Gym Owner Burnout Is Real: Here's How to Deal

If you burn out, your gym dies. That’s why taking care of your mental health is the best business decision you can make.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Chris Cooper explains why burnout happens to gym owners and how to prevent it.

If you pour your energy into clients all day, manage staff, call leads, clean bathrooms and run your business, then go home and scrape the bottom of the bowl for whatever’s left for your family, you'll eventually run out of gas.

Your clients will know exactly when that happens. And they'll walk out. 

Chris shares six practical strategies for improving your mental health before you burn out, including setting boundaries, finding someone to talk to and systemizing your business.

You can’t sell your clients energy if you don’t have it. Tune in to learn how to keep your cup full—and your gym alive.

Connect with gym owners just like you at the Two-Brain Summit. Get tickets via the link below!

Links

Two-Brain Summit Tickets

Gym Owners United

Book a Call

1:46 - What we’re really selling

6:18 - The money problem

9:29 - Mental health strategies 1-3

15:37 - Mental health strategies 4-6

21:35 - The Two-Brain Summit

Transcript

0:02

I'm Chris Cooper. This is run a profitable gym. And today we're going to talk about why burnout happens in gym owners and how to prevent it. If that's you. Now, a lot of gym owners don't want to talk about mental health because we're scared to talk about it, but we are in the hardest business in the world. Very few people buy our product or started our gym or even start working out because they're inspired or excited to do it. Most people start working out because they're angry or they're depressed. There's something about themselves that they don't like, and they feel like they have to start working out or they should, they feel guilty. And it's not even like going to the dentist for them. They might not like going to the dentist, but at least they know that they will leave that dental office an hour later with cleaner teeth, fresher breath. They'll feel better. They already know that's not going to be true at the gym. They're going to need to do a lot of hard work before they see any results. They're going to have to do things they hate, like eating vegetables and cutting back. and quitting drinking before they see anything happen. They're going to have to maintain these habits for a long time without knowing that they're even working or not. It's going to be an added expense. They're going to have to maybe buy a new wardrobe or get new shoes or new equipment. They're going to have to pay the trainer. They don't know what they're doing. They're scared of looking dumb. Their headspace when they join the gym for the first time is not a very positive one. And so when we meet them at the door, while we would love it, if they were. We're very excited to be signing up for our service, like they were buying a new TV or something, but they're not. And so the first act of coaching that we always have to perform is coaching them to actually sign up. and when people go out looking for a car to buy or a new TV, they're already excited. I mean, they'll line up at 3 a.m. to do that. They know that there's going to be a new thing at the end of this, but in fitness, we are the product. We have to sell ourselves, and they don't get to take us home and put us on the wall and forget about us. That makes it tough for them. That's stressful for us because none of us got into the fitness business to sell anything. We thought that our service would sell itself. We thought that people would be self-motivated just like us, but that's not true. What we're actually selling in the fitness business, whether you own a gym or you do personal training or you coach groups, whatever, is energy. Because results are not instant, no matter what we do, we have to sell the person on starting, and then we have to sell them again on continuing. We have to sell them on coming back again tomorrow and sell them on coming back the next day and the day after that. And again and again. And the longer this goes on, the harder it gets because they still don't see results for a while. But they've spent the money, and they've done the work, and they feel like they've made some sacrifices in their life, and they're not seeing any results yet. Now, we know they will, but they have to stick around long enough for that to happen. So it's stressful for the gym owner or the trainer or the coach all the time, even more so because there's so much on the line, and we always want to feel like we're doing a good job. Absolutely do care about the clients getting results and loving it. We feel a lot of pressure to get them results. And when they don't stick to their nutrition plan, we feel like betrayed. Like, what do you mean you didn't follow the plan? I spent all this time on the plan. The plan is perfect. It's working for these other people. You told me you would do this, and now you're not doing it. It feels like the client broke a promise to us. And then when they don't show up for the workouts, when they don't use their membership, or they show up late for their appointments, We feel like they've broken a day with us. We feel like they've gone off and done something with somebody else. They've betrayed us. And when they canceled their membership, it feels like a breakup. We make this emotional investment of energy in every single client. And this happens over and over and over again. We get our hearts broken over and over until we start to develop this emotional callus. Every single day we go to the gym. It's 5 a.m. And we invest our energy into being bright and happy and positive when people show up. And then we stay there all day. And our coffee consumption goes from one cup in the morning to two to three by lunch to an espresso after