EP1, Interview with Matt and Anna

Welcome to Unstoppable by Design, where we talk all things fitness, mindset, and what it means to be truly unstoppable — inside and outside the gym. I’m Matt Terry, and today, I’m joined by my wife and fellow owner of Juggernaut Fitness, as we talk about what Juggernaut truly stands for, the future we’re building, and the kind of community we’re committed to creating.

We are planning to answer questions from listeners in an upcoming episode, please send any questions to info@juggernaut-fitness.com with the subject “Unstoppable by Design”. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode. Remember to follow the Unstoppable by Design podcast, if you haven’t already, and enable notifications so you can stay up to date on all our weekly episodes, which come out on Tuesdays! Drop a review and join me on Episode 2 for a deeper dive into making your own unstoppable blueprint.

Until next time, be well. Be unstoppable.

Transcript

Matt: Let's goooo. Welcome to Unstoppable Design, where we talk all things fitness mindset and what it means to truly be unstoppable inside and outside the gym. I'm Matt Terry, and today I'm joined by fellow owner and my wife, Anna. Anna, how are you? 

Anna: Great. How are you? 

Matt: I'm perfect. I'm perfect.

We're gonna talk about what juggernaut truly stands for the future we're building and the kind of community we're committed to creating. 

Anna: I love it. 

Matt: Let's go. So we got a couple questions, talking points, that were submitted to us. I guess what I'll do is I'll read it out loud and then we'll just kind of talk about 'em.

Anna: Sounds good. 

Matt: Sound good. All right. So we didn't start Juggernaut Fitness from the ground up. We stepped into something already built. What made us believe that this was a great opportunity? 

Anna: I think for starters it was the community. And just being a part of it for seven years at the time? I think before, so it really was like a home to us. So knowing when the opportunity came up. There was such a strong base and foundation that already exists for us. 

Matt: Yeah. I think it was a lot about, like you're saying, the community, the members, felt like home. Back in 2012, out in Facebook land. 

Anna: I've seen it. 

Matt: Young Matt made a post, said that I had a dream, a goal to own a gym one day, and here we are. The opportunity presented itself and we seized it. 

Anna: It was also one of the first things that connected us too.

Matt: Yeah. 

Anna: Is we met through a different CrossFit gym. Yeah. And when we I don't know, on one of our first couple dates we talked about how it was a goal of both of ours to own a gym, so we were like, let's do it together.

Matt: Let’s be unstoppable. All right. Number two, when you took over with Juggernaut, what was your vision on how you'd make it your own while honoring what came before? I think a big focus of that was respecting the work that Keith, the founder, put into building Juggernaut. He started in his garage and he turned it into something great.

Anna: I think it's easy to, it's easy to honor what it was when you believed in it, you know, like we truly believe in being unstoppable and like the forging positive leadership, everything that Keith created. It's something that we aligned with, so we really didn't have to change much. I think we just narrowed in our focus on those elements more and said, where can we take those key components of what it means to be a Juggernaut and drive it more into the community? And I think just doing that, we've just spread the belief and through that has come the growth. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Anna: That we've experienced. 

Matt: Yeah. We created our own core values. Commitment, positivity, respect, and growth mindset. And really we try to factor everything that we do. Decisions and service around those key core values. And really trying to push more of an educational approach as we go. And an empowerment which we'll I think we get a chance to talk a little bit more about too with our mission. But yeah. Yeah, I think we just try to take the great that came before and make it better. 

Anna: Yep. More focused on it, more celebrating it.

Matt: Yep. What's your personal journey with fitness and leadership? How did it lead you here? That's a good one. 

Anna: I, my startup with fitness, if we just start with the beginning of our fitness journey, I had I had really rough experiences growing up as being like a heavier set female in the athletic world of having just positive experiences. Like I was always middle tier athlete. I could do enough to get by and hang my own, but I didn't really excel at anything. And I think starting CrossFit was really nerve wracking. I actually remember the first day that Matt brought me here. I sat in the car and I was crying 'cause I was so scared and so intimidated to come in these doors and now look at us.

