The Assembly: Reimagining How Industry Leaders Connect and Collaborate

Hey friends, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness and wellness industry podcast for over five years and running. I'm your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the honor of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. If you like the show, we'd love it if you took three minutes of your day to leave us a nice supporter review wherever you consume your podcast. If you're interested in staying up to date with the future of fitness, go to futurofitness.co to subscribe and get weekly summaries dropped into your inbox. Now on to the show. All right, we are live. John Moore, welcome to the future of fitness, my friend. Thank you very much. Appreciate uh being here. Yeah, man. Very, very cool stuff you're up to. And I think you and I have a lot to talk about when it comes to leadership. What is going on with our industry as far as uh we we're in this phase of I think maturation. And I think part of that is really and consolidation and you know emergence into whatever this new wellness health category we're going into. So there's just a it's it's a time of change and opportunity. And I think what we were both hoping for is like a new level form of leadership from thought to business to um even spiritual some uh aspects of what we do, right? To to emerge. So I think you know what you're doing at the assembly is is super interesting. I'm glad we got an opportunity to talk about it. Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend the event because I'll be flying about. But uh yeah, man, I'm excited for this. So let's start with us, John. Give us a little bit of your background and uh and then we'll go from there.

Yeah, I think realistically, like I was always an athlete. I was, you know, played two sports, played them both year-round. It was always like very hectic in my house because someone had to figure out where to get me all the time. And just fell in love with the idea of competition, fell in love with like you know, when when you're doing athletic things all the time, you have a sense of like vitality and overcoming, and like you work hard and you put in it and they're you're attached to the love and passion of it. So I never really lost that. And I didn't really understand what I was gonna do, but business started like came in became kind of natural to me. And then over time, it was like I just wanted to figure out I was always gonna stay healthy. You know, I I did some competitive CrossFit as I became in like my late 20s, early 30s, and at the time I wasn't in the industry, and I was like, I just gotta get in this industry and I want to figure all of this out because this is like what I want to do for a living. It doesn't feel like work to me, it feels like I'm just living my life and I get to talk business. And so over time it was, you know, getting involved with different companies and like supporting them or advising for some. But I think as I it went from like physical fitness and like seeing that industry, and then it evolved into kind of what you said like a little bit more of a spiritual how does mental health integrate into physical health? Because I saw in CrossFit there was very healthy, physically healthy people, but you know, because you focus so much on the physical side, like the mental side would not be fully as integrated, and so that was a huge awakening for me. So yeah, that's where I started focusing my time, energy, and effort is like, how do you do a holistic human? How do you actually focus this like integrated person that thinks of and is open to you know, it could be emotions, it could be like change, it could be all those things. I know we didn't talk about this before, but you know, as men, when you grow up and you're boy, you know, you don't really understand, it's not ingrained into you, maybe like a young girl of like emotional state. What is fear? What is anger? What is frustration? It all kind of blends into one, which is usually being pissed. And that's like a normal state for guys, right? It's like, I'm just mad. Why are you mad? I have no clue. I'm just mad. And um, so that's kind of what brought me to keep being so interested and intrigued with the space. And as it started morphing, obviously, like my my last position was you know, being part of a company called Plunge, which was this incredible. Most people didn't know, everybody thought it was recovery, but it was like 95% of the customer feedback we would get was like, my mental health is so much different before and after this product. And uh the journey for me to go kind of where I talked about to get to there felt like so invigorating. Like, I'm so on the right track. And if I can help people with their mental state and their physical state, that's the world I want to live. So that's probably the most recent uh kind of getting everybody up to speed.

You know, it's so funny. I um I've been working with uh a coach. I'm not gonna call him a life coach because we we touch on everything, right? Business. And this isn't the first night. It's Amy Patronic. I've known him forever. And um, anyone who's been in the CrossFit space probably knows him from CrossFit LA and all that. But yeah, at one point he's like, Well, what to your point about men and feelings, he's like, Well, what is that? How does that make you feel? I'm like angry. He's like, Well, what else? I'm like, sad.

Yeah.

He's like, You, my friend, are emotionally literate. Like, you I'm like, Yeah, I know like four emotions, right? And they're like, no, and then he showed me this whole like wheel of emotions thing. It's like this, you can probably search it up in there. And I'm like, holy shit. Like okay. Yeah, I've yeah, I guess I I don't know. I had some learning to do, but it was uh it was just an interesting takeaway. Well, you know, let's talk about like what you're doing at the assembly and what what sparked the the I guess initiative, say, hey, I I need to I need to create this. Like, what do you what are you out to solve?

