This episode of “Run a Profitable Gym” was recorded live in Dallas, Texas, during a meetup of the world’s best gym owners—some of whom are featured in Chris Cooper’s latest book, “Millionaire Gym Owner."
Host John Franklin sits down with Taryn Dubreuil of CrossFit Function and Joleen Bingham of 13 Stripes Fitness. Both Taryn and Joleen are Two-Brain mentors and certified millionaire gym owners.
Tune in to hear Taryn's and Joleen’s individual paths to success—from hitting rock bottom to reaching and exceeding $1 million net worth. For both, it all started with building a profitable gym and then reinvesting wealth somewhere it can compound.
To read more stories and see how other gym owners achieved millionaire status, get your copy of “Millionaire Gym Owner” today.
Links
"Millionaire Gym Owner" by Chris Cooper
Gym Owners United
Book a Call
1:13 - Taryn's and Joleen's paths
12:35 - Gyms as cash-flow generators
17:56 - Investing in real estate
27:40 - Staying focused on a plan
32:07 - Impostor syndrome
34:10 - When are you ready to create your own plan?
This episode of “Run a Profitable Gym” was recorded live in Dallas, Texas, during a meetup of the world’s best gym owners—some of whom are featured in Chris Cooper’s latest book, “Millionaire Gym Owner."
Host John Franklin sits down with Taryn Dubreuil of CrossFit Function and Joleen Bingham of 13 Stripes Fitness. Both Taryn and Joleen are Two-Brain mentors and certified millionaire gym owners.
Tune in to hear Taryn's and Joleen’s individual paths to success—from hitting rock bottom to reaching and exceeding $1 million net worth. For both, it all started with building a profitable gym and then reinvesting wealth somewhere it can compound.
To read more stories and see how other gym owners achieved millionaire status, get your copy of “Millionaire Gym Owner” today.
Links
"Millionaire Gym Owner" by Chris Cooper
Gym Owners United
Book a Call
1:13 - Taryn's and Joleen's paths
12:35 - Gyms as cash-flow generators
17:56 - Investing in real estate
27:40 - Staying focused on a plan
32:07 - Impostor syndrome
34:10 - When are you ready to create your own plan?
Welcome to Run a Profitable Gym. This episode was recorded live with host John Franklin in Dallas, Texas, for a meetup of some of the world's best gym owners. Some of them will be featured in Chris Cooper's upcoming book, millionaire Gym Owner. It'll be out early this year and we'll tell you how to get it. Now. Here is John Franklin
Speaker 2:With me today. I have two special guests, two millionaire gym owners , uh, soon to be featured in the forthcoming book, millionaire Gym Owner, all the way. I , if you're watching <laugh> , you can see what I'm doing, but if you're listening, you can't , uh, all the way towards the back we have Aryn Dubill of CrossFit function. And then closer to me here is Jolene Bingham of 13 Stripes Fitness. Nailed it. Yes. Perfect. Alright , and so both of you are two brain mentors. Uh, people are who are in Two Brain are probably familiar with you. For people who are not familiar , uh, let's go and we'll do a quick, you know, 32nd to one minute buy of how you ended up getting into owning a CrossFit gym. Maybe kind of the, the bottom for you in that journey and , uh, how you ended up at this chair talking , uh, as a, as a millionaire gym owner today. So, Terryn , why don't , why don't you kick us off
Speaker 3:30 seconds. Let's go. Went into a global gym when I was home from university. Saw two guys working out in the corner doing something crazy, was interested, showed up at 5:00 AM the next day. Found out it was CrossFit. Loved it first workout Addicted. Later, a couple months after that, the gym burned down and
Speaker 2:Like literally, yep .
Speaker 3:Literally it's insurance fraud. Long story, <laugh> <laugh> . We were standing on a building across the street watching this thing burn down and the person I was standing with said, if we were ever gonna do this, now would be the best time. Small town, you know, really great opportunity. You know, I was fresh outta university. Did not go to school to own a business, that's for sure. And turned around later that year and started CrossFit function. That was 14 years ago. So it has been quite a journey along the way.
Speaker 2:2010 was , uh, yeah, that was when you Yeah , that was when you started
Speaker 3:First day. I mean, I ran the business. It was, it was a hobby business for sure. I , I designed the gym to be something I could train for regionals to eventually try and get to the games and that was my sole purpose. It was cool that there were other people to be there along for the ride with me, but it was a hobby business. Definitely the first day of the Covid Lockdowns, I mean in Canada it was quite extensive. I realized that, you know, this is a make or break point and I'm not gonna let the government dictate the success of my livelihood happening. So I had followed Coop for a very, very long time. You know, 10 years at that point probably. Uh , it was the next logical decision to hire a mentor to help me get through that part and also just like make my business profitable. 'cause I was 50 K and dead at that point.
Speaker 2:10 years in,
Speaker 3:It was eight years at that point. Okay. Yeah. Wasn't paying myself. Like, I checked all the boxes of like an unsuccessful business owner, followed the directions to a t from my mentor and, you know, turned that business around black and white from two and a half months in, you know, it was insanely profitable during a lockdown. So really fast growth enabled me to do a lot of things to check the boxes off my perfect day. And that kind of has led me to where I am today, I guess you could say.
Speaker 2:And what about you, Jolene?
