The Anthony Amen Show

The Hard Truth About Scaling a Fitness Business (No One Talks About This)

• Anthony Amen • Season 6 • Episode 6

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This episode of The Anthony Amen Show is different — Anthony is the one in the hot seat.

In a raw, unfiltered interview, Anthony breaks down what it actually takes to move from coach to entrepreneur, and why most fitness professionals never make the jump. We talk about the unglamorous realities behind building a real business: learning to love numbers and systems, deciding whether you’re an operator or a hobbyist, and using long-term thinking to design a life that doesn’t collapse under success.

Anthony shares how his passion for coaching evolved into building scalable machines that help more people — and how that shift demanded emotional regulation, better habits, and uncomfortable risk. The conversation covers season-of-life decisions, including when to keep a 9–5 while building at night, when asymmetric upside justifies going all-in, and how to apply “gym logic” to business growth.

It gets personal. Anthony opens up about losing friendships, rebuilding his relationship with the woman who became his wife, and learning how proximity, environment, and ownership shape outcomes — in business and in life.

This episode is for:

  • Fitness professionals who want more than trading hours for dollars
  • Entrepreneurs balancing ambition with relationships
  • Anyone building something meaningful who feels the weight of responsibility

If you’re trying to scale without burning out — or wondering what the real cost of growth looks like — this conversation gives you frameworks, not fluff.

Subscribe to The Anthony Amen Show for grounded conversations on fitness, business, leadership, and life. Share this episode with someone building their next chapter.

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Learn More at: www.Redefine-Fitness.com

SPEAKER_01:

I should probably add to this story because my wife will appreciate this. I broke up with her prior to me opening up the gym. Yeah, when we were dating, I broke up with her because my friends told me to and it comes down to a basic. The first question is do you want to be a business owner or do you want to be an entrepreneur? Stail hard or figure it out. Yes. And that's basically what it comes down to is figure it out and go forward. So welcome guys to the brand new Anthony Eamon Show. Today we're gonna do a really super fun, exciting episode. Instead of me giving an interview, I'm gonna get an interview as a little launch over into the new topics we're gonna talk about entrepreneurship and all the fun stuff. So without further ado, if Ya Wan, he's part of my media team and excited to get this going, man. So take it away.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes, Anthony. Thank you so much for having me and uh bring me a part of your team where we redefine fitness. Um at first I started I was a video, you know, videographer and then grew and eventually became an entrepreneur and have a business of my own now. And now I'm collaborating with you guys and working with you to grow your business. So I'm really excited to work with you. And um, you definitely your story definitely inspired me, man. It is it's not easy to be an entrepreneur when you start a business. So I just have a whole bunch of questions for you that I think are gonna help me out in my career because you're in a position that a lot of entrepreneurs dream about being in, um, and in others as well. So, first question is what inspired you to be an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_01:

It's a twofold answer. Okay. So the first side of that is growing up in it. My parents started their own real estate company when I was young. It's all they talked about, every single dinner table conversation. And then it branched into my sister starting her own dress store and my brother talking about it, and he eventually became a doctor and works for a pain magic clinic. He wants to do the business side of that. So I just kind of being exposed to it. But anyway, it's never something I knew I wanted to do, and so I started working. And then when I got involved in the gyms and started working at the bigger companies and the smaller companies, I just saw so many misdirections. And I saw so many gyms doing things wrong. And I was like, you know, I need to, we need to change things because I got him for a passion, a lot of people know, up that story side of it. And when I first opened a business, I never I didn't like it. And I was like, nah, nah, I'm just gonna stay the training side of it and just focus on the fitness side of it. But then the fitness side started disappearing because as you start growing, and then you start getting into more the business side of it, and I was like, wow, this is everything I ever wanted.

SPEAKER_00:

What is that? Wow, what is that for you? What you what what is that everything I ever wanted? Explain, elaborate on that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so it's one being in control of your own destiny, so it's no longer having someone else dictate how your life should be done. You make that deciding factor for you. And then the second part of that is the work you put in is the work you get out. And you can show up to work on a salary, do the bare minimum, go home and get paid at the end of the day. But I feel like life doesn't give life meaning. And then you see a lot of people after 10, 15, 20 years, they start getting depressed to run down. They're not happy with other aspects, they don't grow.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But being an entrepreneur and owning a business, I can say I in the last seven years, I'm a different person. I am no longer the person I was before I started this. And every year I have since grown and become different. And it's reflected into my personal life, where my happiness in my personal life has exploded because I've learned to take responsibility and that my actions have consequences, whether negative or positive. So I can dictate my happiness outside of my work by setting goals and things to help move my marriage up or help raise my son. And it's really given me a different insight of how to view things. Like a really good example, like using off of this for people is like every couple, you fight with your wife, right? And then no one means any harm to each other. But you notice that, like, you start getting angry and emotions get involved, and you start yelling. I learned a couple of years ago reading an entrepreneur book about controlling emotions. And I started learning to how to regulate my own emotions at work. And I realized that in my personal life, I have control over how I react to things. Everything is inherently my fault that happens to me in my life. So if I blame myself for how I act, I can control the situation. So bring it back to my personal life. My wife gets mad at me for something, it's usually my fault, but it's fine. Um, and so she gets mad at me for something like she might start raising her voice, but I can now control how I dictate my own voice and respond. I no longer yell. And I notice the temperature dissolves.