Yeah, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but like when it feels like when everybody's zigging, I'm zagging, and it's like uh I don't know if I just evaluate holes in the market or something more than others, or it's just a thing that I'm just too naive to actually consider the the possibility of of like what you actually need to do. I just want to go do it a lot of times. And for me, I think going into this like space, it was I'm a vendor, I'm showing up to these big events, and you're selling out $10,000 just for the booth, you know, your your all-in cost is like 15 to 20k with the idea that like you might get some returns or something comes back to you, and so it's a lot of risk for especially an earlier stage brand, and you have to hustle, but a lot of times these B2B events, the tail of them is like six to eighteen months before you see anything. So that was always like a pain point on my end. I think the other end was being at plunge. We were cold water is not new in the world, but it's very new in Western culture, and no one knows how to integrate it, what does it do? How often do I do it? What temperature do I do it at? And so we were pioneering this like new modality almost. And all these C-suite founders from all these companies would like come to me, we'd have dialogue, we'd have conversation, and how do I implement this into my world? How do I implement this into my life? What's the science? All that good stuff. And so through that network effect, it crossed over a lot of different verticals from like healthcare all the way to like you know, fitness to high performance. And I'm a connector by nature, like I like doing that without like an ask. I like to try to provide as much value as possible. And so behind closed doors, I would always do this like connection, like, hey, healthcare, you should talk to this guy who's doing something amazing in fitness. And if you guys could come together on either a new venture or something existing, you could impact so many more people. But it was hard, you know. Like C-suite founders, like they don't have time, like they barely have enough time for their own workouts, and um, so that was always a pain point because I just saw the upside, I saw the possibility. And I think the other part associated with the assembly is most all of my work that I would get done would be at the could be at the event, but it's at a dinner and it's at a an event or the bar, and I think we talked about this, like I'm yelling at the bar over loud music, and I don't even drink, but like that's where all the magic was happening, and I realized it's all about like these moments. Like, if you could invert the structure, which is like super transactional, typically when you go to an expo, what if we just focused on like the one-to-one human stuff? And you can meet the person, get to know them, their family, their friends, and then let the business kind of flow from there. And so that is kind of the structure of the assembly is getting the right people that I always wanted to meet in the same room. And the ones who are doing things that are influencing the space, get them to have the experience at the bar, except we're doing healthy things like Cold Punch and Sauna, or we're doing workouts. I know a lot of the expos have workouts, we're doing hikes, we're doing rucks, we're doing yoga, breath work. You get the same experience from product-wise, not as big. Keep it small and intimate, and really just focus on creating the vacation over and over and over again for for a couple days. And I said, like it'd be worthwhile to be a relationship entrepreneur where we're great at the facilitation, the curation of these people doing things like this together, so that you know, long term we can have this world where we break up a little bit of these silos in this ever-changing space, break up the silos, we collaborate more, and we allow for people to think curiously outside the box, and um that's how I like to think of things, and so maybe it's my own frustration over time and my own like sense of wanting to help others do something similar. Like, how do we do it different to like have more impact in the future?

I don't think it's just you, John. I think uh I think it's you know, like I can always speak for myself, so it's me too. Because I I think a lot of times you go to these events and they're they're well orchestrated. You know, a lot of them are are excellent, some of them are not. We don't need to talk about those, but they like you there's certain things maybe you want to hear people speak on, right? A couple topics that everyone finds individually interesting, but the other ones, and I I realize from my own perspective and bias, like I get to interview people on topics all the time. So, like most of the topics, I'm like, oh, I've covered that already. Talk to that one thing, right? So that's like that's that's unique in my position. But most of the time, I when I talk to people, it's like they want to come to these events because everyone is flying into one location. And like this is the best time to go meet people. So most of the time, and yes, expos are great because maybe you want to check out whatever new technologies or you know, you need to make a deal with a vendor, whatever, and maybe those are great too, that there's a lot of value to that. But for most people that I talk to who you know are at the executive or operator level or founder level, like they want to meet, right? And sometimes all the other stuff is just obstacles, like literally, it's just obstacles, right, to to getting to where they want to be. And you know, like you said, usually the best stuff happens at a dinner, right? Where it's curated and it's like, okay, well, I know who's gonna be there. I'm gonna actually sit down and talk to them. And so it there's a lot about like, well, how do we take a lot of the things that distract from the core value of what people want from events, which is connection, time with the right people, things like that, and and optimize that to to one of different things. So I I I get it, dude. I think I I see where you're going with it.