Speaker 4:So, my story's a little bit different than hers in that I was , um, actually at home when we decided to buy a gym, my husband was working out with a current gym owner and he looked at him and said, Hey, I wanting to sell. Do you wanna buy? So I got a text message saying, Hey, this would be cool. We could buy a gym, work out with our friends, hang out, be some easy money for us. Well , you know where that's going, <laugh> , right? We all know the story of that. It's passive,
Speaker 2:It's passive,
Speaker 4:It's passive. You just get to work out all day long. Uh, we actually bought our first gym when my middle child was 10 days old. Um, I remember sitting in the hospital bed answering emails, 'cause we had taken over running some of it at that point after I had him answering emails from clients. Fast forward to about eight months later, realizing that we were just, we had no idea I was a teacher at that time. I had no idea how to run a business. It wasn't just going in and working out with your friends all day. And so I remember looking for something and I found Two Brain . And at that point it was kind of at the beginning of really taking on clients and doing a call with Chris Cooper himself at that time. So my first call with Two Brain was with Chris Cooper sitting on the floor of the massage room in our gym, because there was nowhere else I could have a conversation and realizing that I had no clue what I was doing and needed help. So we started mentorship and I don't think I was quite ready to listen to everything at that point. So it took lockdown for us as well to realize that, oh wow, we really, we really need to do exactly what they're telling us to do. Um, and Covid was really the turning point in my business, and I say it's the best thing that ever happened to us. I
Speaker 3:Say that too.
Speaker 4:Yeah. We, we doubled our revenue from before Covid to after Covid because of realizing that we just can't do things the easy way. We've really gotta take things and do it the right way.
Speaker 2:So it sounded like you just ate for eight years trying to figure it out on your own. Then you joined the program, and I remember you were like the rising star in the program. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , you , you hit pedal to the metal , you were just , uh, shot to the top really quickly and then you realized it early on, but then ate with a mentor and then had the forcing function of COD and that's when you started to, to rock it as well, right? Right . Yep . And so, you know, you , you guys both mentor other gym owners. Now, do you like, I I'm not gonna wait for the next covid , you know, what , what is that? How, how do you get people to, to be coachable? You know, how do you get people to take the action that, that they need to do in order to see that inflection point? Or is it just something where you , you gotta , you gotta struggle for a little bit to , and , and hit bottom before , uh, before, before making that happen?
Speaker 4:So for me, one of the things is being willing to ask them the hard questions. Um, I have a very, very strong why about why I do what I, I do. I have three kids. I want to give them the lifestyle that they deserve and I wanna build a legacy for them and asking them questions of the gym owners of, do you want to spend the years that I spent kind of wasting time struggling doing all of this? Or do you wanna fix the problem now? 'cause we have a solution to the problem? Are you willing to put the work in now or are you just gonna flounder along for a couple years? <laugh> ?
Speaker 3:And I find that like a , sometimes the inaction is, you know, indecision or a lot of hesitation or, you know, just wanting to continue doing what you were doing, but obviously what you were doing isn't working. 'cause that's why you and I are sitting facing each other right now. But I have been there, I've made those mistakes along with all the people that came before me to set the precedence of what does work and all of the 900 other gym owners that are doing it too , we like, if anything, we know that this stuff works. So my job is just to meet 'em where they are, simplify it as simple as I can, and give it to them in a dose that is gonna be appropriate and applicable for them to do it.
Speaker 2:And I know you , you were also pretty high level CrossFit athlete, right? Like
Speaker 3:At the time? Yeah. Yeah .
Speaker 2:So that was probably your focus when you were getting started as well?
Speaker 3:No, by that time I had like, quote unquote retired, but I was, I was really deep into being a semi-professional referee basketball referee.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, we're not gonna go deep down that hole <laugh> , because I don't think a lot of people are gonna , you know , empathize with being a semiprofessional basketball refer .
Speaker 3:So that required a ton of attention and time and desire and energy and effort, you know, equivalent to what that life of being a competitive athlete was. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we're here, we're , there's, there's a little over 70 people coming in these sessions. There's a lot of transparency, there's a lot of vulnerability, there's a lot of talking about numbers. You know, I'd say only like a fraction of 1% of gym owners ever reached that million dollar net worth threshold. You guys were both able to do it. And I think you went from kind of a dead stop to hitting it relatively quickly. What do you think, like, we talked about what the forcing function was, but, but what do you think like helped you get to that point faster than others in, in that short span of time?
Speaker 4:I could say, for me, it's, it's very clearly defining my vision where I wanna be and then identifying the steps that I need to take to get there. So we had to identify, all right , we're making this money, we've got money coming in, we have two options. We can invest it in something that's going to make us more money, or we can spend it, well, I don't wanna spend it, I wanna invest and make more money with it. But I think one of the biggest mistakes that I see around me is that not identifying what that is and what your risk tolerance is and , and what's gonna make you happy to invest in. So for us, it was taking the time and saying, this is the strategy we're going to use and we're gonna stick with the strategy and it fits our vision and moving forward with it and not getting sidetracked by other distractions of what other people are doing.
Speaker 3:I went, you know, my perfect day was all about moving to Arizona to get out of the cold Canadian winters.
Speaker 2:She lives in Saskatchewan, by the way, which
Speaker 3:Is minus 50 winters.
Speaker 2:It's like the, if you ever watch a Mad Max movie, it looks like that just colder
Speaker 4:<laugh>. Well, and if you're, if you're in the US minus 50, which she's saying is minus 67, so it's even worse. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Yeah . Fahrenheit, just
Speaker 2:Imagine the worst place and then make it worse. And that's Saskatchewan. So Okay. I can see how your perfect day was to get outta there. Exactly.
Speaker 3:And so for me it was like, well, I don't wanna lose my golden goose, which is the gym, and I want to amplify it for as much as I can make it work for me in order to , to allow me to not have to be there, not have it depend on me and still funnel me the same amount of money. And so it was like, well, what things need to happen in order to do that first before I can even look at something like acquiring property and doing what I needed to actually in Arizona, you know, so higher level things like full-time staff, gm , you know , getting all the systematic things in place so that I knew that I could not have to be depe , like the gym would not be dependent on me and I could turn my back away from it to go and focus on the things I needed to learn and acquire to relocate my life.
