What If Freedom Requires Less Work with President of Gym Launch

We talk with Mike Ferreira about the moment a serious neck injury forced him to step out of his gym and finally build a business that works without him. We break down the skills, numbers, and leadership habits that turn a capped fitness business into a scalable machine while keeping family and real life in focus.
• building a “jail cell” by wearing every hat
• the emotional cost of missing family moments
• why desperation creates bad business decisions
• learning to ask better questions under pressure
• finding mentorship that simplifies gym business fundamentals
• using theory of constraints to diagnose bottlenecks
• tracking CAC and LTV like you track macros
• becoming a leader worth following through extreme ownership
• protecting relationships, health, and meaning with the five pillars
You can find us on the web at gymlaunch.com, and we love to hop on a call and have an honest conversation about whether we can help you or not

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Transcript

Meet Mike Ferreira

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Hey, what's going on? We got a special guest today. We have Mike Ferreira. He's the president of Gym Launch. Mike went from owning a struggling gym at 26 to becoming one of the leaders behind a company that's helped thousands of fitness entrepreneurs grow their business. After a devastating neck injury forced him out of the day-to-day grind, he discovered that true leadership isn't about working harder. It's about building people, systems, and a business that can strive, that can thrive without you. Mike, you've spent years building what you call your own jail cell inside of your gym. And then you had a life-changing injury that forced you out of it. Can you take us to that moment and explain what was going on for you?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yeah. Well, first off, man, thanks, thanks for having me. Absolutely. Looking forward to having some fun today. So, you know, to go back to that moment itself first, I think, you know, to have the context of all of it, maybe I'll go back a little bit further if that's cool. Yeah. You know, so so for me, you know, wind back the clocks. I had started, you know, martial arts at like 12 years old. I I've been an in and around the gym, so to speak, business space for a long time. And for me, you know, coming out of high school, you know, college wasn't really in the cards for me. It just wasn't a wasn't a thing. My parents didn't have a ton of extra money. You know, we didn't come from much. They were really great people, by the way. But, you know, as I moved into kind of like the career world or whatever, I just naturally, you know, ended up being the guy around the martial arts studio, running all the classes and doing all the things. Pretty quickly, it's interesting. I have this vivid memory of, you know, running that. I mean, I must have been, I don't know, 18, 17. And I just remember looking out in the lobby and seeing all the seeing all the parents and the kids were doing belt tests and I was running it and all this stuff. And I saw over and over how dads couldn't show up because they were busy at work and how many conversations I had with

Why Freedom Drove Him

SPEAKER_00 1:52

kids, or like there were sad families. And then some guys were there all the time. And I remember just kind of really just getting this clarity of like, man, these guys that own their own businesses so many times are like in the lobby, they have freedom of their schedule, like whatever. I want that. So it's pretty early on from just kind of being in that world. I got this like real big, like this, just this this drive to like I'm gonna own my own business one day, right? Because I didn't want to be, you know, whatever, like held in a, you know, held back to, you know, in the office because I couldn't go see my kids' baseball game, whatever, right? So that's kind of where the drive of like opening a business and you know came from. And also financial freedom. I didn't come from money. I wanted to just not have those, you know, constraints in my life. But it's crazy that you know, getting into it, it kind of turned into something that like the opposite of that for a while. You know what I mean? Like clearly, I didn't I didn't see the whole picture, you know what I mean, when I was 17, 18, teacher karate. So, you know, I opened up, I had at 26 years old, I had an opportunity to take over like a struggling failing gym. Like that sounded like a great idea at the time, by the way. In hindsight, probably should have not done that, but I cut my teeth on that. So, so I you know came in, learned how to like kind of you know readjust and and you know, almost like flip the business, so to speak. But fairly quickly, I ran into bottlenecks, constraints, as we call it. And I spent a better part of like 10 years just like working hard, like like harder and harder, more hours, more days, more, you know, what idea, what course, what mastermind, what thing could I do this month or this quarter to like move the business? And it it was just like it was years of just like what is going on? Like I got to a certain point, and I think from from the outside, I think friends, family, people are like, that's cool, you own your own business. But like year after year, I almost felt like I was dying inside. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 3:47