Yeah, it's the width that's the problem. You go so wide that there's so many layers to be able to get to the right person that oftentimes, unless you're already in that kind of network, you don't you don't have you get a small amount of time with them. And if the value prop, and this was like kind of where I was at, if the value prop is that everybody I save time on travel and I can meet everybody in the same spot, if that's the value prop, I just I just never felt like that was totally good enough for me. And um, you know, what if there was a different way? And um, so that's that's where my head always goes. It's like, how do we improve what this is? How do we improve a process, a product to make it so that it's like most effective? And that's kind of where the assembly came from.

Well, we're gonna get into I want to get into the the actual nitty-gritty of what the uh what the assembly will be in a minute, but one of the things we were discussing prior to recording was that two things. I guess consumer a lack of a void of leadership, yeah, which has been a hot topic for me on podcasts lately within industry, and then also I guess trusted sources of information for consumers. These are two huge challenges right now. Like, and then it's not like something you can point at very tactically and be like, no, tariffs is a challenge. Well, yes, it is. Like, yes, we know that. But like these are things that are a little bit softer to feel, but they're there, right? Like we like who who's the titans of our industry who are getting together and planning out what the next big steps are and advocating for us and maybe merging with other industries or you know, talking to the healthcare industry. Like, who are these people? And then also we mentioned people who are there's the rare ones who have a doing great work, right? But also have a huge platform. So the you know, the Kelly and Juliet Starretts and the Dr. Andy Galpins and Dr. CC, whoever, you know, people probably point fingers, like, oh, they said this and that's wrong, and blah blah blah. But relax, people, you get the point, right? So those are the two things that I think are a really interesting topic. So give me your take on those. Like, and let's I don't start with everyone you want.

Yeah, I look at I think plunge was a big we were in it in it just as much as everybody else, right? Like there's a marketing end, and then there's a thought leadership end. And a lot of times, like the marketing end can lead to like selling lots of products. So let's say say someone has a great niche, they have a couple hundred thousand followers. You can promote within that organization or that network, and you can get a good return on your investment that you spend with that. And some people can get that following through different avenues, right? Like either they work out really well or they have good insight, or they're a relatable mom who's at home that's you know, reading the back of the labels, like all of which are are great. But there's it becomes a monetization thing for some people, and they they stack layer upon layer upon layer that it's hard. It's at this point, especially if you're on Instagram, it's very hard to find who is the truth teller and then who is ones who are, and there's nothing at the biohacking world, but they typically are the first movers on the latest information that's out. Do I follow a biohacker? Is there you know an influencer that I think is pretty on, or I relate to them, or but it gets what gets lost in the sauce is the people who are doing the things who are like influencing what other people are saying often don't have the platform. So most people don't even know who they are. And because of the money coming into the space, it's really hard. Even someone that's in the space, and you probably the same for you. It's like who's actually doing the thing and who's the one that like I should be leaning into? And do I have all the time to figure all this out? You know, it's there's just so much information and so much content out right now that that's what I think about all the time is with the money coming into the space, with the amount of brands emerging, the amount of people trying to grow these consumer direct-to-consumer brands, who is thinking is you are using the language of like thought leadership, or or they have a bigger perspective, which is like there needs to be someone who thinks of stewardship. Like, what is in best interest for more people? And if I lead with like what's in the best interest of more people, and I'm the person doing this, then theoretically, like people would follow. There are these weird pockets of like the people who are the influencers are following the right people, like the Andy Galpins or the Kelly Starret, but they're monetizing in their own way. So it's it's a it's I don't even know if I'm answering even answering the question, other than to say, like it's what's needed and required right now because everybody seems to be interested in coming into this phase, and there's no knock on anybody who wants to be an influencer whatsoever, like it's a total needed thing. But those who are the ones who are actually doing the thing need more like and they need more oversight and influence over what's happening. And frankly, even when I was in business, the whole goal is to skip the line and get to the person doing the thing, right? Like the faster you can do that, the faster you can get things done. I'd love to figure out a way, and I think the assembly could be part of it, is if you can get the right people in the room that are the thought leaders and then get them to be comfortable being out there and like starting to lay the groundwork for what like holistic oversight or like support looks like for everybody else, I think that's a total win. So I know down a tangent. What was what was the other question that you asked, dude?