But he really pulled me in and the first experience was amazing. I felt so welcomed. I think within the first couple weeks there were things I was doing where I didn't even know I was capable of doing. And so that's the piece that for me at least, really drives like that empowerment piece of our mission.

We're skipping ahead a little bit, sorry. But because that when you feel empowered, there's just so much more comfort that comes from that and it kind of washes away whatever experiences we had in the past. So that's. Joining here has completely rewritten my fitness experience in the best way.

Matt: talking about my fitness journey as a kid not super athletic. Share a funny story. Senior year tried out for baseball. I didn't, not only make or didn't, not only get cut from varsity, I didn't make JV either, so

Anna: And look at the size of your biceps. They didn't want those? 

Matt: lesson in life. Started to focus on fitness from there. Talking about our first time here man, Juggernaut. Coming to Juggernaut for the first time was scary in the beginning 'cause we knew that this gym had its stuff together. Like we knew there were standards, there was movements. We didn't know if we were up to task. We didn't know what it would feel like. And from the moment we walked in, one of our coaches, Jason Mangiardi, took us under his wing, like first class 

Anna: right away. I remember walking and he was like, you come here. 

Matt: He wasn't the coach at the time. He was just a member. 

Anna: Just a member. 

Matt: And it was, it's been consistently like that for our experiences. From that day on, it was just being taken under wing shown what to do, guided, and really trying to uphold that to today as well. The second part, talking about leadership. So what's our journey with leadership and how did it lead you here? You wanna talk about that first? 

Anna: Yeah. Mine, I guess didn't really start from like direct leadership. I actually, so my degree is in physical education and through, I guess you could say that there's an element of leadership in educating, I networked and I met somebody who was opening a gym locally who felt that what I was learning through becoming a teacher transferred really well to what she was trying to accomplish in her gym. So that really started the coaching side, that leadership side of things. And then I think I've always just naturally gravitated towards trying to lead. Like even thinking in school, right? Projects, like I was the first one that would start like driving a project and like getting a group together. So I think there's just elements of being a leader that start really young and come out and eventually through day jobs I found myself in leadership positions and more coaching. Like I coach for a local school soccer team for a little bit. I've done some basketball coaching. Those are all just different forms of leadership. Same elements apply and. It's kind of my journey in a nutshell of how we're here today. So 

Matt: yeah 

Anna: a couple different places. 

Matt: Like you, I've been very fortunate where I've had different leadership roles throughout my life.

I had a lot of great leadership role models. A lot of people that exemplified really good leadership through my life that I learned from, took things from put in. I think that the best type of leadership that I found always came from like a help first mentality. Yes. More of that servant style leadership, which for clarification is not, here, let me do your job for you. It's how can I help you succeed? And I think those are the same types of guiding principles that we bring in here through Juggernaut to help people with their fitness journey. We can't do your fitness for you but we can give you the tools to succeed. 

Anna: yeah, we can open all the doors. I think it's like even here today, right? Using that help first you see somebody, everybody gets frustrated at some point, right? You see it on the floor. Someone's getting frustrated about a movement and it starts with how do I help you? What are you frustrated with? And I think like where both of us are, I think our leadership experiences started through team sports.

And I don't know about you, but I know for my team sports, like we were really encouraged to have that like team help environment. Which I think that's where having a good mentor started for me anyways, is having those coaches be like, you need to help each other. And you guys are one team where I think some people may not have that and get tossed into a leadership position as an adult with zero training on how to be a team, how to lead, how to help first, and then you really just get those like driving managers, as some would say, and it feels like it doesn't come from a place of caring. So I think our backgrounds really help us achieve what we're trying to do here. Because it stems from that helping first space. 

Matt: Yeah. I think we're able to be good role models. Alright, so in your words, what does Juggernaut Fitness stand for? We've got our mission which is to be the leading fitness facility in the Lakes region we wanna dedicate ourselves to educating and empowering our members so that way they're living sustainable, healthy and well. 