I'm like exactly because no one realizes it. Everyone sits there and goes, I mean, there's probably a lot of audience listening right now who thinks, yeah, having a business would be awesome, running the business is awesome. No one realizes that you wear every hat. All the hats possible. I got the accounting one. Okay, we have people not paying the gym membership. I got I got the sales guy. I'm trying to sell a guy, and I got a gym membership who's not paying.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Like, yeah, you're trying to you're trying to get new employees, you're not sure how to pay them, you pay them, they're not happy. You you you you get the you get the talent in, but they're not performing at the level that you wanted, or you know, all the different things, and it it just never stopped, right? Yeah, and so yeah, you know, everyone talks about like the hamster wheel or whatever. Like I, you know, for sure felt that. And so while I thought I was like engineering freedom, I was actually like secretly like, okay, you know, building my own jail cell as I as I mentioned to you before. And don't get me wrong, like I had an incredible team. I really did. I had incredible people, you know, at the gym, you know, working for me. We really, really had it. But there was something happening, and looking back now, I knew it was me. Right? I lacked certain skills and certain vision and certain understanding of business fundamentally. But at the time, you know, it was so frustrating. I remember driving into the business that I was like, is this gonna be it? Is this it? Like, is it for the rest of the next 10, 20, 30 years, is the business just stuck here?

SPEAKER_02 5:13

You know, and that's the hard, that's the hardest part is separating yourself from the business because you feel like your identity just aligns with that. And then the other big part I think is super important, the extreme ownership to be like, it's my fault. Like the business isn't running correctly, my fault. And most people don't have that ability.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

No, and and really I didn't have it up until I got the right mentorship and like leadership, you know what I mean? And I remember the moment where I really realized something had to change was you know, going back to what I've said earlier, I really built a business so that I could have freedom. And I remember sitting there at the front desk eight, 10 years into the you know, the business, it was like 10 o'clock at night, holding my phone. And you know, I wanted to be home for my family and be, you know, be there for all the important stuff. And I remember watching my son's first steps on my phone on a video at 10 o'clock at night, you know, tears come down my eyes. Like, I should be home, but I have to be at the gym doing this thing, right? And so that was like a real, that was a moment, like a memorable moment for me of like something really, really needed to change. And just like the the the approach to business and what I was doing.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Um that's terrible because when you really sit there and realize it, like we do all these things for our family, our relationships, and all of that, and we start to realize that none of it matters if we think our business isn't actually feeding us, but we're feeding it.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Yeah, yeah. And and sometimes what happens is I think you start making crazy decisions, like

Missing Life While Working

SPEAKER_00 6:46

start doing a little you sometimes when you get in survival mode, you you don't make the best decisions for the business because there's a lot of emotions involved and and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

I see I see that a lot with my clients where they're in desperation mode, and I'm like, we cannot make a decision from desperation mode, right? In abundance, I know you might not feel abundant at the moment, but you that's all a mindset. Like I have people that I work with that millions of dollars, and they're like, Jordan, I'm not sure if I can afford like these small things. Yeah, it happens to all of us. So that's a mental constraint that a lot of us carry.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Yeah, and well, so so for me, I remember saying to myself, if I'm working these many hours, right, that if this is life, I might as well make a lot more money doing it. And in my head, from where I grew up, I I had this like vision of like, oh, well, doctors make a lot of money, right? And so while running this gym that felt capped, I actually went back to school pre-med at UConn, as I'm from Connecticut, and I actually did two and a half years of pre-med program while running this business because I thought that was gonna be the out. So that was crazy. All that did, by the way, is stressed me out even more and give me clarity that I should not go that route. And and I got clarity that you know, I I really wanted to, you know, own my own business, but I'm gonna do it well. It was just interesting.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Like to I appreciate you sharing that because that's something where a lot of people, like I know a lot of people who are like, I don't know what to do. I'm going back to school. And I'm like, you're gonna spend 120,000 in school, like go get some mentors for 120,000, 120 grand. What are you talking? A lot of these teachers don't know what they're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Well, what's funny is on that journey, I started talking to people in the medical world, right? PAs and nurses and doctors, obviously, because I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go down this path. And I realized how many aren't happy. I'm like, okay, it's this hopeful optimism. I'm like, I'm just gonna jump over here, the grass is greener. No, not not at all.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Um, and so well, what uh what a lot of the audience can do if you guys are considering a business or thinking about jumping into these different ideas, just as Mike said, it's probably a good idea to ask people who are in that position right now and see if they're enjoying what they're doing. And that's really where that's where I came up with the podcast because I'm like, I gotta talk to people who look like they're winning. Are they really winning? And is this sustainable for them? Is this something that I want to apply to my life?

