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It's a much harder question to answer what are the things that bring me joy

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than answering the question. What are the things I hate?

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They're like, well, I hate my job and I hate my relationship and I hate the city.

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Okay, those are all very changeable.

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Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make more

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customers, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons we have learned

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along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe.

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Everyone on Bryan Elliott, welcome to another episode of the show. Alex, thanks for having us

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to your home grown mission control. It's great to be here in Las Vegas.

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Thank you for having me. I'm very excited. I guess having me and we're having each other.

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I guess having me on your show. Well, I usually ask my guess, how did you get this job?

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This job. Yeah. So I was a management consultant right out of college. I did space divering

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intelligence for the military, which was sounds much cooler than it really was, but I had a top

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secret clearance. It sounded really good at dinner parties and just about only that.

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And one day I looked out for my balcony because I had a really nice place because I could afford it

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at the time. And I was like, is this it? And I was in my young 20s. And at that point, I had done

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everything that I think I was supposed to do. So I did well in school. I was president of all the

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clubs, graduated in three years, got the good job. And I realized I was living a life for me

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that my father wanted me to live. And so that was kind of, you know, when I I faltered back and forth

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for probably a period of six months of really not wanting this to be my life, but not wanting to

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let my dad down. And so at some point, the the thing that kind of pushed me over the edge was I can

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either, you know, die to myself or I can die to my father and the end of the day, you know, I have

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to survive. So I will. If I if I make this decision and he no longer wants to be my dad, then I can

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accept that. Wow. Is that extreme then? Yes. Wow. Same more about that. Are you an only child?

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Yeah. So only child raised by a single father, Middle Eastern, he was born in Iran. And

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you know, everything in my life, up until that point was really just to make him proud. So I

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it was very much a seeking approval, seeking validation kind of drive at that point in my life.

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And so the idea of disappointing him or not getting his approval felt like death. And at that

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point, I was actually contemplating not living, which is why that it really and it's a common theme

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if you have watched some of my two stuff. Mortality has been the single biggest driver and the

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biggest decisions that I've made in my life. And it has become a more routine process for decision

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making for me in general, because I think it provides clarity and it provides context to most

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decisions we have, which the vast majority of them don't matter, which is helpful in and of

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themselves. And then, you know, beyond that, it helps me make the decisions that I think

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removes everyone else from the playbook, because if you if you study subjective well-being and how

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people perceive how they're doing in their own lives, it looks like a smiley face. So seven

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year olds think they're killing life. And then it drops dramatically between 20 and 30. And then

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there's still a little bit more of a dip right around 45. That's like when people are their true

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they hate life the most. And then and then it kind of slowly goes up to like 5560 and then it

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shoots right back up again when people see that they're going to die and that life is short and

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that they can make the decisions without worrying about the ramifications of other people. And some

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of the people they're worried about are also dead. Right. And so it was using that context for that

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biggest decision that's been duplicated many times in my life since then, because if I have a good

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decision making algorithm, I try and reuse it as many times as I can. Yeah, there's a lot there.

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No, I like it. It's just making me think. I mean, I have watched maybe all of your videos.

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So I have some context, but let's unpack it for the audience a little bit. So

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you know, when we're seven, let's expand that a little bit. I mean, we don't have a care in the

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world. The artist or the whatever we want to be has not been beaten out of us yet. No one's told us

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that we are not what we think we are. We're still popping wheelies and climatries and falling out

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and that's okay. And then you get to your 20s and 30s and rubber hits a road a little bit.

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And if you've made money, I guess, and if that's your way of validating your work or that's your

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sign of success, then you're okay. But if not, you're kind of host. And then in your 40s, I'm guessing

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you start to have more life experience. 50s, maybe you start carrying less what people think.

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And then fast forward all the way to maybe near death. And then you really get to a point where

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you don't care what anyone says and you really boil it down to what's important. And probably I'm

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guessing that's love, relationships, legacy. And then you just like peace out. Is that pretty accurate?

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I think for most people, yes. For me, specifically, the legacy piece less so. But I think for most

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people, yes. And why is the legacy piece less important? More so. And whenever I get into this topic,

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I think a lot of like some people get sensitive about it. And so I just like to put the disclaimer

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like, this is not me judging your beliefs and me stating my beliefs in no way. Yeah. A judgment on

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anyone else. But if you just look at expanding the time horizon over a much longer period of time,

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if you look at it in 10,000 years or 100,000 years or a million years, right? All of a sudden,

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you know, and the easy way to test this is to go backwards, right? Which is do you know your great,

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great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather? Probably not. And then if you look at it from a,

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how much has somebody achieved standpoint, I happen to be in an interesting situation where my

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great, great grandfather was in a ruling class in Iran. And he had 400 children. So he literally

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ruled and had a lot of wealth. He had a lot of wives to create 400 children, right? And I actually

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still can't remember his name because my dad told me one time and I can't remember it. And I've

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never seen any of the quote legacy that I'm sure he felt like he was leaving. And so if that was

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that level of success and legacy. And only four or five generations later, I don't even remember

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the man's name nor do I have any piece of that legacy. Yeah. It seems a little bit irrelevant.

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Yeah, I totally see what you're saying. And that context matters. I mean, Prince died a couple

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years ago, right? Right? I had no idea. Are you serious? Yeah. I don't know. Prince Prince.

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I thought he was formally known as is he? Did he get that removed too? He's now back to being

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I think it toggled back to Prince. And then unfortunately, he, I think he overdosed,

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accidentally overdosed any past. And you know, one of the greatest musicians of all time. And I

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didn't think about him until you just said this. Yes. So what chance do I have? I'm screwed.

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Yeah. And I think in a long enough time, Ryzen, we're all screwed. And I think in some ways,

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people find that incredibly disheartening. But an equal opposite is you can't find it both

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disheartening and also not freeing because all of the decisions that we're making that are not

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for ourselves or are subject to chains that we feel pressure from whether that be society,

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societal up a quotes there because that's a big word. Or family, friends, expectations that we

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perceive others people to have of us. If you can, if you can just relinquish all of those chains,

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I think it's incredibly freeing. And I choose to live that way. Yeah, I also try to.

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I still definitely feel it. No, that's fair. That's fair. And I think also that may help us

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that advice is good because it helps us live in the moment because even if you believe in something

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after, that's still in the future. And there's a question mark because no one actually knows

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with knowledge at least someone with a pulse doesn't know what happens or if something happens.