unknown:

Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's been life-changing.

SPEAKER_00:

And you you're essentially saying you learn that from dealing with people, being an entrepreneur, it taught you skills that you can now utilize in your personal life. And what would you say to someone that wants to start their own business? And that doesn't have to be coming out the gate with a million, two million. That's just something very simplistic. They don't have much money. How would you tell them to start? What do they have to do to get to a position that you're in and grow?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I've seen this with friends, family. Uh, first, it's understanding what you want. And I heavily believe in the work back method. So look 10, 20 years out and figure out what does life look like? An end goal like that. And then you could take that and divide that angle out by the amount of years that you set for it and figure out the action tips, steps you need to do. Okay. And it comes down to a basic the first question is do you want to be a business owner or do you want to be an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_00:

What's a diet?

SPEAKER_01:

There's a distinct difference. Okay. And I'm gonna refrain, there's nothing wrong with either answer, it's just know what you want. Okay. A business owner is somebody that's a glorified employee, basically. They own a business, so they don't have people telling them what to do, and therefore they can make their own salary and dictate their own life. That's my parents, that's my sister. There's nothing wrong with that. It's perfectly okay. And those people are amazing. The other side is entrepreneurship. That's not wanting to be an employee, that's wanting to grow something different and be outside of your business and look from an outside perspective and make that thing grow so you don't have to be involved in the day-to-day. You are an employee, and the job's not dictating you what to do. I'm still in that realm currently. I still make decisions here all the time. I still have to show up, but I'm working and weaning my way out of that and becoming a steady entrepreneur where I can watch this business escalate, but from an outside perspective.

unknown:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

That is phenomenal. I what is the method called? You said that what you've looking at the end goal? What is it called?

SPEAKER_01:

It's a work back method.

SPEAKER_00:

It's amazing. I love that. You look at where you want to be and then divide it into what steps do I need to take to get there? Find out. Do you think there's a difference between someone's passion versus what they're good at? So should you follow your passion? Because sometimes passion leads to no money, no success. You're just passionate about it versus what you're good at. Should someone do what they're good at first and then invest in that passion? What's your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01:

I used to think it was all passion.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Where you should follow what you love, follow what you do. And that's what I do. That's why I got involved in this is passion. But I've learned you can manipulate things to make yourself passionate about things.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Good, good at yes.

SPEAKER_01:

So I got passionate about the gym and helping people on an individual one-on-one basis, but I manipulated it to make the passion about business and growing the business and therefore help more people, right? The more gyms I have, the more people I'm inherently helping, as opposed to step a one-on-one basis of my time output. So if you can learn to manipulate your passion to make yourself money, because some passion projects end up nowhere, and then you can't help anyone.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the point. Okay, so essentially you're saying find out what you're good at, find out how to make money doing it. That's pretty much that's essentially if you don't know how to make money doing what you love, then that's the answer. Don't do it. Because you have to exactly. I like that. All right, so what are something you get, what is something you can tell myself and then people that are watching that uh just certain dilemmas or problems that people are gonna run into in entrepreneurship that you face and overcame, or things that are still ongoing? What are just some problems they can look forward to having as an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_01:

Every day there's a new problem. Correct. Correct. It's hard to say there's one specific thing and there's one something that sticks out, like you're gonna lose a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00:

This is how you do you need investors. Okay, that's how you get investors as I went about it. Um, startups, it's just a whole bunch of stuff like that. Do you need a tight circle of other entrepreneurs that you're learning from like mentors?