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Absolutely. Yeah, you must you must meet some like really interesting people. We can get into that another time. But so just kind of back to your original question of like that moment. So, you know, I got I got even more clarity that, you know, all right, so it's not the career, obviously. It's not just jumping from job to job that's going to change your happiness, it's like taking control of, you know, uh of your life. And so, so for me, you know, I went double down working on the business. And what happened was it's interesting, like we, I I got to a certain point where the business was, you know, doing okay. And I tried to step out. I tried to get myself more time back, you know, balance the family, balance of things. And I always got sucked back in. I always got sucked back in. And this this one night, I was at the gym and the whole team's in a good mood and everyone's having a good time. We were just kind of locked up for the night. My instructors are doing a hand a handstand contest. They're literally walking on their hands, you know, out on the mat at the kickboxing studio. And I was in the lobby with one of our other team members, and we're talking and watching them do handstands, and I got this bright idea of like, I got these two, you know, stacking chairs that you have like in you know in a lobby. And I was like, Oh, you know, I'm I'm like doing like dips, like stretching my back. And I'm like, Bet I could do a handstand off the back of these. And I remember Jeff turning to me, he's like, probably not a good idea. I was like, no, I I got it. I I think I can because I'm watching them do handstands. Anyway, I go up, I do a handstand off the back of these two chairs, and I'm like straight up like this. And all of a sudden, right out from under me, the chairs go like this, and my head hits the ground, snap my neck. Oh my god. Like, like right in like right in front of my my team. Now, here's the thing like my team

The Accident That Forced Change

SPEAKER_00 10:50

kind of half-saw, like whatever. And at the end of the day, like they don't know whether to laugh or call an ambulance, right? Because you see someone fall and you're like, you're not sure. Oh, you know. And what happened here was just kind of a cascade of just like not to get too too deep into it, but what happened was there was an injury there that affected me in a way where I had to force myself out of the business. That forced me out of the business, right? And so I could not come in and I and at the time I was still the guy doing all the things. I was doing the marketing, I was doing sales, I was still involved and like on the floor of my team and you know, cleaning all the things. And so, and I had already stepped tried to step out, right? I'd already tried to kind of like fire myself from different positions, and that never really worked. And now here I am at home with a doctor that says, Hey, here's the deal you messed up your brain, right? You messed up your spine. This is stuff that happens in football, construction, car accidents, this kind of stuff. I'm gonna be real with you. You there's two paths go back to the high stress, loud noise, like screens all day life, and you may not be able to recover. Or take my advice, kind of put yourself in a cave, heal, step back, right, and you can basically be yourself again, right? We can we can get there. And it was interesting because at the time, so my wife at the time, I was putting, I was only one income in the family. We got a newborn, and I was putting her, you know, supporting her through nursing school. I could only imagine the stress. This was like total back against the wall moment, right? And so I said, All right, what am I gonna do? How can I make it unreasonable? I'm not saying this really clear.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

No, you're good, you're good. Because I mean, what it really is is sitting there going, Hey, I'm working 10, 12 hours a day. So now I'm down in two hours, and it comes down to asking yourself the better questions. Yeah, you know what I mean? And when you start asking yourself those harder questions, it starts to get to the point of like, how do I do my business in two hours when I have a team, but I don't know if I fully trust the team, but I want the team to win. And it's like, how do I make that change?

SPEAKER_00 13:03

So yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me go back to this because you edited that out, obviously. But what you just said was good. So yeah, so when I so it was like this was like a total back against the wall moment, right? Which was like obviously I had to make this work, right? So wife at the time was going through nursing school. I had, you know, this is one income. And so what happened here was I just doubled down on skills, right? That I knew that whether I was at home or somewhere else, I could actually really help the business move. So I doubled down on marketing, I doubled down on like support from the team, you know, supporting the team, and got out of their way and put people into positions where they could just do their thing at a high level. And through all of this, I came across Alex and Layla Ramosy. So, like through this time, right, back against the wall, I'm home. And Alex and Layla Rmose had, you know, launch gym launch. And I saw this ad. It was crazy. I saw this ad of Alex where he was like, he was like, I'm I'm in the hood signing, you know, $600,

