Success is not an accident: Profitability pitfalls and strategies for fit pros with Dr. Lance Knaub

Hey fit pro’s today we’re going to be spending some time at the intersection of burnout and business. We’ve talked about burnout in the past where it comes from and how you can recover on an ongoing basis but we haven’t really looked at the effect of burnout on your fitness business and how it can affect our bottom line.

 Many of us start as independent contractors in the fitness industry and struggle to break into a sustainable long term business model before crushing burnout and overuse injuries ends our career. Today we’ll be diggin deep into how fitness businesses can support their fit pros and how individuals can find a balance between financial success and self care. 

If you’re a fitness professional as soon as you get that certification you are an entrepreneur. Maybe even before that. That business is you. It’s an integral part of you. Even if you don’t have a brick and mortar shop, studio or gym. I would say especially if you don’t, you need to take extra care to burnout proof yourself because if your body fails your business fails. 

I know how overwhelming all things business is for fit pros in the wellness space. There’s a lot to know and as independent contractors very little support from certifying agencies. And that can lead to trying to do all things and be all things to all of our people. That’s a recipe for burnout no matter what your business is.

So lots to discuss today and my guest today has lots of experience and wisdom to share.

Dr. Lance Knaub, Best Selling author of The 4% Break-Thru, helps entrepreneurs with 6 figure businesses to avoid overwhelm and burnout, and instead create the life they love while they are scaling by developing a leadership team and creating a self sufficient business that is an asset. Lance founded Breakthru Physical Therapy + Fitness which is now operated by a fearless leadership team. 

You can Download a free workbook companion guide to Lance’s Best Selling book

At denaliconsultingteam.com/resources

Let’s start our work IN with Dr. Lance Knaub

As a part of my mission to bring a legacy of resilience through movement, each month you can join me for a hike on the bike trail followed by a free trauma informed vinyasa class back at the studio on Main Street. Go to savagegracecoaching.com to see the calendar and join my newsletter, Yoga Life on Main Street, to stay up to date on all the latest studio news, events and gossip. And now… on to this week’s episode.

It’s time to stop working out and start working IN. You found the Work IN podcast for fit-preneurs and their health conscious clients. This podcast is for resilient wellness professionals who want to expand their professional credibility, shake off stress and thrive in a burnout-proof career with conversations on the fitness industry, movement, nutrition, sleep, mindset, nervous system health, yoga, business and so much more.

I’m your host Ericka Thomas. I'm a resilience coach and fit-preneur offering an authentic, actionable realistic approach to personal and professional balance for coaches in any format.

The Work IN is brought to you by savage grace coaching, bringing resilience through movement, action and accountability. Private sessions, small groups and corporate presentations are open now. Visit savagegracecoaching.com to schedule a call and get all the details.

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Ericka Thomas  0:01  

Welcome back to the work in everyone. Today we are going to be spending some time at the intersection of burnout and business. Now we've talked a lot about burnout on this podcast, where it comes from how you can recover on an ongoing basis, but we haven't really looked at the effect of burnout on your fitness business and how it can affect the bottom line. Many of us start out as independent contractors in the fitness industry and struggle to break into a sustainable long term business model before crushing burnout and overuse injuries ends our career. 

Today, we're going to dig deep into that and look at how fitness businesses can support their fitness professionals and how individuals or independent contractors can find a balance between financial success and their own self care. So if you are a fitness professional, as soon as you get that certification, you are an entrepreneur. And maybe even before that, if you're leading classes and other ways, that business is you, you are an integral part of your business even if you don't have a brick and mortar shop or studio or gym and I would say especially if you don't, you need to take extra care to burn out proof yourself. Because if your body fails, your business can fail. 

I know how overwhelming all those things that are business related are for fitness professionals in the wellness space, we get a lot of confusing messaging around getting paid for what we do. And there's a lot to know. as independent contractors, we get very little support from our certifying agencies to begin with, as far as the business side of things and that can lead to trying to do all things and be all things to all of our people. That is a recipe for burnout, no matter what your business is. 