SPEAKER_01:

Let's break it down. Okay. And if you look at things from this simplistic terminology, I like to think of it as risk aversion, is probably the biggest case. A lot of people are risk-aversed, meaning they don't want to take gambles on themselves and don't trust themselves. And I think there's inherently it's a happiness correlation with not trusting yourself to take risks and move on. And that could be in any aspect of your life, right? Like, I feel like people hear business and they zone out. So I want to talk about a personal aspect. The woman you love or a guy you love, whoever it is, you see somebody, you're like, I really want to talk to that person. You could be risk adverse and never ask her out. Or you could take that risk, ask him out, and then you set yourself on a whole new life trajectory because they end up being the one you married, fall in love with, have kids with. Right? So it's learning to jump in and take risks and putting yourself in a position to learn and grow through these risks and become a different person than you were. And you can learn any aspect, business or professionally. So it's hopping into things for to break it down. It's just really figuring out like I'm gonna throw myself in a situation, I'm gonna make myself good at it. So when I started the first company here, the first gym in Mount Sinai, it was okay, I have no money in my bank account, I'm gonna put myself in such a tight spot. It's fail hard or figure it out. Yes, and that's basically what it comes down to is figure it out and go for it.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, I see what you're saying. So let me ask you this. What happens? Would you okay, would you basically say you still have to have a job while creating this business? Because you need funds. Where do you get this money from when you take these risks? Should you have a job or should you go all in, screw my nine to five, I'm going all in with a job. What do you say to the people?

SPEAKER_01:

It depends on your life circumstances. So, first, if you have kids, yeah, if you have a mortgage, yeah, this this is totally different. Like, if you fail, it's gonna affect other people. If you're single, especially if you live at home with your parents and you're young, there's absolutely no reason you can't put yourself in such a high stretch situation to figure it out. For like me, when I still live with my parents and I didn't have kids and I wasn't married. So if I failed, what's the worst that happens? I end up in the same exact spot I'm in now. But I learned, right? So learning is a forever process, at least in the game for me. But if you have a family at home, you should start thinking about it, right? You should work your nine to five, but also don't spend your off hours when the kids are sleeping, playing video games, doing things that are not productive. Like I look at driving, for example, if people have commutes to work, I have a 35-minute drive each way. I learn every single drive. Audiobooks, podcasts, just always giving myself an opportunity to learn and to grow and optimize the time that it otherwise you don't really utilize hunger for more. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

Would you say there's an age limit to start an entrepreneur to be an entrepreneur? Is it ever too late? Do you think do you feel that never? Just as you as you get older, maybe more responsibly, so it may be more risky.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but you have more experience in life.

SPEAKER_00:

That's true too.

SPEAKER_01:

So you're at you put yourself at more in of an advantage. Maybe you have less opportunity to risk, but you're educated and you can move up quicker. Correct. You have the wisdom of your past.

SPEAKER_00:

What's your thoughts on mentorship? If somebody's starting this is there, should they look at mentors or look for mentors, someone that's been there? What if they don't have one?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so there's a theory I've been pushing on the show a lot, and I fully heartily believe in you're the average of the five people spending the most time with. And that was a study that people misconstrued, but I think it has a lot of good merit to it. So if you want to get in shape, the best way to get in shape is to hang out with five people who already are. Because then you start picking up on those habits. So if you want to be a successful business owner, start hanging out with successful business owners. And you'll run into situations where, for me, myself, like I've gotten to a point in business, I don't know people that are in the same scenario as me. But you can hang out with people virtually, and not in the aspect of Zooms, but listening to audiobooks, listening to podcasts. That person inherently feels there. And now you're putting all your time and effort into that person to level up to their level. Like it just to be transparent. Like I obsessively listened to Alex Hermosy, and not a lot of people know who that is. Just because I relate, he came from the gym world and became an entrepreneur from that. But I was like, oh, like the Spotify rat that said it was top two percent of most listened to minutes on his podcast, which is pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

And he has 56 million people that follow me. Yeah, two percent. So that is indicative of how much you watch it. What would you say about um just losing people in your life when you become an entrepreneur because you're honing in on those skills, you're losing time that you used to spend with friends? What do you say to that person? These are the trials and tribulations they're gonna have to go through. Tell us some of yours that you had to go through with losing some people in your life.

SPEAKER_01:

I've just I've been constant cycles of that. So when you're young, and especially from a scenario that I came in where I didn't have any friends growing up, people know that story, like, right? So I found friends in high school and became close to them, and then thought they were everything. And I prioritized my friends more times than I care to admit, where I would go do things for them that I shouldn't have left certain situations, like family gatherings to go hang out with them. I put them too high up on a pedestal. And when I opened up my Mount Sonai location, I was getting it ready. I was in crunch. I needed to get the gym open in a week, and I had no time, I had no help. My parents were there, my siblings were there, and I reached out to even like my best friend at the time who lived a minute from the gym and said, Hey, like I I need help. Like, I've never asked for anything in my life. Yeah, like I need help.