Speaker 2:So yeah, just for clarity, if you are somebody who isn't doing like 50, 60,000 in net owner benefit, meaning like , uh, you're not pocketing around 5,000 a month from your gym and all your add-backs , um, this probably isn't gonna be the most actionable one because , uh, what what we're really focused on here is if you are a gym owner who is starting to see that first level of success, you are starting to pay yourself a little bit. You know, two brain has so much content to help you get to that point if you're not there. But once you get to that level of success , uh, where you have a little disposable income, you can, you can buy some nice things, you can make some new investments, the decision tree gets a lot wider and a lot of times people will get successful and that's when they start making really , uh, stupid and expensive mistakes. And I think you guys have, have largely avoided some of the pitfalls. One of the things that I'm hearing from both of you is just clarity and vision. Yeah . And that's something that no matter where you are in your journey, you wanna be very clear on, on what the destination is. And so I noticed neither of you have multiple gyms, right? No . And and why is that?
Speaker 4:Well, I had multiple gyms at one time. Um, and I sold it because of what you just said, clarity and ability to focus on one thing. At one time, I was doing a really poor job. I didn't have the systems in place at that point of managing and growing both at once. So I wanted to simplify it and bring it back. Will I go to multiple gyms? Yes. Right. I I'm not gonna go start them. There's another plan in place. But I had to systemize and very clearly define what that first one was. And much like Taryn said about, I had to be able to step away from that one in order to make the second one successful.
Speaker 3:My decision tree is based on what can I earn the most money with the least amount of work, like where I don't have to be involved in it. So that's why owning multiple gyms is just not attractive to me. I don't want to have to be in there or have it ha even that little amount of time where you're responsible for like, just maintaining it as you transition, ownership and all that, I don't want that, that doesn't interest me. It's just not enough bang for my buck in terms of my time.
Speaker 2:And it is , uh, one thing that if you haven't spent a lot of time in rooms with a lot of higher level gym owners, you're , you're gonna see a lot more often than not, you have multiple gym owners condensing down into one. Uh , which is counterintuitive to what you would think, right? Yeah , yeah . Uh , especially the more grizzled ones who've been around for a while . One thing that comes up over and over and over again is you can oftentimes produce a better outcome , uh, to Terrance's point with less effort from a little bit of focus. So how do you guys view your gym? Like, is it still your primary cashflow generator? Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 3:<affirmative> , yes . I wouldn't say it's the primary one for me, but just because some other ventures I've taken on generate greater amounts of cash flow from it. But it is cash straight into my pocket and it is a good enough to justify the amount of time that I have to put into it.
Speaker 2:Which is what, how much are you working on your gym now?
Speaker 3:I mean, arbitrary right now is , I await my GM to come back from mat leave, but, you know, in the normal plan and the way it is functioned for most of my tinker journey was about half an hour to an hour per week.
Speaker 2:And what about you?
Speaker 4:So the gym is my primary revenue source right now, and that's why I wanna maintain my focus on it. I would say anywhere from five to 10 hours a week is what I'm spending in it. And that's mostly mentoring my team at this point. Okay.
Speaker 2:And so at what point in your journey were you guys like starting to make some real money off of the gym and we'll , we'll , we'll constitute real money as like, you know, you're , you're able to take, let's say median household income in the US is like around 75,000. At what point were you like taking that out of the gym? Pretty consistently,
Speaker 4:I would say within a year of opening back up after the lockdowns. Um, and so that was really my trajectory and tinker too . Um, I entered tinker more of with a function of being pulled along, right? I , I probably was at that cusp of this is the next progression, but I might not have the financials that I should have had yet, but I needed it to kick me into that next level. Um, so that, that is really when I started to take the money and then just took those strategies and went from there.
Speaker 3:My story is , they say my story is a little bit of anomaly, but you know, when I had such that fast growth two and a half months into this, the biggest thing was just learning profit first and understanding what to do with that money. And all of a sudden I could pay myself exactly that. And that shot up really, really fast 'cause the money was now there.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, again, some of the most common things we see when people have that is they go open a second gym or, or they'll make some expensive purchase or they'll triple the size of their building. How do you guys think about the money coming in from the gym and how do you analyze investment opportunities to make that money grow for you? I
Speaker 3:Still filter it through time and energy. Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 2:<affirmative> . Okay. Yeah . But like, so you just have like a pot of pot of cash under your mattress and you're just, you're waiting for something to like, like what do you, what do you do with it once it hits the bank every month?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, like, I am, me personally, I'm always looking for real estate investment opportunities. Yeah. You
Speaker 2:Personally say you're on the pot , this is all about you. Yeah .
Speaker 3:So like, that is my strategy. I have a little Airbnb empire I'm trying to build in a city in Arizona. And so when those opportunities present themself , I want that cash to be really fast available to be able to, to grab the house with the heated pool and every other amenity I want in it.
Speaker 2:Okay. So you're basically taking cash flow from the gym, you're buying Airbnbs. Yeah . And , and that's the main strategy. You, you also have a mentorship business for people who aren't gym owners as well,
Speaker 3:Right? Service-based business owner ? Yeah .