So there's lots and lots to discuss here and my guest today has a lot of experience and wisdom to share with us. Dr. Lance Knaub is a best selling author of the book, The 4% breakthrough, and he helps entrepreneurs with six figure businesses to avoid overwhelm and burnout and instead create a life they love while they're scaling by developing a leadership team and creating a self sufficient business that is an asset. Lance founded breakthrough physical therapy and fitness which is now operated by a fearless leadership team. You can download a free workbook companion guide to Lance's best selling book at Denaliconsultingteam.com/resources. So let's start our work in with Dr. Lance Knaub.

Hi Dr. Lance, thanks so much for joining us on The Work IN.

Dr. Lance Knaub  2:56  

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. This is a thrilling topic.

Ericka Thomas  2:59  

I know I'm so looking forward to it. I feel like this could be my own personal business therapy session as we go through

Dr. Lance Knaub  3:07  

This is a topic that is just so relevant and so worthwhile to keep front center for all of us.

Ericka Thomas  3:13  

Absolutely, absolutely. So let's start off Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself? And what was the catalyst for you to move from a physical therapy business into business coaching? What was that shift for you?

Dr. Lance Knaub  3:31  

Yeah, so over time, my wife Jody is a doctor of physical therapy as well as myself and you know, in 2004, we dove in without any formal business training and any real business plan, things that I totally advocate for, and unfortunately we survived. We made a lot of mistakes and we're very lucky to have people offer some guidance and mentorship and we survived and over time I fell in love with the book on the business and Michael Gerber language the management work and the entrepreneurial work versus the technician work and develop some business skill which you know, we're going to talk a lot about today I love that expression burnout proof and you know, over time I I really enjoy developing our best people and all of our people really thought of myself as a head coach. And by supporting them and doing something called a development plan which fortunately one of my mentors exposed me to from her time at IBM, one of our our best people, and we actually took on our best people as equity partners. They wanted to run the business so it took about three or four years to work towards that. And in 2018 we did that and then I still didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. I spoke to a franchise broker. I knew I wanted to kind of diversify from a small business right and I was fitness professionals and healthcare professionals are small practices or they're very risky, right? We're not you know, smaller businesses are riskier and certainly fitness and physical therapy businesses are high risk. So definitely do do the basics of investing. So take advantage of 401 k's and those kind of fundamentals and have access to that and we can talk really some specifics on that. So in 2018 Then I went to Podcast Movement to see John Lee Dumas who I really emulate. Self publishing school was there and I'd heard Chandler both the founder speak on entrepreneurs on fire and Lisa, one of their team really helped me connect the dots. I had just decided that you know, the franchises I was too entrepreneurial for that, and I wanted to pay it all forward and just help other small business owners with all the harder and painful lessons learned. So I'd come to that point. And so publishing school I decided to write a book get a little credibility. And then shortly after that, I gathered two groups of people and just started a mastermind one group where existing owners and one was a personal trainer, actually in South Carolina and that would really specialized in Parkinson's. Her name's Nikki and a group of people that were aspiring to start a business. So that was fun. That's how I started I just kind of went for it with some Google meets and put five or six people together and made an irresistible offer. And you know, that was the pivot for sure. And it was scary.

Ericka Thomas  6:40  

Yeah. So what you're talking about so I love this so I love how when you say diversify, I think a lot of people think okay, just investments but what you're talking about is beyond just investing money, you're investing in a lot of different sources of income coming in for your business. Right. And, and, you know, for for us as individual fitness professionals, I think it takes a little bit more creativity when you're a small business to kind of break out of the mold of what you know, your business is what it could be right? To bring in some more, some more income streams to maybe support you so you can do the things that you really, really love to do.

Dr. Lance Knaub  7:28  

For sure because you know, I had brick and mortar risk, we had five offices and obviously the pandemic was a wake up call when I was standing in 6000 square feet at our kind of corporate office or you know, our main office by myself with one client at a time and we had to furlough 50 People I said, I am going to create the smallest possible footprint going forward. So that was a really scary and a wake up call. But even if you're not brick and mortar and you know even that same space, I was still a personal guarantor. And that's scary. Do you know definitely for the fitness people and personal trainers, I know. You know, obviously there's more opportunity to do online and digital and less risk but yeah, diversification and positioning yourself is key.