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So you might as well live in the present, make the best of it. Yeah, an interesting one that I

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thought through around that was a lot of us, not a lot of us, all of us have 100% experience,

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not being alive. Right? It was before we were before we were born and we were not alive.

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And so we know what that was like. There was nothing that we can recollect. And so I would

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imagine that that's the closest experience that we can have to not being alive yet again,

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which to me is not that frightening. Yeah. And it is freeing you're right because it's both humbling

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to know that you don't matter in the grand scheme of things. But at the same time, you matter

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infinitely if you just focus on the present and the the mark that you're going to leave here and now.

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I contemplated I had to die to my father or die to myself and I realized that I would rather die to

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him, which pretty much ended up happening. And so my fears were relatively justified. He was not

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in support of the things that I wanted to do. I ended up quitting that job, sold everything I had,

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packed my car, went to California because that's where I thought the Linifitness opportunity was

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because that was the only thing I really enjoyed. I mentored under a guy for a few months,

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trying to at least learn the ropes, started my first facility, slept on the floor for the first

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nine months, which was a very terrible experience for me. And time stamp the age for me now. I was

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23. Okay. So I left at 22 and I turned 23 two weeks after my gym opened. Got it. So you graduated

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early. You got that dream job and then you bailed. Yeah. Two years. And that was really at the time.

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It was at the splitting point where I had done two years and the kind of career path traditionally

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is like two to four years of management consulting. And then you go back to an Ivy League for your

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GMAT. And then from there, you go into, you know, you can, you can go do investment banking,

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you can do private equity, you know, some of the bigger white collar jobs, but I didn't want more

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of what I had. And so I thought that I would have a better shot taking $200,000 in two years,

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which is what the, you know, economic equivalent of what the degree was. And starting something

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on my own, I figured I would learn more in the first two years and with that money. And maybe

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even have a business by the end of that period of time that made an equivalent amount of money

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compared to what I would have had as a job offer. Let me ask you, I talk a lot about signals on

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this show to other people. In my personal life, I've, I've had signals that were subtle,

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some more overt, the subtle ones I missed and then had, I had to learn later. But how did you,

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what signals did you get? I mean, you're saying like I wasn't feeling it, but like, so where was

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your motivation? Because I see you as this hustler, this go getter, this, you know, sales person,

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you know, who just is all about gobbling up new opportunities. It transcends beyond that now.

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But like at first, it sounds like you were just all about the go get. But how did you know,

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like you, you drifted into fitness because you were in a maybe, you know,

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I mean, at first I was driven by fear. Okay. It was all fear, fear of failure,

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feel of disappointment, fear of other people's judgment. What did your dad end up saying? Did he say

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good luck with it? No, he thought he was stupid, he thought I was wasting my life. Yeah.

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And wasted a degree that he'd spend money on and wasted a good job of opportunity that he had

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set up for me, all these things. Right. In his defense, did he immigrate here? Yeah. Okay,

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so in his defense, right? And I just want to tell the audience that they're not like,

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blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, you know, if you have justified in saying that,

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yeah, if you escape from a country where there's trauma and impending danger,

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then your son squanders an opportunity, you might get a little anxious about that.

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100%. I mean, my dad came here with a thousand dollars, you know, and a medical degree. Yeah.

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And then built everything, didn't even speak English. Right. I think Gary V said this,

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but I think what he did was harder than what I've done. Like, I got to, I got to stand on his

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shoulders. Okay. You know, in one way. I mean, I speak English. Okay. Just the basics. Like,

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I speak English, I went to a good school, just all the support and infrastructure known and unknown

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that was around me. Yeah. To, you know, to be successful. Yeah, I think it's healthy to recognize

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your privilege. Yeah. But at the same time, you know, it came with lots of baggage too.

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Interesting. Okay. And so you had signals which were mainly fear based. Yeah. And I, I mean,

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the biggest thing that made the decision for me, I would say, I had the logical decision,

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and then I had the emotional decision. The emotional decision was, I don't want to do this.

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This is not the life I want to lead. I'm not happy doing this every day. I would prefer to

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not be alive if this is what my life will be continuously. And I was like, well, if that is what,

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if I would prefer to not be alive, then that kind of opens up my decision calculus.

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And what was it I'm trying to put my finger on? What, what, what was it that made you happy?

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Was it just the freedom to do what you want? I didn't know it made me happy. I knew it was not

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making me happy. Okay. So I think that's another important lesson too, if I can just extract them,

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which is one, you know, I'm sure a lot of people watching, they feel the same kind of family

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pressure. They want to be what other people expect them to be. If, you know, if that's who you are,

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and that's totally normal, but we should always remember, you know, the context in which that

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advice is given could be given through the lens of a certain, they live that certain lifestyle,

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a certain time frame, but also, you know, you said, it's a process of elimination sometimes,

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isn't it? Like, you don't always know, the reason I think about this is I've got a son who is

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in eighth grade, and sometimes I see him look looking very serious and I'm like, son, what's up?

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How are you, you know, how are you feeling? It's kind of like, you know, you can see kind of the

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face kind of going in and you see him in deep thought and like, what are you thinking about right now?

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He's like, I don't know what my college major is going to be. Yeah. My bro, you're in eighth grade.

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Why are you thinking about that right now? But like, I think that's a thing. Whether you're young

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or middle age, you're trying to figure out what you want to be when you grow up. You're trying

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to have it all figured out, because we don't, it seems like we don't like uncertainty.

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But I think your message if I'm hearing you is sometimes you have to try it on for size to see

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if it fits or not, and you get it on, you're like, well, I thought that dream job was going to be like

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perfect, but turns out, you know, it's tight in the crotch. You know, it's like, I need something

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different. Nothing giving yourself permission to do that. And it was aside to what you were saying

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about my dad, like, education saved his life. Like, he was only able to leave the country because he

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was educated. And so there's very deep roots. They're not going to appreciate that. But for this

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context or for my life, it just wasn't appropriate. Right. And when we did come to terms later,

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the only time he's ever apologized to me in my life, he said after his apology, he qualified

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and said, but to be fair, in my time, I would have been right. Oh, absolutely. And he would have

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it's just not the same time. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It wasn't that it was inappropriate.