SPEAKER_00:

What did he say? Well, here we go.

SPEAKER_01:

He shows up and with his girlfriend at the time and says, Hey, just keen to stop by, I'll see you later. Nothing. But yet, I had two friends that worked 60 hours a week, lived half an hour away, each of them showed up and helped.

SPEAKER_00:

And how close were you with those friends that showed up and helped versus the other guy?

SPEAKER_01:

Not as close.

SPEAKER_00:

Sometimes the people you don't know support you more than those you do. It's unfortunate, it sucks, but it's the truth sometimes, dude.

SPEAKER_01:

It was mind-blowing. I'll say, like, I used to hang out with a group of 20 people, I cut out 18 of them. Oh, it ended up being a deeper story than just the business. The business was the iceberg. I should probably add to this story because my wife will appreciate this. Uh, I broke up with her prior to me opening up the gym. What? Yeah, when we were dating, I broke up with her because my friends told me to. And I prioritized them over her, and then through the gym and going watching what they did to me and how they didn't give a shit about me. I looked at myself in the mirror and said, What the hell is wrong with me?

SPEAKER_00:

What did you do?

SPEAKER_01:

I need to spend every waking moment that I'm not working begging this girl to go back out with me.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's what I did.

SPEAKER_00:

And that was your girlfriend at the time. Now it's your wife.

SPEAKER_01:

Now it's my wife.

SPEAKER_00:

And you guys had a little one, of course. Yeah. That's amazing. Look how the story turns. So if you never went back, that would have been the end of the road, man.

SPEAKER_01:

I never would have the life I had now. But the two years prior to this all happening, it was like I was a bad boyfriend. And then going through that and then begging her to come back, I changed. And I said, Wow, you're you're right about a lot of stuff, and you're somebody I need in my life. So that's that helped me go through that. And I'll add to it that I'm going to that problem with my family. Like my parents and my siblings, they want me around, they wanted to do all these family gatherings, but I I gotta prioritize my business and my own family.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, sir. So love that, dude. Sacrifice, and that's another thing about entrepreneurship. You have to be willing to sacrifice, you have to be willing to lose relationships, your mom, sister, because you're growing something. Essentially, this is how many kids do you have?

SPEAKER_01:

I have one, but to have two.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, but this essentially is a legacy you're creating. You don't, I don't, I'm sure your vision is not, you don't intend to end this in two, three years. You want it to grow, expand, buy more locations. So this essentially is gonna feed your kids, pay for their tuition, the comp, whatever the case may be. This is not a temporary thing. And and and to understand that, you have to understand whether regardless of what age you are, this is long-term, dude. And I need to invest a certain amount of time creating something that's gonna be stable income for my family long after I'm gone. And that's where the sacrifice comes in, and people don't understand that. So it's amazing that you, number one, the acknowledgement and you saying, Hey, I acknowledge, I made a mistake because of the people I was hanging out with that influenced me to do these things, lost the love of my life, and then I got her back, and now we have kids together. I'm opening my third location as an entrepreneur. So it just goes to show you sometimes the people that you have in your life, whether that's a partner or a friend, can either drive you straight towards failure or success. It looks like your wife drove you through success.

SPEAKER_01:

But I will add, like the people that truly care, the ones that really want you to succeed, understand those times in your life when you can't come around. Oh, I love that. And then when you're ready to be around and you're ready to like show up and be there, they'll there, they're there for you. Yes, my wife has been the rock for us through these last seven years, especially the COVID and everything else. Like, she supported us. Like, I had no money, so she I can I can't tell you how many conversations I want to give up. I want to give up. Like, I can't do this. She's like, you'd be miserable. Don't give up.

SPEAKER_00:

That's how my fiance is, yeah. So it's just amazing. And that's what I'm saying. The person you're with can either drive you straight towards failure or success. What's your wife's name?

SPEAKER_01:

Sarah.

SPEAKER_00:

Sarah, shout out to you. Thank you. Because of you, I now work with redefined fitness. Thank you, Sarah. So that's what's awesome. Anthony, thank you so much. Um, this really inspired me and kind of just reconfirmed the thoughts in my head. I know you have a longer story, obviously. You can elaborate much more than we spend on this podcast, but I think this is gonna inspire other people watching um and inspire them to learn more and just keep going on the journey. So I appreciate you having me on the show and hope to do this more often.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, definitely will.

SPEAKER_00:

Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you guys for watching this episode of the Anthony Eamon Show. See you next week.

SPEAKER_00:

See you guys.

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Anthony Amen

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