Ericka Thomas  8:20  

Right? I think I think people do themselves a little bit of harm by just limiting what they think that they can do. I think there's a lot of possibilities out there. If you just kind of use a little bit of imagination and creativity, you can create something really great outside of the box right? And and that could be the next greatest thing out there. Absolutely. So, so let me ask you, because we are talking about burnout here. So you know, just just leading off of what we were just talking about, that could be a lot, right like that's a lot of stuff like writing a book and being on a you know, being on podcasts or, you know, starting a podcast or a blog or website or whatever. And if you're a solopreneur sometimes you wear all of those hats, right? So and a lot of times all of those extra business hats are have nothing to do with what you're trained to do. So, you know, you're coming from physical therapy. I don't know for sure. But in physical therapy school, they probably didn't teach you how to build a website or you know, anything like that. Maybe they did I don't know. Right, well, they alone. So they didn't you know, when I got my personal trainer certification, there was nothing in there about that about marketing or you know, email lists. Or anything business related like nothing, they're just like here, you know how to put together a good workout, go do it. And so So, just like what you you did touch on this about kind of failing forward like making all of these mistakes and sort of falling into your success. And it's really important to kind of shed some fear about that about, you know, making mistakes, because everybody makes those in business. But what are some bits of wisdom that you can maybe share with with individual solopreneurs? Some things that maybe you learned that you wished someone had told you sooner about setting up yourself as a business?

Dr. Lance Knaub  10:38  

Sure. You know, I touched on it and you touched on already. It's the Michael Gerber concept for anyone who doesn't know the E Myth revisited. It's absolutely important and fundamental, I'd recommend checking it out. So when you're an independent contractor, as Ericka has mentioned, or you're you're a solopreneur, you are wearing all hats, so you're better to just face reality and go ahead and map out all the hats. And, and go ahead and map out position descriptions so that you can rapidly replace those hats. Because you are wearing them. You're the marketing director, your operations manager, you know, your payroll, your your everything. Now if you're just managing yourself, right that is one thing and and by the way, I'm reliving this now that I have made this pivot I'm you know, largely a solopreneur right now and I do have someone helping me with some marketing, but I'm I'm reliving wearing all the hats again. So I'm getting to learn it in a you know, in today's world, because in 2004 When I started breakthrough physical therapy, and then we bought the fitness center we were running from and then we you know, pretty shortly after that became breakthrough physical therapy and fitness. So, you know, at that time website wasn't even mandatory and so it is a new world. So I guess to answer your question, yeah. Design an oral board. And by the way, this is really, in our pre interview talk, Ericka and I were chatting about the developing the business skills. And I do think simultaneously and this is kind of what I presented in the book. I think developing yourself is step one. And you know, there's a Jim Rohn saying that, you know, you'll never surpass your level of personal development. So I do think you have to really introspect, look at yourself decides what's important in life. And, you know, and I've got a few different steps in, in doing that in the book or the companion book and then you know, you do need to develop your business skills, and if you're not good enough, you will continue to get slapped in the face. And for me, you know, the reason this topic is so important is in 2011, we had three offices out 30 employees, we just had our third child so all were under the age of four. And I was abusing my body even as a physical therapist, certified personal trainer, running physical therapy and fitness business with a massage therapist and the whole works. And my body revolted and my digestive system stopped working, I couldn't eat I couldn't get nutrition and on top of it I was running to the bathroom nonstop was stomach upset and just, frankly, just diarrhea. I mean, it was the most embarrassing, uncomfortable thing you can imagine trying to treat patients trying to support a team and I can remember in July, standing in front of our entire team at the same 6000 square foot office. And it looks on everyone's face. So you know, I slowly picked myself up and continue to develop myself personally I continue to develop my business skills, and I also integrated a better lifestyle right, I had to lead by example and do that. So again, kind of what you know what I'd recommend on this business skills like an org board position descriptions, systems or processes. Right you might hear either word Michael Gerber call them systems Marcus, ...calls this of processes. And then a business plan is absolutely critical. This is planning part strategy. We've touched on this a lot already today. And then also, as you're building a team, like a gaps assessment, because you won't be good at everything. So if you're a great personal trainer, and you want to be a great personal trainer, you might need when you have the finances to do it to stay profitable. That'd be the first thing outsource then outsource some of your demand creation slash marketing, but you have to have a plan. And be careful not to do it too soon when you can't afford it because then it just puts extreme stress on you and the business.