lunch to five by the end of the day to infinity. And we invest all that energy into calling our leads and coaching our clients in cleaning the bathrooms and then managing our staff and running the bills and learning new things and doing our own workouts too. And then at the end of the day, it's nine o'clock at night, we go home. We're out of energy, but our family is there. They're waiting for daddy and we dig deep. We paste a smile on our face. We force some energy for them. We really scrape the bowl for whatever's left over. And then we hope that we can get enough sleep that by the next day, we're ready to start over again. But over time, our reserves just keep getting more and more depleted until they're absolutely gone. And what we fail to understand is that energy, the thing that we're depleting and running ragged, that's what we're selling. We're not selling knowledge. We're not selling the perfect workout. We're not even selling the community or whatever the other buzzwords are right now. We are selling energy. People do not want to work out with somebody who is sad or depressed or angry. They don't want to meet a broke martyr at the door of the gym in the morning. When that happens, they think, oh, he doesn't really want to be here. Or, oh, geez, he's tired today. Or, oh, man, I'm the only one that showed up for this class. They're looking around awkwardly. They feel guilt, consciously or unconsciously, and they start to look for alternatives. They start to look for reasons to get out of this situation that's making them feel not good, guilty, stressed, distracted, whatever. And that might be conscious. It might be unconscious. But they might be looking for other gyms where there's other people or just something else, right? They feel like they're this burden on you. And, of course, that compounds the problem, and it becomes this vicious cycle. People don't want to be around us when we're in that state, and so they quit. And when people quit, we get angry, and then nobody wants to be around us because we're broke, angry, frustrated, sad martyrs. And I get it because on top of all that, putting pressure on that entire downward spiral is money. And now I want to talk about the money problem. So if you've been in business for a while and somebody quits, it feels like a breakup, but it also feels like, oh man, I can't afford to lose this person. And so you've got this financial stress on top of everything else as a gym owner that you really didn't have when you were a coach. As a coach, you were working for somebody else and you knew that you were going to get paid no matter what. And it sucked when a client left, but you knew you were still going to get paid and you'd probably get another client coming in through the pipeline and you didn't have to work really hard. You just had to wait. And usually at the end of the day, a business owner is not going to get paid. They're still probably paying their coaches. They're still paying the landlord. They're still paying the government. They're still paying the bank, but now they're completely burying themselves in energy. They're getting burned out. And that is when gyms close. If you're just a trainer, you can be a trainer for the next 20 years. And if you're not making enough money, you can drive an Uber to make that money for as long as you need. And you can keep the trainer job for as long as you want. You rarely stop being a trainer because of burnout, but gyms close all the time because the owner is burned out. So let's talk about what burnout actually looks like. Burnout is not anger, it's not frustration, it's not just you giving up. Burning out is when you lose emotion, when you're dead inside, when you become complacent, when you just have no energy left to give, right? The cupboard is bare, the bowl has been scraped right down to the bottom, and there's just nothing left to give, and your clients know it. Burnout is not that you care so much that you're giving up, it's when you have no care left. And often we think that we're hiding this from our clients and our staff, but we're not. We are not good at hiding this stuff, even if we think that we are. When you paste a phony smile on your face, and you give a wooden greeting, hey, good morning, everybody, and you're having the same conversation that you've already had five times today at 11am, your clients know that, and they don't want to be around that person. That's not what they're paying for. They're not paying for correct movement technique in the push press, right? They're not paying for the perfect program to follow. They're not paying for loud music and high fives. That's just kind of part of the parcel. What they're actually paying for is energy because they don't have it on their own. They don't come into the gym with batteries included. They don't show up with energy. They're counting on you to provide that energy so that they can get through their workout and then get back to the rest of their crappy day or just get on with their day, maybe with more energy than when they started. And that's the case most of the time. Yes, there are people who come into the gym with batteries included. They're ready to go. They're fired up. But you can't tell me that these are more than 10% of the people in your gym. If you're doing a good job, more and more people will show up excited to work out with you. Absolutely. But again, if you don't have the energy that day, you will not be creating that kind of energy for other people either. Your cup has to be full before you can pour what's left into their cup, into the cup of others. So now let's talk about six strategies to fix your mental health because this podcast has never been about just sharing complaints with you or venting or telling you what the problem is. This podcast has always been about here's the problem, here's the solution. So I want to give