Speaker 2:Yeah . Okay. And so basically those are your cash cows that comes in, you reinvest that into the Airbnb? Yep . The Airbnb provides you a little bit of a tax shield and gives you some, some nice assets that, you know, you pay down over time and you're just gonna rinse, repeat Yes. Yeah . For until you see something that is lower effort, higher , uh, higher
Speaker 3:Incomes. Yeah. Right now. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. And so we're just gonna do that ad nauseum 'cause it appears to be working. Yeah . Are are you gonna tell us what town in Arizona so everybody can go buy ? Uh , nope . Airbnbs there .
Speaker 3:Okay. You gonna , if you want, you can click my link <laugh> .
Speaker 2:You can , you can sleuth. All right . I don't wanna own Airbnbs and I don't wanna own anything in Arizona. So you're safe. You're safe. All right . We're gonna compete together. Okay. And so, and so you're taking a different approach. How , how ? Well you have an Airbnb, I
Speaker 4:Do have an Airbnb wheels. Um, our actual real estate's our main approach too. And I say we, I mean my husband and I, because we're making the decisions together. Our main focus though, is in Airbnbs. We have one in a family where our family likes to travel. It was more of a, if it pays the mortgage it's good, but it's doing more than that. Our main focus is multifamily residential. So that is when we look at taking the money, it goes into, okay, is there a fourplex, a sixplex, nine plex, something like that, that we can invest in?
Speaker 2:And so basically you're , you're both of, you see the, you view your gym as like a consistent cash flow coming in. And so you're reallocating that into, into hard assets. So basically you'll
Speaker 4:Say Yeah , basically.
Speaker 3:Yeah ,
Speaker 2:Definitely . And, and why real estate versus anything else you could be doing?
Speaker 4:I mean, it , it's one of the fastest ways to become a millionaire, right? And I , and simple pure facts. If you look at the country, and I'm not sure what the exact figure is, but there's a certain percentage that a very, very large percentage of millionaires in that the US in particular are made by owning real estate, right ? So it , it's safe for me. It's a relatively safe, low risk investment. Um, and I, I don't have a huge risk tolerance. Like, I don't wanna go dump money into stocks and see where that goes. So to me, that was a , a safe investment.
Speaker 3:Like I feel the same way about the safe, like the safety part of it, but it was more the interest part of it for me. Like I tried some other things and kind of dabbled in other, you know, Bitcoin and stocks and stuff. And like, it just, I want the quick cash right off of it, you
Speaker 2:Know? Oh, so you wanna get rich fast.
Speaker 3:Well, doesn't everybody, right ? Yeah . Who does it? <laugh>
Speaker 2:<laugh> . And so, yeah. And so how does that work for somebody who may not be familiar with like, how you can use your gym money to buy real estate, to grow your net worth quickly? Like, can you explain to me like, I'm five.
Speaker 3:So you take your gym money, put it into like whatever you need for your first asset. The asset produces profit, you take that profit, it essentially buys the next one and the next one it just compounds like that.
Speaker 2:So talk to me real numbers. Your , your first , uh, your first one was in this , uh, anonymous Arizona town. It's
Speaker 3:In Maricopa, Arizona.
Speaker 2:Okay. So, and you bought, you paid how much for this house? Uh ,
Speaker 3:400.
Speaker 2:400. So how much money did you need? How much cash did you need to have to buy this thing on?
Speaker 3:Fair question. It's international purchase, so I needed 25% cash down.
Speaker 2:Okay. But normally for, for you, it'd be like 2030 per multifamily. You gotta go a little higher, right? Yeah . Unless it's
Speaker 4:A fourplex higher it , depending on the type of loan you're using too. But right now it's about 25%.
Speaker 2:Okay. So , so fairly similar. So , so you need a quarter of the purchase price. Yep . So a hundred grand, I'm assuming that came from your gym. Yep . And whatever the , your , your mentorship business, or were you
Speaker 3:It was just the gym at that point. Okay. So
Speaker 2:You , you managed , you, you managed to, to save up a hundred grand. You put that in, what year was this?
Speaker 3:2020.
Speaker 2:So interest rates were like nothing. Yeah . And so, you know, what are , what are , what were the costs associated with that property?
Speaker 3:So it actually was a , like with the house itself and it being an Airbnb, do you mean, or acquiring it and
Speaker 2:Like , uh, your insurance, your mortgage, like all the, all the baseline.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Um, let's say 2,500 a month.
Speaker 2:Okay. And then what does it generate? It ,
Speaker 3:I profit about five KA month. What, like, well , it's summer in Arizona, or not summer, like people go there in the winter. It's a snowbird city. A little, it's a little small town, kind of a little gold mine . It's, there's no other hotels in this city except one. It's on the Indian Reserve. So the whole city is just nothing but Airbnbs. And it's a kid population town where they play soccer and do all this stuff. So there's always people coming and going.
Speaker 2:So that's, that's your round or just in season? Your , your your pocket
Speaker 3:Three quarters of the year. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. So annualized out . What does like one of these little houses do for you in terms of
Speaker 3:Anywhere from 40 to 50 K .
Speaker 2:Okay. So basically you need to, you need a hundred grand from your gym and you can put that into a house in Arizona that then generates 40 to $50,000 in income for you forever basically. Yeah . Or as long as Maricopa, Arizona continues to be a kid friendly Yeah . Town with no hotels. Yeah . And then in addition to that, the Airbnb provides you with tax shelter. Yeah . And in addition to that, the property appreciates, I'm assuming. Yeah . Right . And so then you have the, your , your gym continues to produce money, so you're continuing the same way. You got that first a hundred thousand, there's money coming in there. And then you have this other thing that's producing money. So the 50,000 from the Airbnb that, that's in your bank account now. And so every time you get another, I'm assuming they're more expensive now, so like
Speaker 3:Actually they're cheaper now.