Yeah, well, let's let's I'll I'll bring us back to the other part of the question in a second. But you know, I was in a at the recent Afletic event, I shared a cab with Troy Taylor because we took the same flight in. Yeah. He's the SVP of sports science for Tonal. Sorry, sorry if I got that wrong. He's he's a smart dude, he's been around forever, and we are having a conversation about like, you know, where consumers get their information and how a lot of people who are considered wellness influencers is the category. They all start out with this great intention of stewardship, right? And I don't fault anybody on this because I would I there's a good chance for all human would do the same thing. It's like you build this following, right? And then all of a sudden, like, well, you know, I got a shit ton of followers, and people kind of do what I tell them to do and maybe get a little bit of loose, a little loose with a little bit of science because this product you really like works, and then all of a sudden you get a big paycheck. You're like, whoa. And then you think, well, gosh, I maybe only have three years of window, right? Of me being at this level. So I gotta maybe maybe I'll do another one. And it happens. And we can name just about anybody out there, right? And I think uh with the start with the best of intentions of stewardship and you know, of of I don't even know what we're stewarding here, which is I guess people's access to to viable information for their health and wellness, right? So I know fault. I I really don't. I I totally get it. I think you know that's that's part of it. Everybody sells out a little bit in their lifetime or a lot, but everybody sells out something. So yeah, it's it's an interesting dilemma.

Well, even then, like when we were at Plunge, we would have some people that have like the m most massive followings and they require like you know, X amount for you to do a post. And the numbers come back and it's just it doesn't translate. And so like the math is off. And it's clearly changed from what it was like four or five years ago where it's like it's all about follower count and engagement. And I think these like micro communities is like actually where it's at now in that world at least. So, but to your point, like how do you how do you navigate those worlds and like make it easier to understand? It's it's complicated, you know.

Well, dude, I I mean you a lot of these a lot of these followers are bot.

Yeah, that too.

Yeah, you know, that that's very common. I'm I'm starting to see that more and more as we uh you know create a list of podcasters for our clients to get on. Is like we'll see it from the outside, we're like, holy cow, like this this person is doing great work. And then I'll go, I'll listen to an episode or watch an episode. I'm like, because you can tell, right? You're like, that wasn't a very high quality piece of content. None of this is starting to make sense. And you take a couple of levers deeper, and you're like, this is a complete sham.

Yeah.

And you know, they do it for those reasons, right? It's like an easy way to monetize, or um, maybe they lost their way.

I think part of it too is like thought leadership, and like everybody that's a thought leader, or they're they're someone that people like revere. It's like you have to get a certain level of how often you're saying no. Like you have to say no enough to become like principled and the approach. And um because there's all sorts of money, I understand why it's hard to say no, you know. But you know, I I think it's evolving too. I think it's I think it's starting to change a lot more than what it was, which was kind of like a land grab a couple years ago.

So the other part of the question I asked you earlier, Jean, was like uh, I guess in relation to stewardship is like industry leadership. And I'm gonna say specifically, like what we have now is what we call the fitness industry. Yeah. Um, you know, major players from the technology standpoint to the, you know, uh big franchise brands or club brands to some of the more uh digital players that are, you know, still evolving and emerging. But you know, no one seems to be out there having a major leadership council, yeah, right, where we can advocate for the industry overall. I know HFA is is doing everything they can and at at the you know, in Washington, DC, but I think there's something more to be had, and some people could step up because there seems to be this talk about this often, just this conflict of like we're competing, but like, dude, there's no real new ideas in this industry, at least in the fitness industry. Like no one's gonna reinvent the overhead squat. It's like, you know, there's there's there's needs to be something there. So I mean, what what's your take on that? Do you feel like what you're trying to do with assembly is is uh equal parts of that as well?

Yeah, I think so. I think in it, it's like you know, you go to these fitness conferences and I get it, and and that also frustrates me at times, which is like you could see uh like a specific machine done, like seven different companies, the same, almost the same machine. And once commodity commoditization comes into play, it's like who has the lowest price point that could match like maybe a budget. And so we're conflating maybe a set of movement patterns into a scalable commodity. When you walk the floor, you're like, that's the same one as that one. And part of the fitness industry for me is goes like, hey, what are we doing with these ellipticals? Like, that's like the one that I always go in a gym and I see them and I get them and I understand that they were like important, and no no shade to anybody who's making them, but I would say, like, what is the frequency of use of those? And like, what are we doing to like make it more? I think it's a more holistic question, which is like what does a consumer want? And I would Say that the consumer behavior and the consumer has radically changed in the last four to five years of what they want. And because you become integrated into a purchasing, which has ballooned into like across a company, let's say, like Crunch example, how quickly can you move to match what the customer wants? And recreating more of the same isn't the answer. Wellness became a like that's why people were coming to Plunge because they're like, this could be the next thing. We could lean more heavily into recovery. How do I actually like figure this piece out? One thing that I was always interesting being in fitness was everybody was waiting for everybody else to be the first one, the first couple to go take the action and go do it. And I never totally understood it. How many, how yeah, like how many people would need to learn how to power clean, right? But how many people would be really interested in tapping into their mental health or tapping into maybe their spiritual side of their life, right? Like you don't have to have a bunch of therapists walking around, but creating the environment in the space that is a little bit more holistic. And I think whoever is the most creative thinker that takes the risk, that like completely goes a different direction inside of the fitness space will dramatically impact it. You know, it's part of what Jeff Sweefle talks about is if you're preparing yourself to go in a direction and the direction's here, like you will win. And if you're waiting to see what everybody else is doing, likelihood is you will be pretty far behind in the very near future. So I would love to see more ingenuity. I would love to see more risk taking. I would love to see with some of these consumer brands get integrated into a realistic lifestyle associated with these fitness industry companies. I'd love to go down an aisle inside of, you know, a big expo and see like something I've never seen before. Something that's like, what is that I want to know more? And I think that's where it'll win. Otherwise, I think the consumer's just gonna start going at home and they're gonna start putting in the racks. They already are. They're gonna start putting the cold plunge in the sauna, and the adoption to the consumer feedback would be wonderful in the fitness space. And I think it's so in front of everybody there too.

Yeah. Well, I think one of two things. I think people who afford it are already putting it in their home. The other thing is that the HVLP area is booming so hard right now that people are people are willing to pay 30 bucks a month to access that stuff, right? Maybe not to get to the the degree that you would get in a smaller, like, you know, other like something like an other ship or you know, uh or a soul cycle or you know, a like solid core, like all these distinct individual experiences, they will never get that quality under one roof, but they'll get access to a lot of these things. And sometimes that's enough.

Yep.

Right?

And some are doing it already, right? Like I think I think some like a lifetime, they have like really great classes or Equinox, and I'm sure there's other brands too. Those are the ones that I've like actually taken. I'm not really a class guy, but I I've taken them there, and I'm like, this was quality, this was great, and this would keep me as a member coming back because I would be hard to find this anywhere else. The other ships of the world, though, if I just crystal balled it, I think those ones, those brands, are gonna win like really big, and because it's it's a very nuanced business. That's like, yeah, they have their crop and their I's and cross in their T's when it comes to the finances, but community is the word. Community. Everybody wants to create it, everybody wants it, but sometimes it doesn't pencil right away, and those that lean into community, in my opinion, will have such a loyal following to brand. And that's what everybody's like kind of trying to create right now.

Yeah, awesome. Well, that that that's a nice dovetail of community. So tell me what you're doing with the assembly. What is it?