Anna: Yeah. I think when we put that together, of a lot of what we've shared already of like where education is important to us, where empowerment is important to us, bringing that to a space where we can share that with everybody.

I know for me the piece that really resonates is like I shared being a heavier set female through high school. I think many of us can understand or at least empathize with what might come with that. Like I definitely was bullied and picked on, and so I tried probably like every quick fad that I saw online, we bought every DVD, we got the tie bow, we got like the bow flex.

I mean we, we got it all. P-90x. There was the dance into the oldies By what Rich Simmons, I think. We did the 21 day fix, like you name it. I have tried it and through that. I think I caused more damage than I benefited myself and now I have all these things I have to work through mentally and physically to overcome a lot of that trauma you could say, to my body.

So to me, trying to educate the community, whether it's internally or externally to our gym, that this is not- you don't deserve that. You know what I mean? You deserve to know, what is right for your body and feel empowered to make those decisions for yourself. Not because somebody else is saying this is the new hot thing. And there's probably an unreal picture being posted about it, like educating you enough to make the best decisions for your body and then giving you the confidence so you feel empowered to do so and not fall victim essentially to what society is telling you to do. 

Matt: Yeah. Yeah, I think so we kind of jumped ahead a little bit talking about why the mission to educate and empower is so important to you. I want to piggyback off that a hundred percent agree. I think the education part of it is huge. From my background, when I started working out, I was just doing stuff in my basement at my parents' house and I thought I had good form. I ended up hurting my back with a deadlift 'cause the barbell was too far away from the body.

Pushing myself. Where the form wasn't there first. So if we're coming from an education side with Juggernaut Fitness, we want people to move well. Teach them to move well. Figure out what percentages feel like so we can be smart about building and training. That's, I guess that's the most important piece for me.

A lot of people think that we can do fitness by ourselves without a coaches. Some of us are pretty successful but the majority of us need help. Need that education, need that reinforcement, that empowerment that we're doing it well, 

Anna: especially with what we do, right? We're not sitting in a class doing bicep curls.

We are doing, we might have some of 'em sometimes, but the base of what we do is functional fitness. So we are preparing you for whatever comes up in life. And so it's very important to us that we make sure through education, that you're doing those things correctly. So you can do them as long into life as you can.

It's about. That longevity expanding not only your lifespan, so helping you live longer, maybe nineties, right? And your health span. So yes, you might live until 90, 95, but you lose independency at what? 60. So those last 30 years, are they even enjoyable? Where we wanna extend your health span to 85, like right up there, like you're an independent person because we've taught you how to move well, we've educated you on that.

So you are strong through all. Angles, levels of movement, right? And you know how to do it. You've been educated and empowered. 

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. 

Anna: We're gonna change your life. 

Matt: What makes our gym different from any other space out there? Any other fitness space out there? Honestly the fact that anybody of any ability can walk in our doors and do the workout because a coach is there to help scale. We're able to guide people to hit the same stimulus, hit the same relative intensity of the workout intensity for them whereas maybe you don't get that in another place. You could be going to like a Globo gym nearby or something like that and thinking that you're doing the right things.

Here you've got a coach to help you. Anybody, any, I mean we have programs that take people who haven't been active in, could be years. And then we have programs that are designed for an athlete who's 55 plus. Really can accommodate all types of fitness. 

Anna: Yeah, and I think of just to relate to that a little bit more too is we've had even in just this last week stories on this that have come to us, right? We have a family member who was talking about going to a global gym and how she doesn't know what she's doing. Like she's going there, she's moving. She will do an hour plus cardio, but wants to explore weights and build more muscle mass and look more tone. And she flat out mentioned to us that she's I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know who to ask. And that's where we stepped in and we're helping her. But that's a big piece that makes us so different I think is you can ask anybody in here and you can trust it because we do educate our staff. Man our staff is topnotch, like, the qualifications that they have is incredible. I think that really steps us light years ahead of many other gyms in our area, but then that we flow that down so we don't just keep it with us. We try and give as much information to everybody as we can. That's again, the empowerment and the educating aspect of it. So you can take everything out of here and apply it anywhere in life.