Speaker 2:They're cheaper now. Wow . How is that
Speaker 3:Possible? Sunshine State during CO everybody was working from home. They wanted to go to the Sunshine States. 'cause if you're gonna work from home, you might as well do it in a nice sunny state. So the property value, like the 400 we paid for the house was like far overpriced at that time.
Speaker 2:Oh, so now what ? So
Speaker 3:They're actually
Speaker 2:Cheaper now . So they , that same house for what?
Speaker 3:Uh , like three 50 to 3, 7, 5.
Speaker 2:Okay. So then you need 70, you need Yeah . 80 grand or less Yeah . Whatever to buy the house and then that'll continue to cash flow . Yeah . And you do And that's what, that's what you're saying. You just do that
Speaker 3:Infinity? Yep . Just compounds.
Speaker 2:And at what point is it like no longer make sense for you to run your gym? Or do you , or is the gym a passion project, you're gonna keep it forever?
Speaker 3:Um, you know, that's a question I've explored. And to me it makes sense that if I'm gonna be a business mentor, I wanna have boots on the ground so that I can be doing the things that I'm also teaching my mentees to do. And that's an important value to myself. Until that far outweighs the time and energy I have to put into the gym, say the gym implodes or whatever, you know, then that would be where it no longer makes sense for me. So, you know, as well as like some of these other things are , you know, I talked about time and energy in terms of the value of the money that you're taking from it. Like when that gets dramatic, then I really have to weigh the time and attention that the gym is pulling to make that decision.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, if you guys had a restart, knowing what you know now, like how quickly do you think you could do it from a dead stop? Like if you were advising someone who is really coachable to go from just nothing to in a position where they had a million dollar net worth?
Speaker 4:I would say it depends on revenue. Two years, two years. But again, it would depend where they're starting from. If they've zero, zero business, zero assets, they've gotta have that a hundred thousand in in cash. Right ? How quickly can you put a hundred thousand in cash together?
Speaker 2:And that's just a function of how quickly and how profitable they can make their gym. Correct. Okay. And so sounds like your strategy's relatively similar. It's just a different asset class.
Speaker 4:Yes. Yeah. And so with the Airbnb, I would say isn't quite as profitable every month, but we didn't go in designing it to be just profitable, but we're, right now it's 3000 a month in profit that we're making from it for our Airbnb. Because
Speaker 2:Yeah, I bought one, I bought one in , uh, when did I buy it? It was 2020 and it was like awesome for two years. I , I didn't try very hard. So I, I will caveat that I , I didn't try very hard, I didn't cash flow well for two years. And then I noticed there was like a dip 2022 to 2023. Did you guys experience that as well? Like is it softening at , at all?
Speaker 4:No, actually, so strangely enough, I, I went and I did the opposite thing. Our prices were lower at the advice of another company that we had worked with, with it. And I tripled our prices. I added a hot tub and now I'm making way more money with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I follow these guys on Twitter who like do funds for Airbnbs and they're saying like, yeah, you had like a stock tank and a hot tub and you paint the walls pink and something cra you put a slide in and then all of a sudden you can take a $400,000 house and turn it into like a $900,000 house because of the rental
Speaker 3:Radio . Yeah . The money user for , yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Okay. So you guys are pros. I , I, I'm amateur hour over here. I just bought the house and, and only did a month at a time. But , um, I like, that would be my fear. Uh, as somebody who's unfamiliar with it going into it, it's like, what happens if the, the market turns and, and I'm stuck holding
Speaker 3:All real estate. That's why picked Yeah . You know , with it being Indian Reserve land, they're not, they don't permit other hotels to build on there. The only, the ones that are attached to the casino and whatever else. So, you know, families will come in with their kids for a soccer tournament and they pay $2,000 to stay at my house for the weekend to take, let their kid play three games of soccer. It's bizarre.
Speaker 4:I think the important thing too, if you're looking at Airbnbs, you've gotta make it make sense as a long-term rental. Yeah. Right. So if there's restrictions added in your town, if they get rid of Airbnbs, if hotels come in and lobby it, you have to have an asset that's still gonna make you money if you no longer can run it out . Just short-term rental if the market gets oversaturated. So knowing the area that you're going into and doing the research is important.
Speaker 3:There's lots of little like ins and outs, you know , that you should know before you do this . Just like anything else. Exactly . Any other direction you would go
Speaker 2:And like, doesn't it take up a lot of your head space ? Like, that was the other reason why I never took it like very seriously and tried to like double down because it , I was just like, or or still am just focused on growing my main thing. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Like , is it something where you just felt like, okay, the gym, I got this in a great place, it's where I want it to be, it's gonna continue rocking. Like I have the head space to dedicate to this or, you know, how are you thinking about that?
Speaker 3:I treated it exactly the way that I prepared the gym to even make this decision to go into buying the property was, if I'm gonna do this because I'm 2000 miles away from it, then I needed somebody who is gonna look after it. So you treat it just like, you know, you make all the same decisions, everything's gotta be systemized so that it cannot depend on me. I'm not gonna be the one that's calling the plumbing at 1:00 AM 'cause the pipe burst. Right. So, you know, strategically we also picked that 'cause we knew the real estate agent. We, she does property management and she's makes sense to run the little empire.
Speaker 4:And for me, I , um, I take it and I say, all right , how much time do I need to allocate to each thing? And does this fit within my day? And I'm very strategic in saying, all right , on Mondays this is what I'm gonna handle. And do I have the time and , and space to handle anything additional in that? So if I were to go on and take, say a new company, well, is there time in my calendar for that at this point for me to execute it? Well? And if it was starting, you know, the , this real estate business, if I didn't have that time, I'm not gonna do it because my gym is my cash flowing asset right now. And if starting something new takes away from that and doesn't allow me to continue to cash flow it, it's not something I can handle.