Ericka Thomas  14:34  

100% Everything you just said really is first of all, thank you for sharing that personal story of of your own burnout work. You're not alone there. I think that your gut will tell you when it's when it's when everything is wrong. And that definitely happened to me too is exactly the same thing. It was all gut related. And I literally was on the edge I was like, am I going to have to quit I thought I was gonna have to quit I'm gonna have to give all this up. I didn't know what was going on. And it really it really kind of humbles you, right when your body just says no more. You have to do things differently. You know, you're you're not 25 anymore, do it differently now. Just learn. So and then I love what you've talked about, you know, just simply making those those those skills list. I think this is important because I think for a lot of independent contractors. That might not be the first thing on their mind. They fall maybe fall into this kind of career themselves. And for a lot of people I think they take for granted the things that they're good at. And so sometimes it's difficult to see the things that you are really unnatural at as something that's really valuable to other people. And when that is really where our value is and it is totally okay if you hate marketing, right? If you're not good at writing emails, or, or creating beautiful graphics on your website, it's totally okay. No one is supposed to be good at everything like that. And you don't have to be and there's a lot of ways to get that support without really, you know, spending a lot a lot of money. Like there's templates out there. There's, you know, all kinds of things that you can use until you're ready to really, you know, drop the money on the extra person on the team. But I love what you said about personal development, because I I've heard you talk about, you know, pouring into your team, you know, developing your team of people supporting those people. And if you don't have that team yet, then that team is you it's your team of one right. So so you can look at that list of okay, these things I'm really good at I don't need anything here. Let's let's look at the things that I could use a little bit more, you know, help and pursue that that's where I should put my money. Is that is that kind of what you're talking about as far as personal and professional development?

Dr. Lance Knaub  17:28  

Definitely. And just to take it a step further, and I just love speaking about this. It's really a development plan is outside of people's reviews so that they can really relax and and think big and you're going to leadership should ask them in advance to think about their shorter term goals and their longer term goals and then go ahead and document that. And then when they're () sits down with them, where their short term goals align with the organization's goals. For example, in my world, a lot of you know, physical therapists would want to manage their location, you know, in a shorter term, you know, one to three years, we'd say, absolutely, you know, we want you to be a manager. So, these are the things that they had in mind to achieve that. And then then we'd also have some things and we document it. And it's not a promise, by the way, but it's a plan that you can support somebody on and then their longer term goals, you know, might be three to five years and our physical therapy and fitness world. And you can absolutely again have somebody become the CEO of your company, right, which is pretty special. And so where their goals and the company's goals align, that's where the magic happens. And frankly, if you don't do this, you will lose not only will not retain your best people, but you will lose them for sure.

Ericka Thomas  18:50  

Yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about turnover. Because we see this a lot in the fitness industry because there's so many independent contractors and it's sort of notorious for in fitness in lots of different areas of fitness no matter what the the format is for people get underpaid. There's a little bit of exploitation. And it's, it's really it's it's challenging on both sides, right. It's challenging for the actual instructor and the coach and it's challenging for the the gym and the studio owner because, you know, everybody wants to pay their people what they're worth, but there's but there's other kinds of support there too. As far as keeping people with you, keeping your team and building a team around you that's going to kind of help you build your business. So what are some other things besides monetary compensation for hours for dollars, because that's really we get into we can get into that burnout when it's only dollars for hours, right? You can only work more hours. That's the only way that you can earn more money. There's got to be other ways to do it. So can you speak a little bit to that?

Dr. Lance Knaub  20:08  

Sure. I think the first thing we should talk about and this is such a fun conversation because the fitness world is unique and you know I know it well and have lived it. You know we in 2004 we sublet it from a fitness center and I saw the way this company ever fit, you know handled things and then within a year and a half we bought it and so we were break through physical therapy and fitness and we supported personal trainers and we had trainers as independent contractors and employees. I guess the one thing we really need to talk about here is as an independent contractor on both sides of the equation, just like you've said people need to realize their their their own company. So would you know McDonald's necessarily bring in XYZ french fries and not McDonald's french fries, maybe not. Probably not, you know, but if something really special, maybe they've got you know, Rita's snowballs, you know, snow ice so I think we just need to really study the equation because if both parties so if a personal trainer is gonna be an independent contractor and therefore be their own company, an organization they need to really sit down with the organization and say, okay, is this a good fit? Because sometimes it might be as an employee, and they can develop those skills and they can really get compensated well, and in my opinion, what we did my approach is to be all in for our team and them to be all in for us. And that was really as part of the team because when they're around, they're their own entity, frankly, they're going to have to wear all the hats and do the marketing. So there's different maybe compensation is going to be different but they have to wear all the hats and the onus probably isn't on the other organization to do you know, marketing, for example, and that hats so you know, it's different. Ericka, does that make sense? 