Finding Mentors And Simple Frameworks

SPEAKER_00 14:15

you know, six-week challenges. We just filled this gym with this new marketing campaign, you know, you know, we went from zero to 20, 30,000, 40,000 with this new system. You know, if you're a gym owner, you know, you got to check it out. And I kept seeing this, and I kept seeing this. And I was like, if half of this stuff is true, that gym launch and Alex is saying, well, like if half of it is true, I've got to explore this, right? And so what happened was I got on a call with with you know gym launch and her sales team. And it was interesting because the first time in my life, the way that they had explained business and the business, the the business of running a gym was just like absolutely clear and simple. Right. And so I had been doing like eight, 10 years of just like trying all these things, wearing all these hats, and they boiled it down to such simple frameworks, walking through the economics of what a successful business looks like, right? How to acquire customers, how to you know, create client financed acquisition where you can actually market, you know, at a certain cost and then get a customer to pay you more than it costs to acquire them, cap to LTV, all of the basics, right? That at the time I just didn't understand. And I was like, man, this is it. And so with money I didn't necessarily have, I jumped into gym launch. And that was when I realized, and that was four to six months, of just learning more and executing on a level that I didn't even think was possible. That's where I got really clear on holy shit, it matters who you listen to. Right. Because I finally got to learn from somebody that had been there, that was in my shoes, that guided me, that had the scars. Right. And being able to learn somebody that has walked your path, figured out the problems that you currently have. That's where I got crystal clear. I was like, wow, had I done this, you know, years and years earlier, the business would be completely different. So, all that to say, what happened was when I got, you know, was back against the wall moment of getting forced out of my gym. I think I had to be like dropped on my head, you know, almost to be like, come at this from a different angle. That clearly what you're doing for 10 years is not working. And yeah, I mean, in six months we had more growth than we had in six years. You know, we took this this you know, this little gym from, you know, well, we took the kickboxing class inside the martial arts school from 15,000 a month to you know, 80,000, 90,000 a month. And and it, I had good people, I just didn't have the right skills myself.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Yeah, uh, you know, that's the biggest challenge is that a lot of people are like, I'm really fit, I'm gonna open a gym. And it's like, dude, there is a yeah, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

You want to make an impact, but it that's not enough.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Or I make or I cook really good cookies, I should open a cookie store, and it's like, no, like there are so many more pieces to that.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yeah. It's like maybe, but like to your point, that's like only part of the recipe, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Yeah, we got to know how to market, we got to know how to sell it. Where are we gonna distribute it? Where are we gonna put all of this? And that's one of the big challenges that a lot of us have. So, what was the big takeaways from Jim Launch that really got you going in the right direction? And what what skills should the audience really sit there and think about if they want to grow their businesses?

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Yeah, I mean, I think the first one is just like the theory of constraints, right? Is just like truly understanding how to diagnose your business. And you know, everyone listening here has a little bit of a slightly different business. But right now, if your business is, you know, stalled, plateaued, whatever, there is, and really every business at any given time has a constraint that if you put all of your resources, time, and effort towards that one thing and solving that one thing, that everything else in the business just becomes easier or not even of a problem anymore. Right. And I'm not saying that there are there's only one constraint. There are several, but there's one that is the one that you should go solve first, right? And not getting into how to diagnose and all that stuff. It's just like at the end of the day, you have to understand your business to a certain level, understand

Constraints, Numbers, And Real Scaling

SPEAKER_00 18:21

your numbers, understand the economics of your business to even be able to diagnose that. Right. So there's kind of like layers to this, but I would say the number one thing that I took away was understanding the constraint of the business. And for us, it was the economics of just like how much it cost to acquire versus what we were charging. That was the number one thing. We couldn't scale marketing. It was it. And once we fixed that, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Yeah, and it's down so simple. When you hear it, you're like, oh, I could do that. That's so simple. But it takes a lot of time to apply it. You have to know your data, you got to be measuring and monitoring. Because what ends up happening is but uh but you're like the kickboxer, you got the gym, like I don't really want to look at data, man. Like I'm people, and that's where the issue lies.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Dude, actually, that's a really great point. So we so at gym launch, we you know talk to gym owners all the time, hundreds and hundreds of gym owners. So it's so funny. A lot of a lot of business owners in general in general say, like, I'm not a numbers guy, I'm not a numbers guy, right? And yet, at least in our world, everybody's a numbers guy. They're tracking their macros daily. They've been doing that for years, right? It's just when it comes to something like outside of fitness, it's kind of like this whole belief of like, I'm not good at it. It's like that's not true. You just haven't applied yourself.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Yes, you know, applied skills that you can borrow from other areas. Because like insanely fit, you got to track, like you said, calories, macros, gym workouts, rest, all of that. And you're like, but I don't really know numbers. And that's why it's so sad to me when I see people at the gym that are in such good shape and they're like, Yeah, I'm struggling financially. And I'm like, you have the skill set required, like you have what it takes, you just have to apply it to the other areas of life. Yeah, sometimes we just I don't feel comfortable, I don't know. And that's where a lot of the stuff I do with identity helping people kind of understand that because a big part of it is like, what do I need to do? But it's also who do I need to become? You know what I mean? Your gym didn't need you being the kickboxing instructor, not at all.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