Speaker 2:How do you find time? Like I got, I got two kids, you have three, right? Yeah. Yep . Yeah. Yeah. How do you do that? I don't, I don't understand how that works.
Speaker 4:<laugh>. I would say prioritizing. If, if there's something that no longer serves my family, if it doesn't serve my business and my goals, and if it doesn't make me happy, I get rid of it. Okay. And that might sound cold and ruthless, but this is my life and I wanna enjoy my life and I I want to grow and make more money and I have to do it that way. So
Speaker 2:You got rid of the kids? No,
Speaker 4:No, no, no. I love my kids.
Speaker 2:Alright .
Speaker 4:They're my why. So I said I had a strong why earlier. They're my why.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So both you mentioned vision and picking a strategy and following it, right? Yep . And so one of the mistakes I see a lot of people in this group making a lot of high level gym owners make, I'd say like they're a little squirrely with strategy or a little soft with strategy. Would you say that's fair? Yeah. That's fair. Yeah. Like a lot of , a lot of strategy hopping even in today's meeting, you know? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , I'm gonna sell my gym. I'm not gonna sell my gym, I'm gonna do Airbnb. I'm gonna do you , you know, there's just a lot of flip flopping. And, and I do think one of the things that you need for one of these strategies to play out over a long period of time to play out is time. Yeah . And , and focus and not like changing course every 30 seconds. So how did you go about like deliberately setting your strategy and, you know, how do , how do you manage to not like flip flop and, and do other stuff? Or do you
Speaker 3:The decision to go all in on the Airbnb route? You know, when you first come into the Tinker ecosphere is like, it's, it is overwhelming and there's so much going on and so many people doing different things. So it is, I would, like, I'll admit, it's hard to not get distracted by the 10 different directions you can go. Again, mine went back to what my perfect day was, which was getting to Arizona. So I knew that it had to be real estate. So from there it's just acquiring the knowledge and then starting to take the action points as soon as you have the pieces, like the essential pieces of knowledge that you needed. Having conversations with as many people who are doing what you wanted to do, copying and pasting the systems they're using to then implement 'em in your own, you know, does it, it doesn't need to be complicated, but you can definitely make it an inconvenience if you're paralyzed by inaction. Right.
Speaker 4:And I wanna add to that, for me, it was everything that Taryn just said, but having a mentor to help keep me focused too, right? Making sure there was somebody that would call me out and say, that's not what you're supposed to be working on. And who wasn't afraid to tell me that and ask me that?
Speaker 2:I think that it's difficult, especially as someone who hosts podcasts in the fitness space, it it , it's tougher to find , uh, female entrepreneurs who are comfortable talking about money and comfortable talking about success. Why, why is that? Is that just something that lives in my head? Or do you think that is uh , that's a fair assessment?
Speaker 3:I don't think it's something that lives in your head. I just think like, socially it's just not represented. Like the , the women who are at the top are just not glorified. The way that the men are at the top and for whatever reason that might be is, you know, it is what it is. But we also have this opportunity to sit there and like, I'm okay talking about it. I know that there's people behind me that I can turn around and pull up just by telling my story and here's what I did. Just like there were, but you know, my mentor when I first started Tube Brain was somebody that I looked up to. 'cause I saw what she was doing and she was female. And you know, that's a cool example to follow. So I am happy to tell these stories and talk about the success because there are people behind us that need somebody to, to be in front of them, to say, Hey, it's okay. Like, it's okay to talk about money. Like we all make money, we're all allowed to make these decisions, and we're all allowed to set our futures up for what we, what we need 'em to be. Who caress if I'm a female, you know ?
Speaker 4:And I think there, there's a good representation here of , of women and , and I'm speaking as a mom here, so I'm only speaking as a mom with, you know , my role is caretaking of my kids. And for a lot of other women out there, it's hard to say, well, I'm gonna invest this money and tinker for myself so I can, I can grow and become better because they, they want to put the money into their kids or their family or somebody else. Instead of saying, no, it's okay to take care of myself. It's okay for me to prioritize that I'm making money. I wanna spend it on myself and I'm doing it to become a better person for me, not necessarily to take care of somebody else.
Speaker 2:And so how do we get more women in the Tinker group? How do we lift more , uh, female gym owners up? Like what are , what do we need to do there to, to make that happen?
Speaker 4:I think just becoming more comfortable talking about money, right? I think having these conversations and saying, look, we're two women, we're sitting here, we're proud of the fact that we have done this hard work and we want other people to stand up and be proud of that too. Because
Speaker 2:If I had to guess, it's probably, you know, 30 to 40% of affiliates are are , are owned by women. Yeah . And like, do you have any informa? Would you have a , if you had to take a wild-ass guess what would you say?
Speaker 3:I mean, I don't have a stat for sure, but I would say it's definitely low. It's on the low side,
Speaker 2:But I'd say it's like 30 to 40%. Yeah . And then if you look at, if you look at that room, it's probably 10 to 15% female.
Speaker 4:It's that, I mean, it might not even be that.
Speaker 2:So it feel , it feels like a little, it just feels a little underrepresented. Right . But it seems like if you look within two brain , a lot of the like rockstar shooting star success stories are female clients.
Speaker 4:And for me it's, I have a very strong why. Right? I have a very, very strong why of why I need to be successful, why I wanna be successful. And I take that and I utilize that to motivate me. Okay. And I think a lot of other, the specifically the female gym owners that I work with, I can get them to look at their why a little bit more , um, and focus on that.