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It was just out of context and didn't necessarily translate to this new life and new opportunities

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you had. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's so important. I can't imagine how many people are sort of,

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you know, suppressed to the point of their parents or the people that have influence around them

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put on them or sometimes it's on ourselves. Yeah. It's most, I mean, mostly, I love the saying,

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you know, in our 20s, we're concerned about what everyone thinks about us. In our 40s, we don't

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care what anyone thinks about us. In our 60s, we realize that no one was thinking about us to

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be with. Right. And I just, I just feel like that's, I mean, who else have you thought about

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today besides yourself? Probably not. I mean, you have your kids, which is an extension of yourself.

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But you know, I'm like, yeah, not a lot. And so most people are like that. And, you know,

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we have a lot more leeway than I think we give ourselves credit for. And I think the more

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that I have now, you know, I'll say accomplished with quotes in material success, the more

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I am excited about the things that I can do. And that was why the opening of the book was like

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there are no rules. And it just took me a very long time to realize that. And I continue to

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unlearn rules that I thought existed, you know, as I continue to, you know, go on this journey.

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Yeah, I love that idea of unlearning. I think we all just tried to go back to being like we were,

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when we were children, like if like just because when you're a child, you're purely present,

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you're just present in the moment. And I don't like the word happy very much. I prefer using joy

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because you can be, you can mourn joyfully, right? Because it's a, it's a, it's internal rather than

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happiness that I feel is more like happenstance. It's more from external. And so, you know,

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what are the things that bring me joy? What are the things that I find, you know, to find joy in?

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And I think for anyone who's who's listening, it's a much harder question to answer. What are the

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things that bring me joy than answering the question? What are the things I hate? And it's easier to

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correct those first. You're like, well, I hate my job and I hate my relationship and I hate the

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city. Okay, those are all very changeable. And a lot of times you get there by, by inversion.

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Well, if I wanted to destroy my life, I wanted to have the worst life possible. What would I do?

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And then taking all those things that you would do to really destroy your life and make your life

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miserable and then reverse them. It's a much easier way to solve the positive psychology equation

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in my opinion. Yeah, I love that. And I remember this Picasso quote, which is I think he said,

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everyone is born an artist. Right. And then eventually we, we, you know, get convinced that we're not.

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And we have to really just strip away and get, you know, get back to basics. And I'm using art

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metaphorically, too. It's like what you do at acquisition.com or what you did in the fitness

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industry or what I'm doing with film, you know, this can be considered our art. 100%

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might not that great, but, you know, everyone can be an artist and perfect their art, you know,

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I love that. Okay, so you get to fitness. You're the apprentice to a master. Yep. You're not

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swole yet. I'm guessing. I was less school. You're getting there. I was actually, I had already,

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I was, you know, I was competing at that point. So I was, but I was a strength competitor. So

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I was very strong for my bodyweight. Deadlifts. Yeah, as a power lifter. And then I started my,

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my gym. And that was the first day that fitness became second in my life. So up into that point,

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I was fit and obsessed. And everybody I worked with was like, dude, you should quit this job and

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start a gym. It's all you talk about all day. And it was what I was obsessed with. And so maybe

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like my go-getting was really directed towards that. And I figured this was the only thing that,

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I did, I did know that I liked that. And so I was like, okay, I'll do more of that. And then when I

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started the gym, I realized that I was doing none of that. I was starting a business which had

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nothing to do with. I mean, in so far as I was selling fitness, there was a component of it,

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but the vast majority of my day had nothing to do with fitness whatsoever. But I did find out

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that I liked business more than fitness. And that was, and that's where I think that there's

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been a lot of luck in my life where, you know, I just so happened to really enjoy the thing that

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happens to be rewarded by the marketplace with a lot of money. You know, like that is where I

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feel like there's, there's a lot of luck that has lied up in my life. And it's in indirect ways

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like that. I just happen to love this. And so, and because of that, I will do it for a long

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period of time for more than most people and enjoy learning about it and talk to people in my

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free time and do everything I can because it's just the thing I like. And it just so happens to be

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rewarded monetarily. Well, yeah. And also, you know, the physical benefits from it, right? I mean,

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you can literally, you put in the work, you can see the result, right? It's one of those very

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empirical, right? Very measurable. Right. But it's like, yeah, it's, it's, I think I've heard you

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talk a lot about choosing the right market. Like if you're not in something that can scale,

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you might remember, rethink that if scaleability or profitability is your goal, perhaps you're,

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you're not in a market that can scale. Yeah. And we can talk about that in a minute. Okay. So,

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many of you build it, you build the gym, your repertoire. Yeah. And then you start acquiring

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gyms. What are you doing? No. So I, um, so I opened up four more locations. So I had five total

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on in Southern California. Was it under the umbrella of this? So I had four under that umbrella.

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And then the fifth one I did on my own. So I ended up starting the gyms on my own nine months

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in. I, I let two partners in for lack of a better term. I sold two thirds of the equity in my

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business for basically nothing. And at that point, I was already making 20,000 a month take home.

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And they said that it wasn't valuable. And in some ways, they were right. And in other ways,

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they were not. Either way, that is what happened. And then from there, I stayed in that partnership.

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I ended up staying in partnership with one of the guys we didn't work well with the other guy.

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And then after that guy was no longer the partnership, I just disagreed with the, the other partner

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over time, not on a personal level. We actually got along really well, but just business strategy-wise.

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I wanted to be a premium price leader. He wanted to be the low class leader. And so that it was just,

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and so we ended up just meeting the middle, which was a very mediocre business. And so I started,

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I wanted to start my own facility with kind of like my own credo. And that was the fifth gym,

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which was Body Force Lake Forest. And that gym did really well. That gym I acquired compared to

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the other four. The other four I started this one I acquired. And I acquired for no money down

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for $50,000 over a year. And so I basically took the whole gym over and then had to pay $4,000

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a month to the owner. And I made $50,000 in the first month. And so I was like, this is going to

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and that's when I realized that I was, I made so much money launching and opening gyms. And then

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I didn't even really care as much about the running afterwards. I mean, I knew how to do it. I just

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liked the launches. They were more exciting. And so I had this idea for a model where we'd

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fly around and just like launch and fill other people's gyms. And so this is right around the time

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that I'm on my, my now wife. And so I pitched her the idea on our first date and then I started

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a quitter job, which was obviously the, the most reasonable thing to do. When you're talking to

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the top sales rep at 24 of fitness, which she was at 23. And so it's like, listen, this may not work

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out, but we'll make a ton of money together. You should work with me. She didn't say yes. So I

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went and I launched three gyms. I came back five weeks later and I asked her to help me process

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the contracts. So we did a processing like 120 grand in an hour. And she looked at me and she was like,

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is this the thing that you started? And I was like, yeah, just like, is it legal? That was the first

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question. Is it legal? And I was like, yeah, it's legal. And she was, can you teach me how to do it?