It needed, it needed the right leader that understood the business to lead the team. And you just said, you know, who do I need to become? I think another thing that I got from just kind of my journey overall is you know, everyone wants to make a big impact. Everyone wants to create a great business and you know have happy customers and and everything. But at the end of the day, you're only you generally most likely, and this is changing a little bit with AI, but but you need a team to make a big impact and to have a real, you know, business. And I think I went through this for a while, which was I would blame others, right? Like, you're you're not doing the thing like I would, or that's not good enough, or get frustrated. And it really wasn't until every time something like that happened, I looked in the mirror and was like, what did I do to create this situation? And my I just I just kind of had this realization like to build the team, to build the business that level, you have to become a worth a leader worth following. Yeah. Right. And it's so important. And I'm not sure, honestly, if someone said that, or that's kind of something that I but it it's it's a realization that's really stuck with me. And it certainly was from having a leader worth following in Alex when I joined Gym Launch. But the more I just looked in the mirror to say, all right, if this isn't good enough, if something's going wrong, what did I not do? How can I do it better for my team or my customers? That is that fundamentally changed the trajectory of the business, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Yeah, because when the leader's taking full accountability, yeah, it changed. Everything because now it's not you did that, I'm blaming you. It's I'm sorry, I must have explained this wrong. What do you think we're doing? And they're like, Oh, we're just bringing people into the gym. And you're like, no, no, no. We're signing them up for memberships and we're doing this and this. And there must have been a mishap, and that's on me. That's my fault. And that's once people start taking full accountability for their life and everything around them, then they start to realize there's no one to blame but themselves.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Yep. And if you're attracting people, even if you have the best approach with your team, if you're attracting talent but not keeping them, or you can't attract in the first place, chances are there's some skill sets that you're lacking, right? Because people want to grow, right? They want to work for and work alongside people that are going to help them grow as well. And so there's a saying, just like everything you want is on the other side of a skill you don't have.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

I love that. And that that all just kind of comes back to like once you just focus on acquiring skills and stacking those, right? Then you can become the leader worth following. So it's kind of all related. And how do you do that? How do you stack the skills? It comes back to that kind of first thing that I said, which is you gotta guard your ears and find the right person that's been where you have been, has the scars, and can, you know, and can just cut help you collapse time frames and move along faster because they've been there, you know. So it's um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Absolutely. And for you, Mike, you are someone who said that they need to own their own business to be successful, own their own business to have that freedom. How did you end up at gym launch as the president?

SPEAKER_00 23:38

How did I never thought I never ever thought I'd be in this position? I'd never thought that I would be here. I thought I'd you know own my gym, be there, and maybe have a bunch of them or something like that one day. And at a certain point, when I when I did step out of the gym, and and honestly, I still own that gym today, and it runs better, smoother, has a better product, happier customers, and a better team than ever. And the team there is absolutely incredible. I I got to a point where I was like, I really want to do something that is just meaningful, you know what I mean? And like I stepped out of the gym, I was doing I started a digital agency, I was doing all these different things, and I was actually helping gyms like at scale. I really enjoyed it. I was doing some coaching, I was doing some stuff. And it just so happened that so in this was 2022, Gym Launch had just been sold, the majority

Becoming A Leader Worth Following

SPEAKER_00 24:33

shares gym launch, Alex and Leila exited, you know, and to a private equity firm. And right around that time, you know, kind of new leadership and everything like that, I was looking like, hey, let's let's look at how do we, you know, build the right leadership team and everything like that. And it just happened that, you know, I crossed paths again with with leadership there. And I came on board as a director of RD. And it was so exciting too, because I was like, this is cool. I can give back to the company that gave so much to me. You know what I mean? Yeah. Uh and so yeah, that's that's how that happened. And I started working on the product and doing updates. How do we help gym owners, you know, make more money, acquire more members, make a bigger impact, save them time, and just ultimately help them build the gym and their dreams. That's what I was doing is just product iterations and updates. And so over you know, last couple of years, I've just you know moved through the company that way.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

I love that because when you sit there, you start to think about it like it's still the same mission. Totally. The same thing. And that's what I want a lot of the audience to realize is that there's so many things that you might be doing, and you might feel like teaching is the way to do it. You might feel like I have a lot of friends that are teachers that are like, dude, it's pretty tight. Like I'm struggling financially. Cool. Yeah, like I'm a teacher too. Like there's a lot of ways to teach, but and you don't always have to just keep it in that one frame. And I think the world's just gone so wide where you can do the same thing in so many different ways. And I think a lot of people struggle with that.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Do you have any like teachers like that launch their own businesses on the side? Or like what do you see when you try to talk to people like that?

SPEAKER_02 26:10

I've tried it. I mean, some of my friends, I talked to them because I'm like, bro, like, what are you doing? Like, I have a buddy of mine who went into sales and then he wanted to go back into teaching because he really enjoyed that a lot more. And I was like, dude, let me help you with the business side. And he's like, No, like I'm so constrained because he's constrained on time, money, and effort and energy. Yeah, and he's just like not even. I know, and I'm like, that's what I have the struggle with a lot of people where I'm like, Come on, man, you can do this, you have more on like inside of you. So, how did you start?

SPEAKER_00 26:43

I I think on that though, just real quick, I think on that it's hard for people to take the leap to do something they say they want to do because they'll be faced with the reality of maybe they aren't good at it. And that's a tough thing for people to face. And you know, if you're sitting here doing like if that's if that hit you and you're like shit, maybe that's it's all the more reason to do it. Like, no one cares, no one's gonna judge you, and even if they do, who cares? Like, this is your life, you know. So I don't know. I I see that with friends, but I love yeah, I love that because you only have one life.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

So, like, even if you suck at pot, like I was bad at podcasting, I was bad at coaching, but the more you get, the better and better you get at things, and it just takes time. But if you're not gonna put yourself out there to experience that, then where are we going? Because a lot of the fears that people have is fear of failure and fear of rejection. And it's like when you die, you think anyone's rejecting you?

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Like, the worst thing is gonna be in like 20, 30, 40 years, right? Is just be like, I wish, I wish I did this with my time. It's just like, you know, regrets are so I I get it. We all we all get we all get caught up in you know what we think is important today. And you know, being a dad, I I got two boys, you know, and I try and keep that frame as much as possible, which is like when they're like, hey, let's let's go shoot some hoops, let's which I can't play basketball at all, but there's a basketball court down the street, and like even when I feel extremely busy, it's like that's not the most important thing. I got the I I gotta get this email out or I gotta do whatever. It's like in 20 years, in 40 years, like, what am I gonna wish I did right in this moment? Yeah, it's and it's hard to, you know, it's hard to always operate from that frame, but I I think it's it's gonna help it's gonna it I think it helps most people you know be happier with you know just years from now. I think Alex always says like on your deathbed, what do you wish you know you did in that moment?

SPEAKER_02 28:42

And uh yeah, and it's just helpful. A hundred percent. And the big thing is that just financially, it everyone wants to sit there and go, money's the biggest thing. And it's like, dude, that's just the furthest thing from the truth. Like, money is an important factor of it, but having those experiences with the people that you want to have and doing the things you want to do, that's the biggest part. Yep, Mike, for you, I have five pillars. We're gonna go okay. I'm gonna share the pillars with you, and you just tell me where you're at on a one to ten today. It can change tomorrow, it's not a big deal. So on a mental health, let's do it. Yeah, on mental health today, on a one to ten, how do you how do you feel?

SPEAKER_00 29:20

I would say an eight. So from an eight, like especially recently, prioritized a lot more like time with my wife. You know, I have a tendency of just diving into work, right? Wake up, boom, get on the computer, you know, you know, working on some kind of project. And I know even though that feels good, I don't feel I don't feel happy and fulfilled if that also starts to eat into family time and time with my wife, my kids. So it sounds crazy, but like just a 20, 30 minute walk every day. I know it sounds like so simple, right? But like that time to connect and talk, whether it's in the morning or night, whatever, has done so much for us. And so,

Five Pillars Of A Good Life

SPEAKER_00 30:01

yeah, uh why is it not a 10? I'm thinking about an eight. I got away from like hobbies and doing stuff that I really enjoyed for a while. So like I think to make it a 10, it would be like, you know, carving out a little more time for, you know, I I I like I like to golf. I I'm not good at it, you know, getting out of the driving range, shooting some guns more often, like stuff like that, like carving out time to just like do things. Yeah, I gotta say that's probably an eight, you know.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

I like it. I like it. And it it's true because the other big thing I was gonna bring up there is you brought up family time. And most people think family time is like, yeah, we're sitting on the couch watching the same television show, and I'm like, it's not really family time, like the quality versus the quantity. So I think the quality is playing basketball with the kids, going on a walk, having a dinner without the television there. Those are what the quality moments are, and there's so many of us that are just like, I spent five hours with them. Why why don't they talk to me? You guys were both scrolling for five hours. We weren't actually spending time together.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Uh those moments of connection matter. Like I brought I brought my boys, so I'm divorced, and the first couple years of that divorce, I only had the boys like I don't know, 20% of the time, 25% of the time. And over the years, like we've worked up to like I've got them 50-50, like both, and that's just it's just awesome to just like be with them so much more. And like last night I brought them to their hockey rink, and just the conversation in the car, like I it was only nine minutes, but it's just like we're laughing, we're joking, like that matters, you know.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

So yeah, no, that's a huge thing. It really lands. The second one's physical health. On one day, where do you feel physically?