Speaker 2:Do you guys deal with clients who are like struggling with imposter syndrome a lot? Yes ,
Speaker 3:A hundred percent all the time. Yeah . That's a normal everyday thing,
Speaker 4:Right? And I'm sure I, I struggle from it myself from time to time. Yeah . Yeah . Yeah .
Speaker 2:And so what , how , how do you guys deal with it? How do you advise your clients to deal with it?
Speaker 4:From my perspective, I deal with it by acknowledging it and saying, you know what? I, I feel like I don't know enough right now, but then I wanna go learn more. So I don't feel like the imposter,
Speaker 3:Like it's a good thing that you feel uncomfortable because the opposite is feeling comfortable. And if you're comfortable, you're not growing. So if you are uncomfortable, like a acknowledge it, embrace it, and like what lessons can you learn from being in that position? Go start talking to people. Go start asking questions, you know, like, you're obviously in this position for a reason. So let's figure out what that reason is.
Speaker 2:And so, I mean, there's a lot of talk here about like making yourself uncomfortable. What would you say to someone who's like, I , I am comfortable. I like my, my gym's doing what I want it to do. I'm happy. Like, you know, is that a bad thing?
Speaker 3:No, I just think they're lacking context. They don't have enough information. They only know what they know. They don't know what they don't know. Right. So even just progressing into the Tinker Ephe and you see everything like that, I walked in there and was like, whoa. Like look at all the possibilities. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And I probably would not have known that if I wasn't looking for that information, if I wasn't talking to those people, if I hadn't entered into that situation. Right. If I hadn't sat at that table, you would never know. And so if you, if you are comfortable, I think you just lack context and information. That's all.
Speaker 4:That's a good way of looking at it. And I also think that , um, if you're comfortable, does it go back to your perfect day? Is your perfect day gonna be your perfect day 10 years from now? Right? So maybe it's your perfect day from now, but you don't know what opportunities are coming. You don't know what doors are open. Like you said, walking into that room, we would never have known about it. I would never have bought an Airbnb. I probably wouldn't have gone down the real estate. I wouldn't have been looking at acquisitions. I had no idea what to learn. Um, and honestly, I would've been bored at some point. Yeah. Just being honest. I would've been bored. And
Speaker 2:So at what point do you think people are ready to start thinking about that and crafting their vision and , and , and making these type of like, wealth building plans?
Speaker 3:I think you need that check mark of a hundred K. 'cause at least you have that comfort pillow of like, being able to have the disposable income to turn around and invest it back into something else. That's an obvious, like your
Speaker 2:Gym's making a hundred K or you're sitting on a hundred
Speaker 3:KA hundred k not owner benefit. Okay. Yep . Right . Because then you can pay to play to take the next step. Right. Which then gives you the opportunities to at least build your next steps towards.
Speaker 2:Do you feel the same way just hundred K, NOB , you're ready to , you're ready to rock? I think
Speaker 3:You , well, I mean there's time requirements to that , right? Right. Like, you have to build your gym to be able to sustain you, to be a way to, for you to turn your shoulders and focus on some other things. You know, like there are those prerequisites like that, that are important other than just money, but money is a large part of it.
Speaker 4:I think you've gotta be able to have that money to be able to take the step away and have that space to be able to say what's next. Right. That money is the way that you get that space, whether it's through staff, a different business, whatever it is, that money is the way you get there.
Speaker 2:And I know both of you personally, so I know you have both invested heavily in mentorship both within two brain and , and outside of it. That's a , that's a very true expense. Like how do you think about the investment and mentorship? How do you go about calculating the ROI , at least to you personally?
Speaker 3:I just wanna fill my ignorance gap. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , you don't know what you don't know. And if you can walk into a world and get exposed to contacts and information, things you don't know that other people know have executed, have achieved things way greater than you, and you can get to that level too, but faster. You know, to me that ROI on doing things with less mistakes faster for a price to pay is worth it time and time again. Right.
Speaker 4:And , and I don't know that you can put an ROI on this year I made three times more money because I was in Tinker, which while we see that, that's awesome, but what if you went to a meetup and you had one conversation that changed the rest of your life and the trajectory of your life? And I see that's what's happening. People are having these relationships, having conversations. What if you go and you learn something that makes you a better leader so your staff stays two years longer and you have freedom of time now because you've kept your staff longer. So I think it's important to look at all the different types of ROI that are out there too.
Speaker 2:It works in kind of mysterious ways too that aren't really evident while you're like in the room. Like for me personally, I met Kalita at one of these events, like the very first iteration of the Tinker Meetup. And so she's the CEO of Kilo and Kilo was formed at , uh, like the idea for it was formed at one of these events, but like, it didn't, it didn't even play out till three years after that event had happened. And that was a very transformative, life changing experience for me. But like it, at the time, it didn't, you know, it didn't feel like, oh, I didn't leave the event being like, my life has changed forever. But, you know, I ended up having professional working relationships with at least two or three people that came out of that existing group. Uh ,
Speaker 3:If it's not information that you're gaining, like the networking Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , I would say is the next valuable asset that comes from leveling up. Yes.
Speaker 2:And , and yeah, first like, sure, you can go out and hey Mr . People and meet people , uh, who are doing well in the fitness industry, and you should do that on your own. Like you , you definitely should. But there is value in just getting on a plane, stepping off of it, and like 70 successful gym owners are there and like, it's curated and people are being vulnerable talking about money, talking about their problems, and being able to just insert yourself in there. Right. And , and that works out in kind of mysterious ways. Like you , you could see in the room today how a lot of people were sharing information like, Hey, I , I tried this thing, it worked. And , uh, you can kind of get a year's worth of learning in a weekend here. Um, if you just listen.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2:And so how do you make the most of a group like this? You know, we talked about the, we talked about the value of it, but like, you know, you guys are what, three year ? Three years in both of you? Three years . Yep . Yeah. So, so you're still coming back, like, you know, at this point you've probably learned all there is to learn in terms of , uh, the curriculum, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So, so how are you guys viewing the value of the group and why do you guys keep coming back? The
Speaker 3:Value is in the people and the opportunities that present, just like you said, you know, things that happen that you may not know at the time that result in other stuff down the road. So for me it's the networking, it's the conversations, the everything outside of just the information. I mean, the information is time and time again valuable for sure. But it's, it's the conversation that happens over supper. It's the conversation that happens on the walk to the gym when we're gonna go get our workout. Right? Like it's, those conversations could be equally as if not more valuable than everything else that you're learning in that
Speaker 2:Supper's dinner for , uh, yeah . All
Speaker 3:You Americans, Canadians listening, Canadian <laugh> ,
Speaker 4:I didn't even think anything of that.
Speaker 3:<laugh> , we need a translator on this episode. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, and is it the same thing for you, or do you have
Speaker 4:It Exactly. It's yeah , 100% the relationships and being able to open yourself up to not just learning from the relationships, but seeing other opportunities from those conversations. I think the most important thing , uh, are breakfast, lunch, dinner, even the workouts themselves, like building that , uh, network of people that not not just open opportunities, but also keep you accountable. Right .
Speaker 3:And I think that the opportunities also become multidimensional. Yeah . You know, so somebody starts a secondary business and someone else starts another secondary business and you realize that those two businesses can be complimentary to each other. And so now you have this formed connection through this thing that you're doing, even though you're both building separate entities, but you have that mutual relationship because of the table you're sitting at. You know, it's, it's infinite thought possibilities are , that's so cliche, but it truly is.
Speaker 2:Right . And was your, was your service-based business? Was that like a tinker brainstorm? Did it come out of that like,
Speaker 3:In a way? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I was sitting in a hospital with my dad having brain surgery and talking to the phone, talking on the phone coop is really what, how it happened. But you know, it's evolved from time and space that Tinker has provided me with.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so what's kind of next , what's next for you guys
Speaker 4:Right now? What's next for me is continued to buy real estate. Right? That's gonna always be next. Um , I have another project that I'm currently working, I'm not quite ready to talk about yet. Still in the I'm Okay . Secret project. Well, not secret, but if anybody who knows me, I'm very much like a planning person. Like I've gotta have a plan in place so that I can make sure I implement it well. Um, and I just , just throw things out there to the world and then make 'em stick. So ,
Speaker 3:Okay . I'll throw things out there and make 'em stick . Yeah ,
Speaker 4:That's fine. Yeah, so we're very different
Speaker 2:Brains. So, so what's next then?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Obviously is like grow perfect day business mentorship to what it can be. That's my main focus. And, you know, building the real estate empire on the side is, is just the thing that runs parallel along with that.
Speaker 4:Yep . And I , I will say the one thing that I'm working on is , um, gym acquisitions, right? That , that is a big thing. That is my focus in 2024. I want to help operators on the ground , um, continue to do what they love and operate the gym, and then help take the business side and work with them that way.
Speaker 2:And so basically you're trying to, you're buying minority or majority stakes or ,
Speaker 4:Um , I think it would be not entirety. Um, I want them to still have equity. I think that's important. Like, they have to have equity, they have to have a mentor that's gonna be 100% important. They have to be part of the two brain ecosystem. And they are the operators. They love coaching, they love managing people, and I get to do what I love, which is run businesses.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool. So if you're looking to sell your gym , you email Jolene <laugh> .
Speaker 4:Thanks for the plug there. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, so yeah, where , where do people go if they want to find out a little more about you? You know, I'm sure some people will watch this as they're kind of , uh, trying to decide who they wanna work with on the mentorship team. Like where , why , why work with you guys? This is, this is your pitch for yourself.
Speaker 3:I mean, I am super action orientated . I like to do things fast and I like to present it to you in a way that can build you momentum really, really fast. I move fast , I am no fluff, and I'm gonna deliver it to you black and white, just like that. So if you wanna move fast, you work with
Speaker 4:Me. And that's why Terrance's my friend, because when I need a reality check, she'll call me out on it. <laugh> very, very black and white very clearly. Uh , why somebody should work with me. I'm very systems and processes oriented. I'm very focused on getting you where you need to be, but in a way where you don't make the same mistakes that I did. I think it's 100% important if you have a family and if you have a vision for your family, that's tied into it as well. So I, I take a little bit different approach, but the end result's the same as we wanna get your results and we want you to your perfect eye .
Speaker 2:Well, I've thoroughly enjoyed watching both of your ascents within the two brain ecosystem. I give the gold stamp to, to both of them. So if you are considering, you can't, you can't make a bad choice if , uh, you go with either of them. And thanks for sharing this. Thanks for being vulnerable. Thanks for talking about numbers. Okay . Uh , I hope this pulls up some people under you and inspires the next generation of female millionaire gym owners.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Run a Profitable Gym. Please subscribe for more episodes. Now. Here's Chris Cooper with a final message.
Speaker 5:Hey, it's two Brain founder Chris Cooper. With a quick note , we created the Gym Owners United Facebook group to help you run a profitable gym. Thousands of gym owners, just like you have already joined in the group. We share sound advice about the business of fitness. Every day I answer questions, I run free webinars and I give away all kinds of great resources to help you grow your gym. I'd love to have you in that group. It's Gym Owners United on Facebook, or go to gym owners united.com to join. Do it today .