing strength training and you know, all kinds of, you know, actually really good training. So it's it is favorable, and that's just you know, one small iota of of the population here, but it it it's an interesting trend to notice. And I think it is uh optimistic. And I think there's a lot of people who uh maybe have burned out on the fitness industry over time and been in it so long and don't think it's ever going to change. And then there's you know, a lot of people who are more optimistic in how you know we can get to these these you know uh other 80%. So I it's it's a good thing to think about. And I do believe if if you're not kind of looking at the long-term trajectories of the industry and planning in longer time horizons and then back in into you know what you need to be doing today and next week and next quarter, then uh you're you're doing yourself and and your business a disservice. So uh I I like it.

If I if I may, uh to capture this thought, because you mentioned something there. A lot of people burn out on the fitness industry and go elsewhere. So let's let's pause and think about that because that is true. It's it isn't always easy. And I think therein, when we speak about the future of fitness and not attempting to necessarily predict where that future is going to be, but be prepared for it. One of the things that I believe we as an industry need to continue to do a much better job at is making this an industry where the best and the brightest minds would not only like to be, but are seeking it out. And a job at a fitness industry organization of any sort, profit, not for profit, uh the B2B side, B2C side, anywhere in it, needs to be a sought-after position. What makes a company a position sought after? It's a it's the experience that somebody has as a member of a team within that industry, the working there, feeling appreciated. So the the inner intrinsic rewards, the financial rewards, being able to work in the industry and earn uh uh a wage that is not just sort of enough to get by. So I think one of the measurements that we'll see in the fitness industry that will really help accelerate the progress is when gyms and fitness studios, when they hire people, starting at the gate, don't hire people for minimum wage. Pay them as much as you can, not as much, not as little as you have to, because there's a difference. And so if we're hiring people and we're paying them a minimum wage in New York City right now, it's $15. In other markets, I think it's as low as seven or eight dollars still. I can't remember what the federal minimum wage is, but I can tell you whatever it is, I'm sure it's too low. And I'm not, this isn't a political thing or other, but yeah, anybody who says, oh, it's fine where it is, probably is making a lot more than that. Pay somebody seven, eight dollars an hour and see if that's you know really is enough to give you the quality of living where you're really happy, where you feel comfortable investing even more in fitness because I could join a gym or I could eat dinner. I mean, right? I mean, so I think one of the things we really need to do is find a way to construct business plans. Because again, it's a it's either a for-profit business or if it's a not-for-profit, it's definitely not a for-loss business. So everybody needs to have a business plan that makes reasonable fiscal sense. Because there are people a lot of, I mean, God bless those investors who've carried these businesses on their shoulders. We have businesses that have been losing money, a lot of them in the pandemic, and they didn't lose faith, and they continue to help shoulder the loss of that because they're those are people that are helping get through some of the really dark times. But we need to begin creating, in my opinion, business plans that allow us to invest A, more in people. So when they do we get people that are great, they're not thinking, okay, I gotta go find other jobs, I gotta work part-time. So they're getting so run down because they're working two or three jobs just to pay the bills, you're not getting their best effort. We also need to look at these other businesses and uh think about how much time that we're investing in people to be better versions of themselves and to condition themselves, right? So if you're a professional athlete, um, or it could be a professional actor, other musicians, there's a time that's out that's expected for practice. So if you're a, I'm gonna use the analogy of a football game. If you're a football player, you're you're you're really getting paid to do the job for uh three hours a week for 17 weeks a year, maybe longer, if you're a great football team. But you're working all that week and you're being paid to practice, to study game film, to see, analyze how did we play in that last game? How could I be better? And so they're investing, they might put in 60 hours a week, but only three of it's actual game time. Only three hours is actually at the front desk. The rest of the time is getting better, so you're better at the front desk. Whereas we bring people in and we're you know, we're we're paying them to be at the front desk, but how much additional time are we investing in training and development of them? We're often paying them the least amount that we can by law to be at the front desk, which means we're gonna have high turnover, which means they're gonna be leaving. And so you know, look at we have to rather we think about why aren't all these other people coming to fitness? Why don't we look internally at what can we do better to make people would like to be a member of this team, right? The intentions that I have with any organization that I help is that we should, our intention should be the most or one of the most sought-after organizations to work at as soon as possible. It might take we maybe we should we set a reasonable goal. Is it gonna based on where we're starting at? Is it gonna take us a year to get there, five years to get there, ten years to get there? Probably a goal that where the goalposts will keep moving, where you know, we just always have to be doing that. Are we creating the best possible environment where people would like to be a part of what we're doing, are getting paid enough so that they can enjoy it, that uh that they enjoy the work and they feel they're contributing something that's of value to society. Um, but with all the benefits of being part of a capitalist society. And so I think that that's one of the things we're missing, and one of the things that's really uh you know tripped up our ability to grow and help more people more quickly is that we're just not taking care of the people that mean the most. And that's the people in the you know that are working on the front lines. And I'm not saying it's easy because to go in and say, all right, we're just gonna pay everybody $21 an hour, right? Yeah, and they're starting. Okay, well, where's that money coming from? It's always gonna have to change. It's balancing. These are so I'm not saying this as if it's easy to do, but if we know that's where we're, if that's where we're steering towards, we're much more likely to make progressive progress towards that goal. And sometimes it's three steps forward, one step back, sometimes five forward, two back, sometimes you know, three forward, five back. And but always understanding that's where we need to be. Because that if somebody in working at your front desk was to be offered an entry-level job at Google or Facebook or someplace else right now, they'd probably take it. Why? Because we've all heard the stories. I've been in uh one of the Google headquarter offices, and they have spas and massage, they're doing everything they can to make sure that people they don't want to leave because they're making good money and the benefits of what they get, the experience are great. And until we do more of that and we really make that leap of faith and find ways to construct business plans that allow us to pay people more so that they're happy, then you know we're gonna have a difficult time gaining ground on all those other industries.

Yeah, well said. Roger, I think that's that's probably the one one of the bigger thoughts I didn't want people to walk away with. So we'll uh you know, we'll we'll call it a day there. What if people want to get a hold of you, they want to reach you, they want to find you online, what's uh what's the best way for them to do that?

All right, that's uh a great question. And thank you again to anyone who who listened to all or part of it. If you made it to this part of the conversation, I really appreciate the the time and attention that you've invested here with me and Eric. Not with Eric and I. Me and Eric, I gotta think about how to phrase that grammatical. I think no, I think with Eric and me. With Eric and me would be the problem. Yeah, correct. Okay, good. Yeah. I was looking for my shrunk and white reframatical guide. Uh so listening to us has been great. Um, if you go to a website, it's there's not much there other than a quick uh form that you could fill out to submit a question. What is roger radio.com? It's very simple. You can send that and that'll let find its way to me. Uh, you could also email me directly, Roger R-O-G-E-R-H at this is level five, the number five.com. Um, and yeah, I'm uh always interested in uh finding more ways to help people um and uh listen to other people's stories.

Awesome. Roger, thank you so much for joining me. I'm looking forward uh already to our next conversation, hopefully next meetup in person. And uh hope it's sooner than later, man. It's uh it's always good. Same here, Eric. Thank you so much. So yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Roger Harvey. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minute. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it. iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it. We want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more or get in touch with me, simply go to the futurofitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the future of fitness. Have a great day.