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Oh, I that's yeah, I would honestly right now, I would say like a six or a seven. And a lot of that is because when I we talked about that injury, you know, years ago. You know, sometimes it's just like, man, that pain comes back in my, you know, in my neck, I get headaches, like that kind of stuff. So if I could just snap my fingers, get rid of that, man, nine or ten, but still, you know, explore and all that stuff. And I'm I'm just not somebody ever to do like, you know, pain pills or like avoiding surgery. And then, you know, they said you should do surgery, you should do that. I'm like, I'm doing everything possible to just like go to the gym, move, eat healthy, all the things, and try and get my my body back to you know, optimal without any of that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

So um, but yeah, I think that's really important to have. I mean, what that's telling me is that you're an independent thinker because there's so many of us that are like the doctor told me I need there's other avenues. The doctor likes to do surgery. I also spoke to another pharmacy and he likes to get pills. I spoke to this person and they like to do this. You talk to all people.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

It's crazy how fast they go to push that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

You know, because it's profitable and they like it and it removes it and it's a shortcut. Like there's hard work. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And now community service philanthropy, this could be in your life or in the business. How do you think?

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Oh man. Man, it's it's it's kind of sad to say. I I'd say this has got to be like a zero, and I'm not proud of that at all. You know, and even talking to the kids, it's like the other day we were driving by, we were driving by Starbucks, and Chase was kind of asking about this person that stands out front. You know, he's got a little shopping car and stuff like that, and he's homeless. And I and I guess when I think about it, we talk about how it's important to like understand not everybody has it as well as you, as good as you, and it's important to like give back to the community, but I don't uh there's no like active effort there, you know.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

Yeah, I mean, even in that instance, the next time maybe you could just grab an extra sandwich and then he can hand it to you know what I mean? I just share this because it's so small, like there's such things we can do. Like a few of the ones I've done, and I I'm I'm guilty of this too. I haven't done it in a little while. My wife, she has a stepbrother who he just turned 14, so we went to a game together. But a few years back, we ended up going to Publix, so like a food store, and we picked up water, sandwiches, and like, dude, it was like 40 bucks. Like, it's not that much we went because there's some homeless people and we just gave it out. And he's like, when can we do that again? Can we do it again? Because we're just exposing them to like, hey, we have it, it's okay to give us some, and it's okay to help people. And then even inside a gym launch, like you guys are helping so many people. There's gotta be there's a cool way that we could do a component there.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Yeah, you're not wrong. I mean, years ago, I even think back. So when Alex and Layla, you know, were running the company, they had a massive, you know, effort to give back. I mean, really, like like to the tune of like I won't even say how much, but like all so much money to underprivileged kids and all this stuff. They won, they won some awards for it. And it's just something that you know we got away from. But I I think that's a great to flag that and say, like, we're in a position to help a lot of people and even help other entrepreneurs help other people in their communities, you know? So yeah, I love that. I gotta talk to the team about that.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Yeah, I mean, it could be something as easy as like, hey, like people sign up and then you guys comp one person, give it to them. I mean, it could be an easy way to give for them to give back to somebody in a way that kind of pushes it all down. Relationships. How do you feel on like a one to ten with your relationships? It could be in business, it could be with your with your family. How how do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 35:21

That's an interesting one. So I don't think I could give a number. And the reason for not not one, I feel like there's like two different categories. So, like for me, there's my family, and obviously, you know, people I interface with at work. I feel really great about those right now. But I also see like I've lost touch with people that I really care about, right? In just kind of like the day-to-day of like, you know, work and family and whatever. And you know, whatever it's a it's a holiday, it's a birthday, and like old friends reach out. But I wish I kept some relationships like more alive, you know. So on that side, I gotta make a better effort to be, you know, like more proactive because every time I get together with somebody, you know, they really care about that. It just like it reminds you of like, wow, this matters, this is what it's about, you know. Yeah, um so yeah, I kind of broke the rules there, but no, you're good.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