you six strategies to fix your own mental health knowing that your mental health is what gives you energy and energy is what we sell. So strategy number one is get some distance from your business. One of the first things that we have everybody do in Two Brain after they've done, you know, the first basic parts of the program is to take three days away from their business without contact. Just step away. Now, of course, the first time they do this, things go wrong. And of course, the business is going to break. Cracks are going to show up. But we need to know where it's going to break, where the cracks will be. And so for those three days, we're giving the owner a brain break. We're giving you back a little bit of mental health. We're showing you that, yes, you can take time away. But also, we're looking for where the cracks are going to form because they will form and we accept that. And then as soon as you come back, we fix those cracks and they're fixed forever. And then a couple of months later, the mentor says, now you got to take a seven day break because we want to see where the next cracks will form. And they will form, of course. And then you come back and you fix those cracks. This reminds me of the Japanese art of Kintsugi, which is filling cracks in broken pottery and plates with gold paste, so that the plate or the vase actually becomes more beautiful over time. And as the cracks appear, you fill them up with gold. It's beautiful. You should look it up. You can do this in your business too. And here's how this actually works for your mental health. Number one, of course, you need a break from your business. My business coach, Nicole, said to me a week ago, Chris, it's really hard to read the label when you're inside the jar. And what she meant was, sometimes you got to get out of your business to actually see your business for what it is. You need that distance. To gain objectivity. This is why mentors are so powerful because they have that distance. They have that objectivity. They can see your business as it actually is, warts and all. You need a reminder during this time off that your business is not your baby. Your business is a transactional vehicle that you made to create time and freedom and money and happiness for you and your family. Now, of course, maybe you love your business. Maybe you love what you deliver in your business. Maybe you love CrossFit. Maybe you love High Rocks. That's awesome. But your business became a business to create these things from your family. And we create this emotional distance that lets us get a clear view of it only by stepping away from it for two or three days. The second part of that is that while you need a break from your business, your business also needs a break from you. Yeah, you're going to see where the cracks form, but your staff also needs a break from your constant management, surveillance, and just bad temper and everything else. From your dominating presence, you're probably an over-manager just like I am. And so sometimes when you take pressure off the business, it actually super compensates just like a muscle does and grows without you. The second mental health strategy is to find someone to talk to. You have to have somebody with some distance from your company that you can vent to. Now, you can't talk to your staff about business stress. If you complain to your staff about how hard business is, that is just going to echo right back to you times two because they're going to start stressing. And that's just going to make your job harder. You can't complain to your clients for the same reasons. Even if somebody was your friend before you hire them to be on your staff, even if they were your friend before they were your customer, you cannot complain to them as soon as they start paying you because now you have a transactional relationship with them and they are not paying you to hear about your problems. They're going to resent that even if they don't say that they don't, even if they don't act like they don't resent you, they will unconsciously. You can definitely talk to a therapist like my friend, Bonnie Skinner, or you can talk to other gym owners who you meet through two brain. We'll connect you with other people for that kind of support. You know how prevalent this is, how bad this need is even unconsciously. Sometimes people gym owners will go in our free group for gym owners, which is called gym owners, united.com. by the way, you can join right now. And they'll go in that group and they'll just post a rant. Now we don't let those posts stay up because that's not helping anybody grow their business, but they're so desperate to get it out of their head that they are willing to post in a group of strangers, even against the rules and risk everybody's judgment because they just can't live with it in their head anymore. The burden, the stress, the guilt, they have to vent to somebody and usually they're venting to the wrong people. Find somebody objective that you can talk to, like a mentor or a therapist. Strategy number three is to get the stuff out of your head every day. You need to get this stress, this guilt, this overwhelm, the to-do list, the managerial stuff, the surveillance out of your head any way that you can. And you need to do it every day. While talking to a therapist or a friend far away is great, and you should do that at least once a month, you need to start a process of journaling so that you can start every day with a clear head, a blank slate, and a calm mind. The problem is that we think about our challenges and our problems, and then we think about them again, and again, and again, and we ruminate on them over and over. And it's like having a little BB pellet bouncing around inside your brain. The first time it hits your brain, it bruises the tissue. And the second time it hits your brain, it bruises again. And it