Ericka Thomas  21:57  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Lance Knaub  21:59  

kind of valuate the equation

Ericka Thomas  22:01  

right it really it's gonna be different based on your personal situation, right. For for an independent contractor who is fine going from one fitness center, to the rec center to the downtown corporate fitness, back and forth and back and forth. You know, that's going to look very different than somebody who's like I am done driving all over the tri state I need, you know, one thing that's gonna be there for me and, and, and that looks very different across the board is in the fitness industry, especially, you know, because I mean, yeah, so many so many things are coming up in my head, historical this is good a

Dr. Lance Knaub  22:48  

sample. I want to hear those and one example of like, maybe an innovation and for you know, our audience to think about is you know, if I was personally an independent contractor, you know, as in the fitness world, I would prefer like a flat rent, because even though I might have bigger risk, you know, I would try to take on a smaller space until I knew I could support it are smaller rent, but then the upside is all mine. Yeah, it's a win for the other side because they have a guarantee payment. Now if you work out some type of relationship or an independent contractor, it's all based on productivity and volume, then yes, problem. Yeah, it's totally different. Like now that personal trainer doesn't have the profitability in the upside. So that's one immediate thing to really consider that doesn't really happen that often.

Ericka Thomas  23:34  

Right? Right. And every and every gym is going to be a little different. And I would just, I would just say I would just pull something out of my past and just bring this up to you. Because there there is. There still is there. I call it like the the MC fitness money machine where you know bigger gyms. will kind of license certain fitness styles or formats that are pre choreographed across the board and then pay for all of the instructors that work there to get their certification under that name and then those instructors basically perform those classes. Those, you know, pre choreographed things, it's very tight. It's very much like McDonald's, they I understand this, this the reasoning behind it because we want to have a certain level of skill. You know, we want it we want it to be we want our customers, our clients to know what they're getting when they walk in the door. But for those instructors then, they are they are tied to to that that certification or whatever is tied to that employment. They can't take it and use it anywhere else if they want to. And because it's pre choreographed, it's the same movements over and over again for three four months and then they get a new thing. At least this was what it was, you know, several years ago, I'm talking like 15 years ago. And then they get their new their new music, their new routine and then they're going to you know, learn it and put it out there again. So you know, while the customers are coming and clients are coming in, they may be getting different types. of movement, the instructor themselves as moving the same exact way over and over and over again, you know, throughout their week. And again, they're limited because, you know, you're somebody else has bought this certification for you. Now you're locked in to this one. You know, you've got this new skill but you can't really scale it right. So this is a problem in and

Dr. Lance Knaub  25:55  

of the for the certification because most of the ones that I am aware of actually reside with the certification reside with the individual.

Ericka Thomas  26:03  

They but the deal was if they bought your certification, then you couldn't use it somewhere else. But it wasn't a general No, it wasn't a general certification was specific. It was like group power like the Les Mills things and it was you know, those those kinds of certifications.

Dr. Lance Knaub  26:27  

I think the point the point that rises up to me is creating win wins because both in my life and my experience both on the physical therapy and fitness side and and personal trainers and with massage therapists, we innovatively created win wins, and we really want to most people would be on our team. And we really want to even innovate. You know, our training model is incentive based, less commission based, a little bit more traditional. But we had a trainer that was with us three, four or five years straight out of college did his internship with us the same university that I went to at Rutgers and joined us and was fantastic. And we had some continuing education allotment, but we wanted to do more and we went on to even offer like paid time off and really, you know, again, kind of offer more benefits. And, you know, really structured like a guarantee that was a commission based now he was not interested in that which was, you know, surprising to me and our leadership at the time. But I do think the takeaway for me right now on this topic is to try to innovate in other examples. We had a physical therapist that was doing their residency with a great company and none of the other companies wanted to participate in that. What we actually did was we made the monthly payment for them, and then they actually paid us back at like 50% off from their incentives. We were confident that they would be productive and earn incentives, which is kind of like profit sharing if you want to call incentives that and so it was a total win win and we got this cream of the crop person out of it and and they got their residency through this company called evidence in motion and they were elite and, you know, again, on the older side of it, you know, another additional when it's like a karate belt system, right? So the more certifications somebody has, right retaining them,