There was another thing that you mentioned, and I had a story. 

Matt: Maybe it'll come back.

Anna: Oh, the accessibility that anybody can do this. I feel like you might see like ads or just gym owners, being biased and saying that anybody can do this. But I have at least five or six people on Saturday alone, so yesterday telling me that they love how accessible this is anybody can do it. We modify for everybody. And that's the stuff that changes lives and truly makes a difference. 

Matt: Yeah. Alright, so when someone walks into Juggernaut for the first time, what do you hope they feel? 

Anna: I hope they feel how we felt when we first started. I was terrified. And I came in and within seconds I felt safe. I felt welcomed. I felt like I was, had been here for years. Everybody already knew me somehow. I was greeted by my name. And it was my first time. That's incredible. To feel like people care that quickly. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Anna: I don't know who else does that.

Matt: Yeah. I want people, and I hope that they feel this way when they walk in, but I want them to be excited, you know, supported. And excited to start their fitness journey with us. Excited about what they might be doing today, what they might be getting into, who they might meet. I want them to feel welcomed and seen. And at the end, I want them to feel a little celebrated too. 

Anna: Yeah. And I want them to see that our actions align with our words. When we say things are accessible and we say, this is for everybody, I want them to open that door and say, wow. I do see every kind of person here. I do see smiles, I do see modifications. I think you'll see that whenever you open the door. 

Matt: Yeah. What kind of community are we trying to build within the gym walls?

Anna: I would say a community that lives everything we just mentioned ultimately. A community that creates a safe space, a community that cheers on and celebrates each other. A community that truly wants everybody here to win and succeed. 

Matt: Yeah. I want a place where it's safe to fail. I want people to show up put their best foot forward, and if they didn't succeed in some way, or didn't hit what they were intending to, I want it to be something that was learned. You can take away and be like, Hey, you know what, next time I see 30 toes to bar, or next time I see 30 wall balls- instead of breaking it up the way that I did, I'm gonna break it up this way instead. Yeah, just learn your comfort zones and learn how to push past them. 

Anna: Yeah. 'cause no matter like what phase of life you're in, it's always going to change. And creating a space where, regardless of what phase of life you're in, you're allowed to go through those changes here because we're just gonna help you and support you through it. 

Matt: Yeah. Celebrate you along the way. 

Anna: Yes. 

Matt: How do we make sure every member, regardless of fitness level, feels like they belong?

Anna: The wins, the celebrating. A lot of, like we're a standard gym and we have, we're a standard CrossFit gym and we have that leaderboard, but we don't put a lot of focus on it. We have that really because the system has it, we push people to enter their scores so we can track their personal best and we can celebrate them.

We celebrate a lot. We're really trying to put some focus there. But I think that is, whether you're a beginner, whether you've been here for 10 years, there's always something new that we are doing. And sometimes, we even celebrate just mindset shifts. Because sometimes if you are here for 10 years plus, PRs aren't as regular after a while. So it's really the mindset shift of I saw you approach that differently. That's huge. Recognizing those small things. We give a lot of attention to our coaches and our staff development on like how to recognize those things and communicate effectively to people so we really can make sure that what we say lands and so people feel it.

Matt: Yeah. I think a big thing that a lot of people don't see is how much our staff communicates with each other in celebrating member wins. So behind the scenes. If you hit a PR in class or you challenge yourself in some way, or recently, I have ninja’d some weights and swapped out some weights on people. If you are doing that and you are winning and you're doing these shifts, these mindset changes our coaches communicate with each other that way. Next time a coach that maybe wasn't there for that day of your win, they're gonna mention it to you and they're gonna be like, Hey, nice job on that 17 inch box step ups you challenged yourself by adding just a little bit extra onto that 16 inch box. Good job. And I think that goes a long way in helping members feel valued and seen and cared for. 

Anna: Yeah, I think it means a lot when the whole staff knows about it instead of just the coach that was there.

Matt: Especially 'cause our staff really cares.

Anna: deeply

Matt: On a personal level, like your success is our success too. So it's hand in hand. So actually this question is geared for Anna. 