just keeps getting worse and worse the longer it bangs around in there. And the only solution is to get it out of your head. And so you need a daily journaling practice, a way to get all this garbage, all those little BBs out of your brain and onto paper. And that's why it's a key part of the golden hour that we teach, and it's in my golden hour book. But if you have a daily practice of meditation already, or prayer, then stick with that. You're handing your problems over to a higher power, the universe, or God, or whatever you believe. And you can do that through journaling too. Journaling is just written meditation. The fourth strategy for better mental health is to stop doing high intensity interval training workouts. Now this is going to sound like sacrilege. And I know, we know that working out is supposed to be a mental boost and help you calm down. But we also know that there are different types of workouts, don't we? And the dose is really important here. Years ago, when I was at my highest point of frustration as a gym owner, I was completely burned out. I did not want to be there. Every little thing would completely send me over the edge. My volume was like cranked up 10 out of 10 in my brain all the time. And we started working with one of these blood testing services, InsideTracker. And I did my blood test, and the nurse came in, and she took my blood, and she sent it away. And when the results came back, my cortisol levels were through the roof. Everything else seemed okay. My blood pressure was a little bit higher than it should be, but my cortisol, a stress hormone, was just out of sight. Now that can be caused by mental stress or physical stress. Your body doesn't know the difference once the cortisol has been secreted. So I would have this stressful day at the gym, and I would do this crazy hard workout to try and clear my mind, right? And my workouts kept getting worse. My performance was going down, and my mental health was getting worse. My frustration and anger was going up, and so was my burnout. And finally, when I saw the blood test results, I connected the dots, and I said to myself, why am I dumping more and more cortisol into my system with these high-intensity interval training workouts when I'm already stressed out? It's just compounding the problem. So I said, okay, I'm going to take a month out of the gym. I'm just going to ride my bike, just zone two. And that was actually part of the solution to actually solving my problem. So give it 30 days. Try it. Don't do any high-intensity work. Stick to zone two type work and see if you feel better. Actually wear a heart rate monitor. A lot of coaches, when they say that they're just doing recovery work or an easy day, they're actually going a lot harder than they should be still. Wear a heart rate monitor. Even better, get out of your gym and go ride your bike for a month, and I'm sure that's going to help. You can always rebuild your fitness when you come back. You know this. Strategy number five is to set clear boundaries and working hours. So here's what happens to a lot of gym owners. They never shut off, right? They check Instagram before they go to bed at 11 p.m. They answer client texts on Sunday morning. They're doing this. They respond to emails during dinner. They take calls during their kid's soccer game, and they think that this makes them a good business owner or responsible, but it doesn't. It makes them exhausted and resentful. Resentful, not responsible. Your clients do not need 24-7 access to you. What they need is reliable, predictable access. They need to know that when they reach out during your working hours, they will get a response. They need to know that your working hours are from nine to five or eight to four or whatever those hours are. Set your working hours and communicate them clearly. Put it on your website. Put them in your email signature. Tell your clients. And then, this is the hard part, stick to them. Turn off notifications on your phone after a certain time. Don't check your email on weekends. Put your phone in another room or out in your vehicle if you have to. don't respond to texts at midnight just because you happen to see them. Because here's the truth, when you're always available, you're never present. You're never fully with your family because you're looking at your phone. You're never fully rested because you're always awake. You're never fully coaching a client because you're thinking about the email you need to send or the bill you need to pay. When I see a coach checking their phone during a coaching session, I want to give everybody in the room a refund. And this is because I know the coach is not focused on them. Your constant availability doesn't actually help your clients. It trains them to be dependent on you instead of independent. It prevents them from solving their own problems. It makes them anxious because they're always wondering if they should be reaching out to you. Setting boundaries is not selfish. It's self-preservation, and it's better for your clients in the long run. Strategy number six is to invest in systems, not just yourself. So this is the final strategy I'll share today. Stop trying to do everything yourself. Stop being the only person who can answer a question about pricing or the only person who can process payments or the only person who can schedule an appointment or the only person who can do an NSI or respond to a lead or make decisions. Every time you are the only person who knows how to do something, you are creating a mental burden for yourself. You're creating decision fatigue. You're making it impossible to take that three-day break that we talked about earlier. So invest in systems. Document your processes. Use software that automates repetitive tasks for you. Train your staff to handle things that don't require your specific expertise. This isn't