Ericka Thomas  28:22  

yes. So yes, exactly. So here's here's the other piece to this like

So, so a lot of instructors and coaches one of the ways we try to kind of avoid burnout is like collect another certification, like learn something new. Because we don't understand how to balance anything. So we're just gonna do more instead of trying to curate things to be really specific so so we just collect certifications and I have met instructors that have the longest line of letters after their name, like there's just it just goes on forever, but it doesn't really mean anything to anyone. Because it who knows what those letters mean. I mean, it's the whole entire alphabet out of there, right? So we're just collecting certifications, rather than curating a specific niche for exactly what you touched on earlier. something really special that he would, you know, a, a gym or studio would really want that person to be there because they have got this very unique set of skills that not just anybody has.

Dr. Lance Knaub  31:11  

Exactly I believe in value based pricing, and really like our compensation slash, you know, payment, whether we be an entrepreneur or a personal trainer, whatever have we were should be commensurate with the size of the problem we saw. So that's really the definition of an entrepreneur and I think right now the listeners can really think about creating these win wins and problem solving because there is a way there's a man right now I'm studying in real estate investing met enough reo and nurse anesthetist that within two years he created a million dollars in passive revenue from real estate and within four years, he's got $100 million in real estate assets. And he really describes changing his mindset which ties into today's topic, right? That's probably step one. And really introspecting and, you know, developing ourselves and then, you know, solving innovative problems every time there's a property he's going to create solution with the owner. That's a win win.

Ericka Thomas  32:08  

Yeah, I love that. I love that that the compensation should match the size of the problem that you solve. I love that and I think I think that's a mindset shift for a lot of people like they don't look at themselves. If you're, let's say, if you're a personal trainer, do you really look at yourself as a problem solver? Because that's really what you are. But that's not really how we're taught to be a personal trainer, right? That's not really what the certification education is focused on. But really, that's really what we do is we help people solve whatever problem they think they have, and kind of tease those things out. So I love I love that it's a really different way to look at things and that goes outside of personal training. Even you know, group fitness and yoga and maybe even a yoga instructor, right? You got to be able to look at the room and that's basically what creating a class is you're solving a problem whether you're aware of that or not. So that's that's really, really interesting. So what what kinds of issues come up for entrepreneurs that are related to burnout, specifically on the business side? Can we speak to that a little bit

Dr. Lance Knaub  33:33  

I think that if I'm understanding your question, people really don't know how to manage their time. And I guess, if I'm understanding your question, and I just mentioned it in the mastermind, that I just finished for our call. recommended to a really talented entrepreneur and then random who's got a new She's a psychologist and she's doing horse equine therapy with children and and what we talked about was actually establishing her she's doing a good job of creating more whitespace but she didn't know whether that whitespace was to work on the business or like personal I think she needs to decide that break that out one more level, because we definitely need our work on the business time, which we've already talked about versus our work in the business. So for me, it's as a physical therapist or a personal trainer, you know, or massage therapist, whatever that technician work is for you. And you do need to work on the business. However, you also need to create your boundaries for you know, your sleep, and your exercise all the things that you're you know obviously teaching your clients about, and your relaxation time your hobbies, you know, I can just think I just talked to a financial advisor this week, who, on Sundays he still single and Sunday mornings he you know, he sleeps in a little bit but he kind of goes on social and is relaxed and he was sort of feeling guilty for not doing some work. But he also wanted to get back to language which he started during the pandemic and do more hiking which he loves and is passionate about and he's just not doing right now. So he needs to have, you know, what I recommend? It's one of those steps and chapters in the book is creating what some people call a time that by call it a success schedule really you know having clarity on your your priorities in life so that then your guilt free when you've done you know the right things then when it's your family time, your personal time, time to sleep time to your personal development, your reading your journaling, all those good things that you're absolutely doing them guilt free.