No, it's a very that's a confusing one. But I actually do this with a lot of my clients where they're like sometimes they're trying to sell stuff, so it's a different way, or they're just trying to get in touch with people. And like the biggest way I found this was so I go to Muay Thai at six in the morning home and it's a 20-minute drive. So that's the time I end up calling my dad because he's the only one up at that time. So, what's up? How are we doing? And that's talking time. And we've been doing that for like two years. So that's an easy place. Another one is like if you go on walks and you're just bored, you just scroll the phone and you're just like, I'm calling someone on this walk, or I'm calling someone on the drive. And how do you how do you make it meaningful in those moments? Obviously, not when there's other people there, but if you're just by yourself and you want to touch base or or even just sending the text of like thinking about you, man, like think you're awesome, like keep it up, whatever. It's a really good easy touch base.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

And then the I'm sure, I'm sure if we all replaced a little doom scrolling with a hello reach out, you know, our lives would be better.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Yeah. 100%. And then the last one is like spirituality or belief. Like, and it's not saying like it's a whole religious thing, it's really whatever you interpret it to be. Um, is there anything that comes up for you there?

SPEAKER_00 37:29

For me, that's that's like for most of my life I was just so logical of just like there's no proof, like God can't, you know, that this doesn't this doesn't make sense, right? Like how none of it made sense to me. And so I was very like almost like against like even entertaining if the Bible could eat, you know, any any of whether it's the Bible or whatever, but just any any kind of thought of like a higher power or anything being real. From a spirit spiritual spirituality standpoint, you know, this past year actually has been really interesting and really like thought-provoking and fulfilling in exploring that with my wife and like having more deeper conversations of like the meaning of things and like so to give a number again, I I don't think I guess yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly, I'd say a 10 because it's something I'm like exploring for the first time in a long time. And it's led to just deeper conversations and connection with my wife in a way that we didn't before. So you know, not not to get into like what I believe or what we're talking about, but it's a it's a it's like a it's an exciting kind of newer place that I've almost like shied away from or ignored for a long time. So yeah, as good as it can be, as as good as it's ever been, really.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

I love that. Yeah, just because I mean the big challenge for a lot of us is that we're so closed off to so many things, and I don't like I'm Jewish, honestly. So for me, it's not so much that it's more of like there is something that connects everyone. There is something. And like people are like, there's a way, like for me, it's like if I go on a run, I know I'm running past people, so I'll just say hi to them. Like it's an easy way to interconnect in a sort of capacity, and then also, like you're saying, like there's a lot of stuff going on in religion, and you're like, do you agree? Do you not agree? Is this right? It's all the iterations, and you start to understand, like with you and your wife, and like, do we agree on this? And then in what I think it really is, is I think we all have our own rules of what we believe, and it's like, do some of these align with them? Do some of them not? It doesn't need a bigger thing to make you guys have rules, but I think it should be good to be like, these are rules that we kind of think about and follow.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

Yeah, and and I think for kind of more color from my side, when I was a kid, my dad was heavily involved in a church, and there's this whole backstory of just like, you know, like bad, like just a bad period of time. Like, and I I had this whole picture of just like, well, that's what religion is, right? Yeah, it wasn't good for the family, there's a lot of stuff going on. And it's like, so I just held that for so long that it limited me in even being open to exploring all the other things, and now I'm to kind of like move past that and just be like, all right, like really just like like we went down to a church in Florida recently. We were traveling and we got invited by some friends, and we went there and was like, this is incredible. Like we had great conversations, the sermon was really incredible. So just I think for anybody, you know, it's not like that one instance, that one experience like has to really mean like that's what it is forever. Same thing as like dating. It's like if you have like one bad, you know, experience, you're not gonna swear off dating forever. So I think at least for religion, like I had personally done that for a long time. And so, you know, kind of past that is just it's leading to I don't know, some some fulfilling conversations and kind of views of the world, and you know, it's a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

I like it. I like it. And Mike, we can go on much, much longer. I feel but where where can people learn more about you and learn more about Gym Launch and what you guys are doing?

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Yeah, I mean, I'm you know, not about me. I mean, I'm I'm on LinkedIn and and Instagram and all that, but from from a perspective of Gym Launch, I mean, if you are a gym owner, like that's who we serve, that's who we're here to help, you know, Gym Launch is you know a business consulting and digital marketing agency, like built to help gym owners grow their business in the way that they want to do it. So you can find us, guys, you know, YouTube, you know, on the web, you know, gymlaunch.com, whatever. And and typically what we do is we just love to hop on a call and have conversations about your business. Like, hey, do you feel stuck? Do you want to grow it? You know, and just our first thing is just like we'll just be we'll have an honest conversation of whether we can help you or not. That's really that's really what we do. And usually it's just like, hey, just tell us how it's going, what are you where you're trying to go, what are the metrics, and let's just let's just see if we can help you.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

I love it. I love it. Awesome.