Anna: Oh boy. 

Matt: As the CEO and a woman in a leadership role, what has your experience been like in the fitness industry?

Anna: I have been asked this a couple of times actually, and I think the overall perception is that the fitness industry is probably male dominated, which I would for the most part agree. I don't know. I don't know why it is. I don't know if it's a space of like fear for other females. I see more of it coming up, right? There's more females posting online and things like that. Maybe that's just my algorithm. But I've only ever had one instance where I would say I was faced with a challenge due to being a female in the fitness industry. And it was just in the very beginning. And I think ever since. I just lived our values, right?

Like I stayed committed to the path. I had a growth mindset. Like I learned from that experience. What did I need to own that allowed for that experience to happen? And I corrected it, and I think here we are. I just have an incredible support system. I think really that's what matters. If I didn't have you. This could be a whole different stop it. We could be in a whole different space, but I've had a, I've honestly had a really good experience, but I've had you with me the whole time. 

Matt: What does being un this one's for me looks like what does being unstoppable by design mean to you personally and professionally?

All right, so we came up with the name Unstoppable By Design. The words or the word unstoppable means literally can't be stopped. So I want that to be the focus. I want the focus of the podcast to create something, help people be things that cannot be stopped. When we say by design we’re looking at making intentional, purposeful, predetermined decisions, like we're making habits, we're making strategies. We're making lifestyle choices with the intention that were becoming unstoppable. So the stuff learned in this podcast, the stuff that we're gonna share, is all geared towards helping people be unstoppable by design with intentionality and purpose. So it's, yeah, it's near and dear to my heart.

Anna: Yeah. I don't have much more to add to that. It's that simple, right? Like you don't just wake up and you're unstoppable. You have to make choices to get there. Yeah. There's a level of discipline required in order to become unstoppable. Not motivation. Discipline. Discipline comes first.

Matt: Yeah. It's more than just relentlessness 

Anna: yeah. And we're gonna educate and empower you to get there. Put that in there. 

Matt: How do you want Juggernaut to impact people's lives beyond just the physical transformation? Good question. 

Anna: Mindset. 

Matt: Yeah, 

Anna: that growth mindset is in, in our values for a reason.

The I was talking to a member last week actually, and I was asking like, how would what does fitness mean to you? And immediately they were like, it's more than just the physical. It's about what goes on in between your ears and like I mentioned earlier is how quickly coming in here, I discovered that I could do things I never thought I could do.

What that does for your mindset, it makes you unstoppable. You just gain so much more confidence and seeing that happen right in front of your eyes on a daily basis is such a fulfilling, incredible thing. So I really love focusing on the accessibility 'cause I want people to come into our doors who aren't there yet, who don't know what they can do, and I wanna show them. I think that's so incredible. 

Matt: Yeah. I think I like, just beyond the physical transformation, I want people to see how strong they are, like you're saying mentally, socially. And I think there's nothing more powerful than a confident person who knows they can do hard things 

Anna: anywhere in life.

Matt: Yeah. 

Anna: At work. At home, 

Matt: yep. 

Anna: Walking the street. 

Matt: Yeah. We start to see things not as just the end of the road, we start to see it as an obstacle to work your way around. And so I think, yeah, we make confident people who know they can do hard things. 

Anna: Yeah. And it's if somebody who hasn't done this yet, you might be hearing this and thinking, I don't understand how lifting heavy weights or running a quicker mile or even becoming more flexible can transfer into life outside of the gym. But it can, when you struggle consistently, right in the gym, we're always gonna be encouraging you to do new things and to try new things, and you're gonna win and you're gonna win and you're gonna win.

And at some point having a struggle or something challenging, just no longer becomes a fear because you know you will win. So now it becomes exciting. You're like, I'm gonna overcome this. And there's not a lot of people in the world that think like that. There really isn't. How, like I think I can count on one hand of how many people function like that, who don't come to our gym.

Matt: Yeah. Building that routine, that habit.

Anna: That mental toughness, that grit. You just know the confidence. 