Assembly is it's an event that's like super curated, and kind of what I talked about earlier in the pod was I guess like maybe pain points that I had. That you know, we're doing a lot of the attraction sometimes at some of these bigger conferences is like the keynotes, and it draws the people in. Like I love Andrew Huberman. So, Andrew, if you're listening, I love you, dude. Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't know if I need to go see you speak on stage again. Okay. Well, just in case you are, like just stuff like future when this podcast is 10 times bigger, right? But I don't know if I need to go listen to him speak on stage again. I I could just go to YouTube or like Peter Atia or Andy Golpin. And what I always thought was like, I just wanted actually more of the dinner. I wanted more of the workout in the morning at some of these events. I wanted more time to get to know the person. And I know that's you know, not always the case when you're dealing with transactions in business, but the goal ultimately is to be be experience first, relationship not far behind. And we focus on curating those as best as we can. And keynotes is like super minimum. If there is a keynote, it directly affects every human being in the room and they should know about it. But a selling piece that comes sometimes with uh, you know, an event we want to minimize because everybody in the room, so this is a sweet, see, sweet founder style event, and everybody in the room, and it's the hilarious part of going through the process, it's like everybody like you know, they're usually accustomed to free or they're accustomed to getting on stage and speaking. And it's like, what if you didn't? What if you just come and you're like a participant? Would that be nice? So everybody could be in a panel, but like we're reducing the keynote, minimal amounts of those. It's all fireside chat, and it's all directly connected to a panel. And the panel is hyper curated with it's not always like the the people that you know of. It's like, does anybody know Amanda Phillips from Exos? She's like essentially head of all performance for Exos. Everybody should know who Amanda Phillips is. Like, truly, the work that she does is fascinating. And so it's getting people like that. It's it's getting people like Juliet Starrett to look do a panel on women's health, right? And like, what does that actually look like? Whether it's menopause or whatever, right? These are like the topics that some people or most people in the room, especially on the hospitality side, wouldn't know about. And then we're having small breakout sessions, small rooms, and they're executive coaching led. So we'll talk about maybe a little bit more personal side attached to the business as well. I'm not saying like, hey, tell me your life story so we can all cry, but it's like we should break down a little bit of these walls to make people a little bit uncomfortable so that we can actually focus on like you knowing the other person in the room a little bit better. And that's kind of the middle part of the day. But the morning is led with Kelly Starrett, Juliet, uh, PJ Nestor is going to be involved with the event, being like the physical coaches. We'll have product activations. It's how does this product show up in the world best? Let's do that there. There's there's no selling, your product sells itself. And um, usually it's the C-suite or founder of the company doing kind of facilitation. Best part, I always wanted to be a part of the event, like a vendor, rather than sitting in like a monkey in you know, at the booth, just like not going anywhere and my feet hurt all day. So the vendors all will become part of the event when they're not in their like basically show times and creating space. So like there'll be whiteboards around, there'll be downtime for anybody to go play. We're gonna have a golf simulator, you know, we're gonna have cornhole, we're gonna have some beach workouts that we can do or some fun stuff. And yeah, I mean, I think we're basing the event on circadian rhythm. So we'll go morning walks, we'll have midday breaks, you know, we'll have nighttime where we watch the sun go down, like the events cater towards that. And I think in general, that's kind of the main gist is if we can take C-suite founders from hospitality, health and wellness, fitness, dod, so the government, healthcare, which is like a big who's connected to healthcare? Like, I don't know, not many, and they absolutely should be. And then I would say like high performance. C-suite founder kind of break down the silos and really focus on this like terminology of like, is it recovery? Is it mental health? You know, is it longevity? No, let's let's just call it health. Let's do like the health thing, let's get the fundamentals down, everybody on the same page in the same room, and um have the people that are doing the thing speak to it and um see what happens. But I think the sooner we can get to a better relationship across industry, it only strengthens the opportunity to have a better partnership. And if those partnerships can get solidified, then you know, to my point before, like we can create better health outcomes for all the consumers listening to this call. And uh it takes the doers and thought leaders to do it. So that's kind of like the impetus for what we're doing.

So it sounds like something that I won't need three days to recover from most events that I go to. Yeah, I mean the workouts. Maybe that's just how I do them. I don't know.

Maybe it could be on me. I mean, it depends. Are you in Vegas or are you not in Vegas?

Yeah, well, a couple of them are within Vegas. It's mostly just when I hang out with the metabolic guys. Yeah. Yeah. Right? That's talking to you, buddy.

There'll be some alcohol, but like we'll have non-alcoholic and like we'll be doing like you know, the the healthier of lifestyle, but there'll there'll be some drinks going down too.

Yeah, yeah, that's great, man. If you were gonna say that there is one major outcome that you would hope happens for the majority of your attendees, what would it be?

I think that they leave with a possibility of a different, a different way of seeing things. And that could be like something they bring back to their own business, but like year over year we'll do this and we'll highlight going into the as the next event starts. What partnerships came from this event? And if we can that's the diligence that we want to do, and that's the focus, is like you created a different part of your business, or you were able to morph and change your business based off of a thought leader or an advisor that you found there. That's the win for me because that just means that we're creating a better future for people to have like a more integrated health life. That that's the main focus for me.

So you're you're curating this, right? As far as the attendees, that's a slippery slope, right?

It always is, yeah.

Yeah.

So talk to me your approach on curation for who gets who gets Yeah, I so I think every single person, and it's a vendor and it's an attendee. I interview and I don't even say interview, but like I talk to every one of them. And I think part of it is like a little bit of your background, like what you're doing, and um where you where you are spending your time in the world. But a lot of that, man, is like, are you open? How curious are you? What are you up to? Like, are you interested in like some in creating something new? And not everybody is like the green light, you know what I mean? But I don't know everybody either, so I'm meeting new people too. But you have to be down for collaboration at this point. And in my like my own thought, and I could be right and I could be wrong, but that's how I'm I'm viewing all this is are you open to collaboration? Are you open to like learning about other people and other things that are going on? And are you open to providing value to other people? And I was afraid to have that combo, to be honest, to start, because I didn't know how people would receive it, but that's what everybody wants, believe it or not. Like that's the conversation of like, I don't know who else I talk to about this. I need to change what I'm doing, or like I'm wanting to go in a different direction, and I don't know who the people are that I need to talk to, and I don't have the time to go figure out who the hell I'm supposed to talk to. And that's been the beautiful part about this. It's like it feels very ever-pressent that like people are understanding the vibration of what's going on in the industry. And so it's been I was nervous to start, but I'm actually like super confident now.

And have you uh because you know I'm gonna ask this in a way that's easier on you. So if you were gonna have to turn someone down, what would that what would be the reasoning that you would you would do that?

I would say that like if you're coming into this, if you're coming into this in the language that's being used is transactional, you know, if it's what's in it for me, and we've had some, I've had some of that, and um, and if what they're trying to get done doesn't totally align with other people that are gonna be there, it doesn't make like if you're building a team, you want a bunch of people who would get along with each other. And if you have one sour apple, then like that could throw off the entire thing. So I'm I'm pretty stickler on that. But most everybody I've talked to is very open, and there hasn't been very little, there's been very little of the hey, this isn't a good fit, which I don't love those conversations, just FYI. I'm sure everybody doesn't love those either. But yeah, that would be it, really. And and I guess the only other one I would say too is if if you're not ready to like as a as a brand to take on like a bigger growth pattern, it's probably not even the right time for you as the brand. And that's fair. Like, I don't let's say you meet someone from Hilton and then all of a sudden you're in every hotel and then we can't fulfill on what this is, like that's not a good fit for you. Like, that's not even fair to you. Those are the other ones I would say.

Yeah, yeah. Very responsible. I mean, that's a tough thing to do, is cure curation of people. Right, like curation of topics and things like that, that's fine. Right. That's not oddly difficult. But people is different because it's really hard to get a tail on, like you said, hey, who someone is on a short phone call, or finding people that should be there that you don't even know are there, right? Like that's that's the thing. And and hopefully, you know, shows like this, you kind of get the word out, or you get one out, and then next year you get start game referrals from from people who you know are kind of top-notch uh attendees, and it starts to snow snowball a little bit.

I know too. It's like once you get into a network, like, and other people really enjoy what's going on, like they're like, I have to introduce you to this person. And then usually people who are good people that are doing things, they know other good people that are doers, and so it's been really nice. It's like a network effect, it's like a little tribal nature almost into how it's flowed. So I've probably had a lot of your concern concerns before like I don't want to tell people no, and now it's just really kind of flowing pretty nicely.

So is there any other events? Um, I mean, I can think of one in particular, but like that gives you inspiration for what you're doing here.

Yeah, yeah. Uh so a colleague and myself, we went to this event called Batau. It's like PTTOW. And uh they've been doing this for about 15 or 20 years, but they're essentially the curators of the Fortune 500s, and heavily it's it's it is heavily created uh curated to the creative, but you know, it's like CMOs of the NFL or people from JP Morgan Chase or Disney or Hulu or whatever, and uh I am going showed up and I thought it could be a little different, like maybe a little tight in there, and people not being super friendly. The most friendly, warm, networking experience of my life by a long shot, and it all came down to like the curation and like almost setting like a template for like hey, this is how we engage with each other. And it was like three days, and there's doing a bunch of experiences, all kind of across the board, and the level of appreciation that everybody had for everybody else in their competition for Patau, because ultimately, like, that's where all the partnerships came from. Like, not all of them, but a lot of the partnerships for these bigger brands, they come from these like really intimate, very friendly, very open, one-to-one human engagements that the NFL and you know these other groups are doing at Patel. And so Patel is helping, they're like a strategic advisor to us now and super fortunate. Like, I don't know how the hell they're wanting to do this at this point, but we're super grateful and um really exciting. And I think that's probably the North Star for us is I don't know if I should say it at this point, but like the goal is that it turns into a membership. It's not just at the event curating the relationship, it's like, okay, let's like move this into this is your group, and like we go to stuff together. We go, we talk about other ship, maybe we go to other ship, or maybe we do a dinner, or we we're doing health activities on a fairly regular basis. So the opportunity to keep curating a relationship and partnerships can extend. So that's how is my man number one. I think what Summit does is awesome. I love Summit if you're familiar at all. So the Summit series is awesome, Mike. Uh very playful, very light, very open, very friendly. It's a lot of entrepreneur and business people, but they do super fun stuff, and they have a ton of amazing outcomes that come from it. I would say between the two, those are probably my favorite. I'm sure there's a ton of other great ones that I'm missing, but those two stand out to me.

Yeah, there's one uh I I don't know those, but there's one that I've been invited to several times, the baby bathwater one, um, which I think even like Kelly and Juliet go to, and then a couple other people um I know of, but I've never been. It was just honestly when I was invited, I was like, I can't afford 10 grand. That's point in time, my wife would kill me. But I really wanted to go. Well, as we we wrap this up, man. So this event is gonna be um October 13th through 16th. It's in Encinitas, California, and uh the website is theassembly.health. You know, it it looks like it's it's an application process. You know, people are looking at this. What else, what else do you need them to know?

I just I think in general, like the industry is ready. I think that everybody wants it. Take away the the assembly part of it, but I think everybody's looking for how do we do stuff differently. And and I think what we're trying to lean into is like, what is the next thing? And like, let's go explore it and let's go see what's what's there for everybody, get it on the table and see what can come from it. And I think the consumer wants it as well. So yeah, I I think that's that's the premise. That's my whole ideation is like we need more thought leadership, we need more people communicating and collaborating, and we need to start really producing a path forward for better health outcomes, you know. And um, that's where I spend most of my time thinking and doing stuff. So that might be boring to some, but that's like my life, man. I accept it fully.

Yeah, I think you and I are uh we live similar lives. If if people were gonna reach out to you, John, number one, like what what do you need help with? What would you like to hear people hear from people about, and then how would you like them to get in touch with you guys?

Yeah, so I think uh LinkedIn is the best place for me. I don't actually know my handle off the top of my head, but you could just search John Ward or you can go to the assembly and you could find me. It's John Ward 007. Didn't even know that. I'm a stock.

I'm looking at the website, yeah. Yeah, LinkedIn.

And I think anything that is interesting to you, it's inspirational, like things that you see in the market. I love all the feedback. I want to know what people are thinking, how they're seeing the future, areas that they think that from what I said, there could be support on the assembly side, and people you think that are hyper interesting. If it's not, you know, you I'm sure you are super interesting, but people that you think are compelling that should be at something like this. Yeah, I'm super engaged with all the people who reach out to me and very responsive.

Well, we'll get this out uh you know plenty of time before the the event takes place. But uh yeah, John, it's been good chat, man. I I'm like I said, I'm bummed that logistics won't line up for me this year to be there. But uh, you know, hopefully I can join you guys next year and experience it all. But it sounds from what I understand, you got a good group of people going already. And uh we got to give Joe Cannon credit because he loves his stuff, so we have to say thank you, Joe, for for introducing us, Joe from HyperIced.

He's the guy behind the scenes. He doesn't want to get in front of the the camera or the mic, but he loves doing the the connect.

He's pretty good with the mic. He's pretty good with the mic. Yeah, he's pretty good with the mic. Keep telling me I should have a podcast, Joe.

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, yeah.

Very witty. Wait on, ladies and gentlemen, John Ward. Thank you.

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