about being lazy. It's about being strategic with where you invest your energy. Every decision that you have to make every day depletes your mental energy a little tiny bit. Every task you perform that somebody else could do is energy that you're not investing in the things that actually require your expertise and your attention. If you're manually processing payments every month, that is mental energy wasted. If you're individually responding to every inquiry instead of having an automated first response, that's mental energy wasted. If you're cleaning the bathrooms, you know, because you just can't trust anybody else to do it right, that is mental energy wasted. Build systems that free you. Automate what can be automated. Delegate what can be delegated. Document what can't be delegated so it's not just living in your head. Your business should run without you, not because of you. And that's why these systems are so important, not just for scaling, but also for your physical and mental health. Now at 2Brain, we love to say, make an impact, make a profit, make it home for dinner because nobody can run a good gym for very long. If they're burned out, you're really not helping anyone. Now I've talked about mentorship a few times already in this podcast. It's great to have somebody to talk to. It's great to have an objective eye that can read the label because they're outside the jar, but you can achieve a lot of these things at the two brain summit too. When you book a ticket to the summit, number one, you're guaranteeing yourself at least three days away from your gym. There's your space. You're going to have a travel day, right? And there's going to be a little party with some other gym owners. There's going to be two days of fun, workouts, bonding, dinners with other gym owners. You're going to meet some new people and we'll introduce you to new people if you want. If you're not good at that, if you're kind of a wallflower, I'm happy to introduce you to other people. You'll get to meet your mentor and you can just vent to other people if you want to. And if the biggest value that you get out of summit is making one new friend, one new connection, or just having somebody to vent to, it's more than worth it. You're also going to get some objectivity from the speakers. You're going to get outside the jar for a few days and actually read the label instead of trying to read the label from inside the jar as you usually do and so do I. So you'll get some distance. You'll get a new friend. You'll have somebody to talk to. And we're also going to resolve some of your problems. So that financial stress that's just kind of sitting on top of everything else and squishing it all down, we're going to give you some ways to alleviate that too. And that's really what the summit's all about. It's not just about learning what the new marketing strategies are or seeing one of your favorite speakers give a talk and getting inspired. It's about connecting. It's about getting some distance from your gym and gaining some distance or gaining some proximity to the people who are just like you. You want some time away from your gym in a productive way that won't make you feel guilty or overwhelmed or even more stressed. This year marks our 10th anniversary of the summit. And so we're calling the theme the. Power of 10. And we're focusing on practical, implementable strategies that you can use immediately when you do get back to your gym. So you don't get that guilt, but you come back with way more energy than when you left. Now, before I sign off, I want to recap those six strategies. Number one, get some distance from your business. Take those three-day breaks and those seven-day breaks, knowing that you'll fix any problems that arise when you come back. And also knowing that sometimes you got to be away for these problems to come up so that you can fix them. Second, find somebody to talk to a therapist or another gym owner one-on-one, but not your staff and not your clients. Third, get it out of your head every day, journal, meditate, or pray. Fourth, stop doing HIIT workouts when you're stressed. It's not going to improve your fitness and it's going to make your mental state worse. Switch to zone two training on those days, or even better, take 30 days and just do that. Fifth, set clear boundaries and working hours. Turn off notifications, protect your time, hide your phone. Sixth, invest in systems, automate, delegate, and document to reduce decision fatigue. Look, I know this is hard. None of these six strategies are easy to repeat consistently. And I know it feels like you can't take time away. I know it feels like you have to be available all the time, or you're going to lose your clients. I know it feels like you have to do everything yourself, or it won't get done right. But here's the truth. If you burn out, your business dies. If you burn out, your clients lose their coach. If you burn out, your staff loses their jobs. If you burn out, your family loses you. Taking care of your mental health is not selfish. It's the most important business decision you can make. Because remember, you're not selling programming. You're not selling access to equipment. You're not even selling community. You're selling energy. And you can't sell what you don't have. Fill your cup first. Get help. Set boundaries. Build systems. Take breaks. And remember why you started this business in the first place. Not to be a broke, burned out, angry martyr, but to create time, money, and happiness for yourself and your family. That's it for today. I'm Chris Cooper. This is Run a Profitable Gym. And if you want to talk more about this stuff or be introduced to other gym owners, go to gymownersunited.com. And that'll take you straight to our Facebook group. I'll welcome you. You can introduce yourself and you'll have more friends than you know what to do with.