Matt: So where do you see Juggernaut Fitness and this podcast going in the next five years? 

Anna: A big piece of this is driving us towards our mission of becoming the best in the Lakes region, and that really comes largely from that empowerment and education piece.

Like I would love for people to tune into this podcast regularly to be like, what can I learn today? How do I become unstoppable? Yeah. I'm going into a tough meeting or a tough presentation at work. What can I learn from this podcast today? 

Matt: Yeah I would say where do we want Juggernaut Fitness to go in the next five years?

I want Juggernaut Fitness to be the name in the Lakes region for a fitness facility. I want people to come to us. I want people to feel good about themselves when they leave. I want them to keep building a better them like what you're saying for the podcast. I think that this is a great tool that we can use to, to speak to people outside of the gym, outside of our community. Educate them, which is one of our missions. And just help people get there. 

Anna: Yeah. Help first. Help 'em become healthy. Help 'em learn. Help 'em become confident. 

Matt: All right, we got two more. What keeps you motivated when things get tough?

Anna: this place as a whole, like even if I am not working out. I still wanna come here 'cause I wanna see other people changing, becoming better, their wins, their celebrations. Like you, you can't, like seeing that's the impact that we make on people's lives here can get me out of any mood.

Matt: Yeah. This, man, this place. Like the coaches the members. Can both speak to having gone through very tough times. And this personally was a huge help. Just the coaches checking in on me, making sure that I'm good, members checking in, being encouraged to push yourself. When I think of tough times, I can, I think of also stressful times. And there's gonna be a podcast episode coming episode like three or four or something. And it's gonna be about stress management, so we'll talk a little bit more about those things in the future. But yeah, getting through tough times. This place, a hundred percent. This community, this gym. Yeah. 

Anna: Yeah. Like we mentioned earlier, right? Like we want people to feel safe, seen and heard. And this is a big piece of it. Like we recognize it. I remember we had one an athlete not too long ago over the winter that kind of. Fizzled away a little bit, right? We didn't hear from 'em in a while, and then I don't know if we were just all in the same wave wavelength, but I reached out and I was just like, Hey, just checking in. How are you? I know this time of year is tough. And they told me that they had four other coaches and then three members reach out that day.

So I was the eighth person something on that day, like we were all, were like. Hey, I haven't seen you in a little bit. How are you doing? Where are you? We've, there were some posts made on social media that could, you could just tell they weren't in the best head space. The next day they were here and they were like, I don't know why I didn't come here, it's what I needed the most. So it's just the coaches see you, the members see you. You really build an unstoppable community for yourself by coming here. I don't know. I don't know. It's just the name is everything. 

Matt: Yeah. If you could- this is the last one. It looks like this one's for you, Anna. If you could give one piece of advice to women who wanna lead, what would it be? 

Anna: In a nutshell, just be you. I think women, regardless of who we want to admit it or not, are a little bit more emotional. And or empathetic I should say. So we tend to maybe try and fit the mold of what other people want or what we perceive of what other people want. But honestly, just be you because you're not in the space that you are by being something you're not.

Something deep down, rooted inside of you is driving you to make the decisions that you are making and is getting you to where you are. So just trust them and believe in them and again, have good support. Because we all need a strong sounding board that has a similar belief system, and I think having that is also really important.

Matt: Awesome. All right. That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening, joining Anna and I and talking about where we want to steer Juggernaut Fitness, what we envision for Juggernaut Fitness I guess in the future episodes. I guess episode number two coming out is gonna be about designing your own unstoppable blueprint.

So tune in for that and make sure you follow the podcast. You can get some notifications. We wanna hear from you too. We want questions just like these ones from our members, from the community. So if you're watching this and you wanna submit a question just send us an email, send it to info@juggernaut-fitness.com.

Just put the title Unstoppable by Design and throw in some fitness related questions and we'll answer 'em in upcoming podcasts. You got anything else? 

Anna: No, this was great. Thanks for having me. 

Matt: Yeah. This is good. I guess until next time be well, be unstoppable. We'll see you later.