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I was like, yeah, just like, all right, I'm it. And so that was when she quit her job. And then

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she and I started launching these gyms together. We did that for almost a year. It's still very,

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very, very hard time for for me financially. Most, because I was just way, I had so many poor

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decisions. I was paying off at all times. I then ended up saying, you know what, I'm going to sell

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my gyms and transition during this period of time. I got a dy head on collision. My mother went to

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the hospital. That's why I actually did those first gyms because they were all around the hospital.

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So I wanted to keep busy. And so, you know, there was, there was a lot of bittersweet during this

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whole period of time. Like that processing contract was after I came back from like the hospital

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with my mom. So it's just like just a lot of different like things I was going through. And

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selling the partnership that I had there was really hard for me. Again, it was like this, you

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know, need for validation approval. And I had noticed that over my life, until I solved this

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problem, it kept reoccurring, which was I always wanted to find father figures. And so the guy

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that I did the apprenticeship with, like at the very beginning of the story I was saying earlier,

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like I ended up getting in a really weird financial situation with him, which didn't end well.

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We ended up making up years later. It was, it was fine, but like there was a long period of time

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that we were estranged. Both of those guys came in, very father-like figure feelings. I got

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into partnership with another, like, so I kept repeating the same mistake until I had to learn.

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I was like, you keep doing this. So maybe you should stop. And I looked at my track record and all

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the businesses that I had only owned myself, I made a ton of money in. In all the businesses that

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I partnered with, I had made no money and lost money in. And I was like, huh, maybe I should do

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more of that. So at this point, you know, we're launching the gyms and whatnot. And I sold all the gyms

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and entered another partnership with one of the guys that I had launched. He's like, dude, I'll come

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behind you. You shouldn't be giving up all the back side, like, back end of all these launches.

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Like, I'll come behind you and fill the, you know, and manage the gyms. And that way every gym,

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you launch you own. So I think of the year you can own 12 gyms. And you can just launch them and

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film. He said, but I have some financial issues. Nothing big. I was indicted once. No big deal.

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Big misunderstanding. And I was like, of course, and he said, so you'll have to sign everything

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front of the money on the stuff, but we'll split it. And I was like, sure, of course, why wouldn't we?

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So I sold all my gyms, put all the money into the bank account for the new business that we're

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going to start, you know, where this is going. Sold 400 people, which is a massive launch for a small

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gym, in a matter of like six weeks, woke up, all the money was gone. He was like, that was my half

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the profits. As if you haven't made any profit, we started the gym with the money. He was like, well,

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the fact that you sped it is your fault. No, mine. And so like that, all the money I had done from

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all my gyms at this point in four years of my life was gone. And I was out of the gym that had no

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money in it with 400 members in payroll that I didn't have money to pay for. And I couldn't sell

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people because I sold them. I would have to continue to fulfill them. And I didn't want to be in,

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I didn't want to own more gyms. I just sold all my gyms. And so at that point, I sent Layla to go

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to launch a gym in Hawaii. She crushed it. She did 100,000 and collected. And that was enough to

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fund all the refunds for all of the members to gracefully, which was not graceful, exit the

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facility. Wow. Yeah. I mean, talk about signals, missed signals, learning lessons the hard way,

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brutal. But also, I mean, story of my life, I could talk about similar things where I just,

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I literally had to get beat up and continue making the same mistakes. So very relatable.

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Real quick, guys, if you can think about how you found this podcast, somebody probably tweeted it,

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told you about it, shared it on Instagram or something like that. The only way this grows is

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through word of mouth. And so I don't run ads. I don't do sponsorships. I don't sell anything.

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My only ask is that you continue to pay it forward to whoever showed you or however you found out

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about this podcast that you do the exact same thing. So if it was a review, if it was a post,

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if you do that, it would mean the world to me and you'll throw some good karma out there for another

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entrepreneur. I'll speed the rest up. So we are so much. There's we're not even there's way more

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bad that happens after that. So, but the thing is, as I'm telling this, and it's all this happened

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in like a nine month period. So this was just insane. And so like my mother getting sick,

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the ending of the partnerships, the new partnership, the money getting taken, my DUI head on collision.

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So the head on collision actually was the next big catalyst for me because that was yet again.

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I was faced with my own mortality and it reprioritized things again. It was like, hey, it's yeah.

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Yeah. And so at that point, I had a partner that I had two marketing agencies with, by the way,

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started that on the side, a chiropractor and a dental agency. I had my five gym locations with

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a different partner. I had now the one current location that I had started with the new partner,

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right? And I had the launch business where we're launching, turning our den launches. And I'm

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26. Yeah. I'm imagining, you know, those plate spinners, you've got at least nine plates going.

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I was drinking a half a bottle of Johnny Walker black overnight to function, not to, like not to

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get drunk, to not to feel back to not being stressed. That was the only thing. And like some people

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have like, I would never have called myself an alcoholic business. It was like, I still function

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fine. I never was drunk at work or anything like that. I just every night. I would just drink that

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to like breathe. Yeah. That was your escape. Yeah. It was. It was very much escape because I wasn't

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handling the things that I needed to handle. And so I had a coach at that time. It was more or

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more just a therapist. And he said, Alex, your stress is literally going to kill you. And so that

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was right after I had the, the DUI and the head on collision. And so he said, you need to change

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stuff. Like, what are you afraid of? You, you almost died. So fuck it. And so I ended that

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partnership. I ended the partnership with the agencies. I, I told, believe it or not, even after

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the money was taken, I was still in a partnership with them. So I was like, maybe he's right. Like,

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I knew, I knew that it was fraudulent when I showed him the financials and highlighted everything.