Ericka Thomas  35:45  

Yeah, that I think is big right there. Those boundaries. I don't, I don't know. First of all, I'll just raise my hand. I am not really great at that. Like I've never been great at boundary setting and and that is critical. I think the quicker you can set those the the more results you're going to see. I think over time I would, I would think right? I mean that's that's really important and especially if you're a solopreneur if you're your own boss, if you're if you are a business have one like you can set what ever work hours you want. But I know that for myself personally sometimes like I get a week's worth of work done by the end of Tuesday, and then I'm like twiddling my thumbs Wednesday and Thursday, wishing that I had saved some things or feeling like I should think of something else to do. Feeling bad for just, you know, sitting out on the deck with the birds like that. It shouldn't be that way though. Should be okay to do that should be a good way to finish what you need to finish. It's not like you're in the corporate world where you're going to be their nine to five it doesn't have to be a nine to five.

Dr. Lance Knaub  37:04  

Definitely agreed. I think one thing we didn't really touch on. This is part of the introspecting to me, I think that leaders and entrepreneurs should decide if they really want to remain this team of one degree. Think about their vision, their Northstar, and you know, like Tony Robbins says, you know, when he goes to a conference like he just shows up on stage right, and he's credits his team, right? He doesn't wear all the hats anymore. So you need to decide if it's probably good and healthy to be a solopreneur at first and learn as many of the hats and then give them away as rapidly as you can support them financially as we spoke about and make sure it's you know, there's a concept Profit First that I recommend by Mike McCalla its really back into your profitability because even if you're profitable on paper, being cashflow positive after taxes is not the same. So, you know, really pay attention to that. So decide what your vision is. And then make sure you're heading in that direction develop as many of the skills you can but you're not going to be good at everything like we talked about. So I guess for the people that whose vision is is more than yourself, then you I think it's important to realize that you will need develop some leadership skills because you know, as a as a personal trainer, even as a let's say a brain surgeon was the most highly compensated person in the world, right? If you are single brain surgeon, you will still have a ceiling. You can only help so many people and kind of earn so much. However, if you have some leadership skills and you can support 10 brain surgeons right now, you just 10x that sort of ball of revenue that you're supporting and your your value based. commensurate compensation just increased.

Ericka Thomas  38:45  

Yeah, so Okay, so this is a this is a question for you. If you are looking to maybe try to hire out one of those hats. or figure out which hat to hire out first. How do you decide what you can let go of like, is there a process that you can kind of sit down on paper and say Is it always like the thing you hate? To do the most? Or how do you make that choice?

Dr. Lance Knaub  39:22  

Pretty much That's the short answer. I really, you know, the exercise should be like making a list of all the things that you love, all the things that you're great at right and where that alliance you know, you'll still have this you know, org chart or board and you'll decide which hats they are. And then you're going to realize quickly which and often it's the same right people don't necessarily they usually don't. We don't like what we're not good at and people we do like what we tend to be good at. So yeah, but I do recommend rolling up your sleeves for short term because you know, frankly, financially, you won't be able to support hiring out all the things that you either don't like and or aren't good at at first. So, do the best you can learn as much as you can get as profitable as you can as fast as you can. So you can rapidly replace that. And by the way, have that position description. And org board and processes ready to go so that there's not mayhem when you do bring those people on?

Ericka Thomas 40:18  

Yeah, absolutely. Because expectations are important, right? You need to be clear about what you're expecting out of them. And if you don't have those things written down those descriptions of the things that you do for yourself when you're doing that job, it nobody's going to be able to pull it out of your brain for you. And no, we just need to be very, very clear about those things. And I think I you know, I think a lot of what I'm getting from this conversation Lance is that really it is about clarity like this is all about working in to what it is that you want to get out of your business. And if you don't take the time to sit down and really ask those questions. You it's it's going to be difficult to move forward in any way. And and that may be the reason why you're not seeing the profits that you are hoping for. why things are not going as well as your you wish in your business is maybe because you're not really clear on it.

Dr. Lance Knaub  41:23  

So it's most important to you absolutely. Number one and then commit to it may be family it may not be the profits you may want to earn six figures and that's enough or whatever the case may be or you may be focused on your net worth. You know many people are focused on achieving financial freedom and lifestyle freedom and geographic freedom and if those are the case, you need to know that so you're progressing towards that it will not happen by accident.