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And was like, there's no other money that was here. And he didn't want to look at it. And that's

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when I was like, Oh, he, he doesn't actually think that I took the money. He, he was making a

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reason. So, so anyways, I got out of all of that stuff. I lost all my money. And then I was back

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at zero. And this was now, this was November of 16. So I'm now three or four years later from me

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opening the gym on the floor. So all of this stuff happened quickly. At that point, we went to

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go launch a gym because Leila was like, Hey, I quit my job for this. So, you know, can we like

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still do the thing you said you were going to do? And so we, we realized that, okay, I'm going

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all in on the gym lunch business. And I want to go launch the gym in San Diego and this guy

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reached out to me because he'd like followed me because I made some content about gym stuff,

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not much. And he said, I've got a new board kid. I really need this money. Like, let me sell

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for this, this gym. And it was like, it just so happened to be 15 minutes from his house. Like,

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I had gyms all over the nation that I was doing one at a time and he happened to reach out to me

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and it happened to me next to his house. So I figured, all right, maybe someone's looking out for

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this guy. Okay, cool. Sell it. And it'll give me time to get all the materials ready so we can

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launch way more gyms next month. He crushed it. Does $100,000 in sales, which was like a big launch.

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And I owed him $22,000 in commissions after Leila's launch and paying all the refunds and everything

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I had $23,000. So I paid him the $22 and the $100,000 that I made from the sales never came. Because

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the processor, because of the refunds from the gym before, shut us down. And so there's a regular

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activity. There's too many complaints, blah, blah. Which was reason why I shut a gym down right

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after like, right. And so they said, we're going to hold on to this undergrad. And so I now had a

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$1,000 total during this period of time before I knew that we weren't going to be able to get the money.

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Leila had told her six best friends to quit their jobs and join us at gym lunch. And so I find out

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on Christmas Eve at Leila's parents house where I'm meeting them for the first time that I had one

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lost all my money to all of her friends at Quit their jobs and are going to start selling for us

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the next on the 26, so two days later. And on that 26, 3,300 a day was going to start getting

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Devoted for my account because I didn't have the money that was supposed to be coming for that undergrad.

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And so I sat Leila down and was like, I pulled the credit card out and I was like, I have $100,000

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limit on this card. And it was from all my gyms. It was like my master like working capital card.

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I was like, but I want you to know that like you can leave now and we're cool. Like I will judge you like

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cart blush. You can leave and we're like, I was like, this has a very low likelihood of working.

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It's probably like a 10 to 15% shot that this actually works. And that's when she said I'll

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she's like, I'll sleep with you in over it if it came to that. And so that was what I knew that like we were

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like she was it. She was the one. She's with me, you know, right or die. Like she's the girl.

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I'm going to marry. Yeah. And so what a moment. Yeah, it was great. It was actually honestly I felt

363
00:31:06.640 --> 00:31:11.920
numb at the time from everything, but later I can appreciate it. So we started the start of the

364
00:31:11.920 --> 00:31:18.240
account starting in Devoted 3,300 a day. Here's the catcher. We started doing, you know, we're doing

365
00:31:18.240 --> 00:31:23.360
we did like 200 grand in the first month. So that's 7,000 each a day. This is this is where it gets

366
00:31:23.360 --> 00:31:29.040
hairy. I didn't have a processor. So we're getting 7,000 dollars a day in contracts that I cannot

367
00:31:29.040 --> 00:31:35.120
process. And the money is still coming out. Right. The end of the month, I get one processor turned on

368
00:31:35.120 --> 00:31:38.480
after calling every single favorite. I was calling friends up like, Hey, can you process contracts? I'll

369
00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:43.760
give you 10% just send me the money after and they're like, this sounds really sketchy. No. And they

370
00:31:43.760 --> 00:31:49.520
were right to not do that. Yeah. So processors will get turned on at the end of the month, but they

371
00:31:49.520 --> 00:31:53.280
said, Hey, it's a new business. So we'll give you 50,000 all of it. I was like, dude, I need 200 grand

372
00:31:53.280 --> 00:31:58.320
like yesterday. They're like 50,000. So I called the guy up and he said, well, it's per month. So

373
00:31:58.320 --> 00:32:02.480
and I got it like two days before the end of the month. He said, so you can run 50 grand today.

374
00:32:02.480 --> 00:32:07.760
And in two days, you can run 50 grand again. So I was like, okay. And that's what I did. I ran 50

375
00:32:07.760 --> 00:32:12.480
grand in two days after I'm 50 grand, which was enough to cover the $100,000, 3300 a day that was

376
00:32:12.480 --> 00:32:20.160
coming out of the card. So I made literally, I mean, like $100 profit that first month. And then

377
00:32:20.160 --> 00:32:25.200
he got two more turned on. So I got up to like 180 years and then he doubled the 50 to 100. So

378
00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:29.360
we had 200,000 in limit the next month. So we hit the full 200 the next month, but we're still

379
00:32:29.360 --> 00:32:33.440
billing from shit from last month while still making and still playing catch up. But we made like a

380
00:32:33.440 --> 00:32:37.520
little bit of profit that month. So I was like, okay, I think I'm in the clear. I think we might have

381
00:32:38.400 --> 00:32:42.400
but wait, there's more. And so now we're going into March. So this is January is the first

382
00:32:42.400 --> 00:32:46.640
full month. February is is when we're started. We're playing catch up on processing March, March comes.

383
00:32:47.520 --> 00:32:52.400
And I just wrote this story out in my book, saw the details of fresh. We get the

384
00:32:53.600 --> 00:32:58.720
call. Layla comes up to me. I'm like, thinking life is good. I think we're out of everything.

385
00:32:58.720 --> 00:33:05.120
And she's like, she's like, white. And I was like, what's going on? And she turned her laptop to me.

386
00:33:05.200 --> 00:33:11.920
And there was just, just scrolls of negative transactions on our account. And I was like, what

387
00:33:11.920 --> 00:33:17.200
am I looking at? She was like, these are all refunds. I was like, again, how? We already did all

388
00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:20.240
the refunds from that gym. Like we can't, they can't refund again. Like we already gave all the,

389
00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:24.160
because I thought it was from the gym from like way back when we that I had to shut down. She was

390
00:33:24.160 --> 00:33:28.160
like, no, one of the gym owners that we launched got up on his chair and told everyone to refund.

391
00:33:28.160 --> 00:33:31.840
He just said, go home. I can't deal with all this because we had taken a term from 70 to 270

392
00:33:31.840 --> 00:33:35.680
clients in a month. It was three. I mean, it was just, it was just unfathom the amount of

393
00:33:35.680 --> 00:33:38.560
infrastructure that's required to handle that. Which I hadn't thought through. I was like,

394
00:33:39.120 --> 00:33:43.280
you want a plus sales marketing? We will sell, we will sell your gym. We'll blow your gym up. Yeah.

395
00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:47.520
And so that's that's what we did. And then he refunded everything.

396
00:33:48.720 --> 00:33:54.800
So that just blew all the profit from the month before. And that was horrible. But then I was like,

397
00:33:54.800 --> 00:34:00.240
okay, one off circumstance happens. Not a big deal. Like we'll get through it. We'll just do more

398
00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:05.520
launches. It's fine. Two weeks later. She comes back again and she's like, it's happening again.

399
00:34:05.520 --> 00:34:08.160
I was like, what are you talking about? She's like the refund thing. I was like, he can't refund.

400
00:34:08.160 --> 00:34:12.800
Like no one can refund. Like we already gave all the money back. What do they want? And she said,

401
00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:19.280
no, two gyms told the clients to refund and then buy the same services from them for half price

402
00:34:19.280 --> 00:34:23.840
since we had left after selling. So it's like, someone comes in, we sell them a membership,

403
00:34:23.840 --> 00:34:28.000
you know, for the way we did it. We do a six week program for like five or six hundred bucks.

404
00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:31.120
They would pay for it. We'd keep that money for the marketing sales hotel,

405
00:34:31.120 --> 00:34:34.800
rental car, everything. I'd spend commissions. That's what we'd keep. And whatever was left was

406
00:34:34.800 --> 00:34:39.920
the profit. Right. After that, that gym got all those customers for free to convert. Yeah.

407
00:34:39.920 --> 00:34:43.760
It's like, you got really, yeah, you got really high qualified customers because these aren't trial

408
00:34:43.760 --> 00:34:47.360
customers. They're paying, you know, 600 bucks to be there. So like they care. They'll show up.

409
00:34:47.360 --> 00:34:51.040
They'll fall instructions. And you should if you're doing a right convert 70% on the back end.

410
00:34:51.040 --> 00:34:55.280
So like you just got to wait. You got to provide fulfillment for six weeks. And most gyms at fixed

411
00:34:55.280 --> 00:34:58.720
costs, not a lot of variable costs. And so they didn't really need to staff out that much.

412
00:34:59.520 --> 00:35:04.880
Not a ton right to handle that. And so these guys are just like, you know, would be cooler as if we

413
00:35:04.880 --> 00:35:08.800
just told them all to refund and then we got half the money. Right. And then that gives them a reason.

414
00:35:08.800 --> 00:35:12.560
And they had the unethical. Yeah. And they had the relationship with the clients. I didn't.

415
00:35:12.560 --> 00:35:20.880
But I held the bag for the processing. So anyways, they they did that. And that's when we had 150,000

416
00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:27.200
in refunds. And again, I have no money. And so it was like this impossible situation where

417
00:35:27.200 --> 00:35:31.360
I looked at Layla and I was like, okay, if you fly out and I fly out, we can both do 100,000.

418
00:35:31.360 --> 00:35:36.560
And we can make sure the gyms don't do anything stupid. And we can cover the 150. And I just

419
00:35:36.560 --> 00:35:41.120
remember this other thing that she said to me, which was she was like, Alex, like, we can't

420
00:35:41.120 --> 00:35:44.960
sell our way out of this. Like if we do that, we're just going to create more like there's going

421
00:35:44.960 --> 00:35:49.680
to be more refunds like the amount of refunds is just going to keep going up. And so I didn't,

422
00:35:49.680 --> 00:35:54.080
I really didn't know what to do. And so at that point, she had this little side business because

423
00:35:54.080 --> 00:35:58.000
she still wasn't sure how things were going to work out. So she was doing like three or four

424
00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:02.960
thousand a month from all our personal training clients that she transitioned online. And as I'm

425
00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:06.320
trying to like think of every possible idea and the sun, including like me being a prostitute,

426
00:36:06.320 --> 00:36:09.440
didn't matter. I just was like, whatever I can make to get a hundred and two through that. Yeah,

427
00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:13.040
I didn't. I mean, but it was a 150 grand in revenue. It'd be a hundred for your own profit that

428
00:36:13.040 --> 00:36:17.840
I had to come up with. Otherwise, her friends were going to get paid, right? You can feel the stress.

429
00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:20.560
So I sit her down and I was like, wait, so three, four thousand a month. So what you're

430
00:36:20.560 --> 00:36:25.440
crossing this is like nothing. It's like, okay, what if we blow your business up?

431
00:36:25.440 --> 00:36:31.440
Forget my business. Clearly, I suck. What if we just blow you up? And so she said yes. And I

432
00:36:31.440 --> 00:36:35.280
spent pretty much every week and moment after that, writing the best sales copy of my entire life,

433
00:36:35.280 --> 00:36:40.320
writing an amazing ad campaign and launched everything within like 48 hours. And then within a

434
00:36:40.320 --> 00:36:44.480
few days, we were doing a thousand bucks a day. I've just heard someone over the phone with no

435
00:36:44.480 --> 00:36:49.360
fulfillment. It was just like online programs for her weight loss program. And I was like,

436
00:36:49.360 --> 00:36:53.120
this could work because if I get the eight sales guys that we had at the time to come,

437
00:36:53.120 --> 00:36:56.400
not have to travel anymore, they'd all do a thousand bucks a day. We do eight thousand a day.

438
00:36:56.400 --> 00:37:00.400
After commissions, we'd have about 150 grand. Yeah, that day overhead, not that. Right. Yeah,

439
00:37:00.400 --> 00:37:04.000
exactly. And I was like, and no, Jim, no one's going to refund because no one's telling them

440
00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:09.120
to refund. And so that was the plan. I told her the plan. She was good with it. And so we had eight

441
00:37:09.120 --> 00:37:11.920
gyms that were supposed to launch the next month. So I called those guys up and I was like, hey,

442
00:37:11.920 --> 00:37:16.800
we're not doing it anymore. Change the direction, whatever. And the first guy tells me this long

443
00:37:16.800 --> 00:37:22.240
story about how his friend had referred him and that we had saved his friend's gym and how he was

444
00:37:22.240 --> 00:37:25.840
going to lose his house. And then he had refinanced everything. He'd max on all his cards. He'd quit his

445
00:37:25.840 --> 00:37:30.560
job spent two years not making any money for the gym. And then he needed this top story. Yeah,

446
00:37:30.560 --> 00:37:34.400
and I said, cool, not really my problem because like everything that happened at this point,

447
00:37:34.400 --> 00:37:40.960
I was like, my level of give a fuck was very low. And so I said, sorry, man. He's like, can you,

448
00:37:40.960 --> 00:37:44.800
can you at least show me what you did at my friend's place? And I'll just do it, try and do it

449
00:37:44.800 --> 00:37:52.640
myself. And at this point, I needed money, right? And so I was like, maybe, but I also didn't want to

450
00:37:52.640 --> 00:37:56.800
go create this whole thing because I knew the value of focus. I'd learn that lesson at this point.

451
00:37:56.800 --> 00:38:00.480
And so I said, fine, I'll show you how to do it. But I'm not going to fly out there to save your

452
00:38:00.480 --> 00:38:04.560
SVK and sell. And he said, no, that's fine. It's fine. And so he said, how much? And at the time,

453
00:38:04.560 --> 00:38:07.760
I picked the highest a record possibly thing of because I thought I wanted him to say no, so I can

454
00:38:07.760 --> 00:38:13.360
move on with my life. Yeah, what's your IP worth? Yeah. Yeah. And so I said $6,000. It might do.

455
00:38:13.360 --> 00:38:18.480
This is something to do at $100,000 every single day. It works a month. And he's like, deal.

456
00:38:19.200 --> 00:38:25.120
And I still remember I looked at the phone and I was like, holy shit. I kept, and then I just

457
00:38:25.120 --> 00:38:29.120
was like, cool, what card do you want to use it? And I wrote it down on napkin and they,

458
00:38:29.120 --> 00:38:32.880
you know, finished the phone call. I went over to Layla and I was like, holy shit. I was like,

459
00:38:32.880 --> 00:38:36.960
this guy just paid $6,000 for like all of our like sales scripts and all this stuff.

460
00:38:37.760 --> 00:38:41.840
How soon did you realize you'd left a ton of money on the table? Well, this, this was the

461
00:38:41.840 --> 00:38:49.440
moment. And so, and so I, I was like, I think, I think there's something here. And so I went

462
00:38:49.440 --> 00:38:52.720
and called the rest of the guys that were supposed to launch the next month or seven more guys.

463
00:38:53.520 --> 00:38:57.520
And, and the next guy, how much eight grand, next high, how much 10 grand, next high,

464
00:38:57.520 --> 00:39:02.720
and then I did $60,000 in sales that day. You ever seen how elastic it was? Yeah. And there's,

465
00:39:02.720 --> 00:39:09.600
yeah. And I saw it 60 grand one day. And it was, I mean, it was a day to change my life. And so

466
00:39:09.600 --> 00:39:13.600
that's when I was like, I think we're still in the gym business. I think we're just doing it wrong.

467
00:39:13.600 --> 00:39:16.000
And she's like, so we're not doing the weight loss thing. I was like, I guess not. I think we're

468
00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:18.960
going to do this. She's like, well, how are we going to get new customers? I was like, well,

469
00:39:18.960 --> 00:39:22.960
we don't need to worry about that yet because I'm going to call the 30 something other gyms that we

470
00:39:22.960 --> 00:39:26.640
did the launches for and be like, hey, remember, I filled your gym up? I want to see how I did it.

471
00:39:27.200 --> 00:39:32.160
And within the next month, I think we collected 200,000 in cash, but we ended up doing like,

472
00:39:32.160 --> 00:39:39.360
$400,000 in sales. So let me ask you more about this system. Yeah. Was it like written down somewhere?

473
00:39:39.360 --> 00:39:42.640
It was my whole gym opening system. It's like, how I would do these launches? Did you have videos

474
00:39:42.640 --> 00:39:47.760
in like a module? Okay, watch step one, two, three. So, so the way that I had structured this, the old

475
00:39:47.760 --> 00:39:51.200
gym watch version is we would fly out to do these turn around. I have more questions about this.

476
00:39:51.200 --> 00:39:55.920
Oh, sorry. Well, I want to ask you because I'm sure that there's a lot of people who want to

477
00:39:55.920 --> 00:40:01.280
to create modules or, you know, learning modules or teaching modules, whether they are doing it

478
00:40:01.280 --> 00:40:05.120
in-house for them people or they want to learn or maybe create their own courses or a big thing,

479
00:40:05.120 --> 00:40:14.080
right? But so, like, were these underproduced, well-produced, overproduced? Like, the videos, was it like?

480
00:40:14.080 --> 00:40:17.920
Make sure of both. Okay. Yeah, because I had hired a guy to do like really professional videos when

481
00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:21.760
I did the original launch, like the old school one, that walked the gym owners through like, here's

482
00:40:21.760 --> 00:40:25.680
how to service these customers. Here's how to do nutrition consults, here's how to sell supplements,

483
00:40:25.680 --> 00:40:28.400
here's how to sell the membership on the back end. And those were all like really nicely done

484
00:40:28.400 --> 00:40:35.040
professional videos. And so I had everything there already for the back end. The sales training,

485
00:40:35.040 --> 00:40:38.640
I had already trained my sales guys with. So that training already existed, the scripting,

486
00:40:38.640 --> 00:40:44.400
and that sales training was brutal and fucking awesome. It's interesting because when you make a

487
00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:48.480
training with the intention of like, someone has to go through this and sell shit on the other side

488
00:40:48.480 --> 00:40:51.840
and it's my money on the line, it's different than when you try and make a course on sales.

489
00:40:52.640 --> 00:40:55.840
Right. Because people try to make a course on sales and justify the cost that they charge someone

490
00:40:56.400 --> 00:41:00.640
for it. Mine was an hour long training that tossed them out of fucking clothes. And it was this

491
00:41:00.640 --> 00:41:04.560
particular product at this price point for the gym. So it was super specific selling. Right.

492
00:41:04.560 --> 00:41:07.120
Here's how you set the chairs up, here's how the office needs to look when they walk in the door,

493
00:41:07.120 --> 00:41:10.320
this is a joke you make, decide to do the tour. When they sit down, make sure they set up on the

494
00:41:10.320 --> 00:41:13.680
weight, make sure they look at the weight, they cry, they buy, make sure they sit like, you know,

495
00:41:13.680 --> 00:41:18.960
you do the whole thing, right? And it was all methodical, strategic. I done 4,000 of these.

496
00:41:18.960 --> 00:41:25.280
Like I need like, we know this kind of conversation in the back. It's still still. And in some ways,

497
00:41:25.280 --> 00:41:28.320
all that was stuff was talking to me. The only thing that wasn't documented was just the ads and

498
00:41:28.320 --> 00:41:32.400
the landing pages that I said to show how to place them. So I'd all I had to build was just that.

499
00:41:32.400 --> 00:41:36.080
Can we just talk about Facebook ads or Google ads? Yep. This is Google and Instagram, or sorry,

500
00:41:36.080 --> 00:41:39.840
Facebook and Instagram. Yep. And we already had the ads. They didn't even make them. I was like,

501
00:41:39.840 --> 00:41:43.120
this is the ad and they would use my video because I knew my video has worked. So it's just like,

502
00:41:43.120 --> 00:41:46.800
boom, post this, go to this page, which is a copy page to the page that I already made,

503
00:41:46.800 --> 00:41:51.040
change the name of the city, right? Like that's it. I was like, and when they like, here's how you

504
00:41:51.040 --> 00:41:54.000
work the leads, which was the sales training the guy said, here's how you sell them, sales training

505
00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:56.720
the guy said, and then the back in they already had the training for it. It was proven. It was

506
00:41:56.720 --> 00:42:02.160
already there. I didn't have the ads part like document. So I documented that and I sent it out.

507
00:42:02.160 --> 00:42:07.520
I called the other guys. We crushed it. And then the average gym that of those first like 30 or 40

508
00:42:07.520 --> 00:42:13.040
that bought did $30,000 in additional collected cash, not membership, not like contract value, like

509
00:42:13.040 --> 00:42:18.080
cash collected in their first 30 days. So you're a hero overnight. You're just like, yeah,

510
00:42:18.080 --> 00:42:22.480
overnight success. And then I mean as soon as that happened, they're like, what else do you have?

511
00:42:22.560 --> 00:42:26.720
And I was like, well, glad you asked. You know, I have I have my three year licensing where I'll

512
00:42:26.720 --> 00:42:30.960
give you all the rest of the things that I used to run front and scale my gyms. And so that was

513
00:42:30.960 --> 00:42:34.640
that became gym legacy, which at the back end of gym launch, which was the two programs that we

514
00:42:34.640 --> 00:42:38.560
had front and back end, which fundamentally is actually exactly how I did weight loss programs.

515
00:42:38.560 --> 00:42:41.840
We had front end back end. We would find end program. We saw no continuity. Same process.

516
00:42:42.560 --> 00:42:47.120
Just they were just added zeros. That's all it was. And there was no, the cost of goods is

517
00:42:47.120 --> 00:42:50.800
significantly lower because it's licensing. You know, licensing materials, licensing ads,

518
00:42:50.800 --> 00:42:54.960
licensing pages, it's not, you know, yeah. And and if I can just point out what I'm hearing too,

519
00:42:54.960 --> 00:43:03.200
is you got rid of partners. Right. I'm not against them now. I had to learn, I had to learn how to

520
00:43:03.200 --> 00:43:09.760
do business on my own in order to learn how to partner later. Yeah. But I also think, you know,

521
00:43:09.760 --> 00:43:15.920
self-awareness is key. Like sometimes, you know, Nidale is a great tennis player. He has played

522
00:43:15.920 --> 00:43:22.080
doubles that I know of. Right. He's a solo player for a reason. Or, you know, and we had Russell

523
00:43:22.080 --> 00:43:26.640
Wilson on the show who's the quarterback now of the Denver Broncos from the Seas, you know,

524
00:43:26.640 --> 00:43:30.720
and rest of the team player. So if you're a team player, you know, and that works for you,

525
00:43:30.720 --> 00:43:35.920
that could be fine. And your model, it wasn't working. It was up. And you weren't getting the hint

526
00:43:35.920 --> 00:43:43.200
until you finally did. Yeah. I think Layla was a strong edge there. Yeah. But those are those are

527
00:43:43.200 --> 00:43:48.400
super good lessons for people who may not have to make that the hard way. That's. Yeah. If you're going

528
00:43:48.400 --> 00:43:51.520
and this is because I get questions like this all the time from New York entrepreneurs, it's like,

529
00:43:51.520 --> 00:43:55.680
you know, either they're in a partnership and this is how most people partner. Hey, we like

530
00:43:55.680 --> 00:43:59.200
each other. And we kind of like the subject, let's get into business together. Terrible reason to

531
00:43:59.200 --> 00:44:03.200
get into business together. But like why commentator, we were talking this offline two seconds ago.

532
00:44:04.240 --> 00:44:08.640
While commentators shown that three partners, three founders is actually like the like the sweet spot,

533
00:44:08.640 --> 00:44:13.200
like three to fourish actually works the best for building huge companies. Now that's huge company.

534
00:44:13.200 --> 00:44:17.040
It's not everybody's trying to build a huge company. And the founders that they have have very

535
00:44:17.040 --> 00:44:21.440
specific roles and functions. So you've got the guy who's the, you know, head of coding. And then

536
00:44:21.440 --> 00:44:24.880
you've got the promoter who's head of sales marketing. And you have the operator typically, which will

537
00:44:24.880 --> 00:44:29.520
be kind of the third leg of the stool, which is kind of the minimum three roles that exist. And so if

538
00:44:29.520 --> 00:44:33.280
you are going to partner with people, they have to have a clear role or responsibility that is

539
00:44:33.360 --> 00:44:39.680
different than yours. So complimenting skills 100%. So complimenting skills aligned values. And

540
00:44:39.680 --> 00:44:43.760
if you are partnering, the splits don't need to be even. And that's often a common thing,

541
00:44:43.760 --> 00:44:47.680
which is like, okay, there's three of us. Therefore, we should have thirds. That isn't necessarily

542
00:44:48.480 --> 00:44:52.960
true. You know, like some people might be bringing a bigger network or some other things to the table

543
00:44:52.960 --> 00:44:57.680
that that tip the skills. And that's, you know, that's part of business. But all that to say,

544
00:44:57.680 --> 00:45:02.160
I'm not against partnerships. I at that time did not understand how to partner. And therefore,

545
00:45:02.160 --> 00:45:13.360
it was only able to successfully have business when it was just me.