Ericka Thomas 41:50  

Yes, I love that. It will not happen by accident. I love it. That's fantastic. So Lance, I asked all of my guests on the work in what is your work in something that brings you joy and balance kind of keeps you on track.

Dr. Lance Knaub 42:07  

So when my morning routine is is that and you know it is getting larger and larger and fortunately I can I've created enough space to handle that I'm growing my time for myself and self care and personal development. And I'm very fortunate and humbled and blessed to be doing that. So you know I'm I start my day, you know exercising and you know as a fitness owner owning my own physical therapy and fitness facility that's nice right and have excellent trainers to help support me and guide me. And you know, then I'm eating a healthy breakfast and I'm reading professional books in the morning and I'm reading personal books at night. And under journaling. Journaling is really something I've been probably done six or seven years that I am now pre journaling. I started with a little scripted, you know journal and I created a process for my free journal, and I cross check that with John Lee Dumas has either his Freedom Journal or the mastery journal. I'm in the mastery journal right now, which is amazing. I'm kind of done two Pomodoro rows in the morning and two in the afternoon. So they're kind of just focused blocks with then followed by refresh blocks. So yeah, so my morning routine is a time for myself is I'm trying in 2021 to read 26 books, you know, to get to that holy grail of one book a week next year, hopefully more is really also part of that equation and you know, I'm loving that because I wish you know in my 1413 and a half years of operating but through physical therapy and fitness before you know our partner took over I really wasn't reading much I started reading later this last couple years. And that's definitely another you know, Pearl and secret sauce to expanding your mind and really scaling your business.

Ericka Thomas  44:11  

Nice, nice. What is the best book that you've read recently? What What would you recommend?

Dr. Lance Knaub  44:19  

Wow, so many one it just pops to my mind first is called Umer seriously and it's by two incredibly wise ladies who teach in a business school and Stanford and you can literally when you make someone laugh, you are literally it's mind control. Absolutely changing the chemicals in their brain so that they will like you more and you know want to spend more time with you and by the way want to do business with you. I love that stronger, healthier relationship.

Ericka Thomas  44:54  

I love that I'm gonna go get that book. Sounds awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much, Lance for joining me today. This has been great. Where can people find you if they want to learn a little bit more about what you do?

Dr. Lance Knaub  45:10  

Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. So awesome to talk to the fitness community. I mean, you know, I'm so passionate about really, you know, helping the community be healthier, but also entrepreneurs. That's that's my passion. So anybody wants to spend more time with me? My website is Denali consulting team calm and my email feel free to email me directly Dr. Lance Knaub at Denaliconsultingteam.com. I think some of these links are there. As far as a giveaway. You know, I know this is airing in early in the year and for all of you who are working on your business plan or just want to revise it if you go to Denali consulting team.com forward slash strategy. You will see what I call a jolt which is a fast and functional way to do business plan. And if you take a first cut at that I will gladly spend 20 minutes with you for a call to fill in all the gaps for you. So be strategic, you know the saying of taking action I love to kind of improve that and say take strategic action and I feel like that's the difference maker. And I absolutely think it's positive. It's possible to grow and scale your business and to remain healthy and get healthier and actually to have a healthy, a financially healthy business where you are paid commensurate for the roles you have. And you earn double digit profitability. At the same time. So many entrepreneurs don't pay themselves. Of course when you start to grow your team you're paying everybody else first. You can't make payroll, extreme stresses that way so a few final thoughts and I'm on social as well please check me out follow and anything you need. Also, I do a weekly room and clubhouse to support entrepreneurs. We call it the hot seat. So if you'd like to be in the hot seat, reach out and we basically spotlight you for 30 to 60 minutes and help you with any of your immediate pain points with our expert panel of entrepreneurs.

Ericka Thomas  47:17  

That sounds amazing. I'm going to have all of those links in the show notes dr. Lance, this has been incredible. Thank you so much. Again, such great, great, valuable information. I really, really appreciate you being here.

Dr. Lance Knaub  47:33  

Thanks so much, Ericka. I can't wait to talk to you soon. You too.

Ericka Thomas  47:36  

All the links to get in touch with our guest will be in the show notes and you can find them at SavageGraceCoaching.com along with other free resources to support a growing movement of fit pros on the path back from stress, tension and burnout to radical resilience and results. Thanks everybody. See you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai