Categoriesbusiness

What Social Media Isn’t Telling You About Owning a Gym

Long before I owned CORE, and even now, as a current gym owner, I’ve championed the message that gym ownership is not for everyone, and more to the point that it should not be perceived as the holy grail of the fitness industry.

There’s a running theme – which is nauseatingly prevalent on social media – that owning a gym provides some sort of pinnacle, “I’ve made it!” mentality, and that once it happens it’s nothing but rainbows and kitten kisses for everyone.

Sure, the fairy tale ending can happen.

However the reality is, for many….being a gym owner is fucking brutal.

My friend and colleague, Mike Connelly, who’s a recent former gym owner, took the time to write this beautifully honest guest post today on the trials and tribulations (and general dumpsterfireness) of owning a gym.

Cue slow clap.

Copyright: gekaskr / 123RF Stock Photo

What Social Media Isn’t Telling You About Owning a Gym

“I’m so sorry to hear about that.  Must be tough, man.”

I’ve heard that line from a lot of people in the past two months. The reason I’m hearing that so much is because after six years I am moving on from owning my business, Rebell Strength and Conditioning, and all I can think about when it comes up is how happy I am about the situation.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you it all went as I planned and that I’m coming out of this footloose and fancy free.

That’s not the case.

But, since being out of the operation of my business for the last two months, my life has changed and only in positive ways. I’m averaging just about twelve more hours of sleep a week, I’ve lost thirty pounds, my mental health is back to being stable (as stable as it will get anyways), and, most importantly, I feel like myself again.

When you own and run a business, it’s easy to get so caught up in things that you don’t even realize what is happening to yourself.  You think about bills, timelines, clients, marketing, bills, social media posts, blogs, bills, complaints, finding new clients, keeping current clients, bills, programming, systems, bills, platforms that run your business, networking, bills, finding good employees, keeping good employees, how to manage your revenue, and finally…. bills.

It’s a lot.

It’s nauseating at times. To feel stress at a molecular level (Paul Lyngso hit that description on the head) all the time becomes your new normal.

And it sucks.

But you keep going because you’re “living the dream.”

A mentor of mine once described entrepreneurship to me like this:

“There you are, riding the bull that is business, through town. People are cheering for you and admiring your courage to go out and do it on your own. You are revered and respected at the mere mention that you own a small business. Yet, through all the accolades all you can think about is, “how the fuck do I get off this bull?!”

I know that’s not the case for all business owners.

There are some out there that are owning it through and through. These people are running a business and not just getting paid for their hobby. It took me a long time to realize and then admit it, but I never broke through to that level of ownership.

I never owned my business.

My business owned me.

I could go on vacation whenever I wanted, but I always had to add the cost of people covering my work to the price tag. I didn’t have a boss, but a long client list that could, at times, be much worse than a boss.

I had the opportunity to take as much free time as I wanted, but it always came with the sacrifice of progress. When all that became too much, the progress suffered, and once that ship sails, it’s hard to get it back to shore.

As coaches, we should teach our clients to own movement, not just survive it. Well, for a long time I was merely surviving being a business owner. And that, my friends, is not a path to success or happiness.

I’m not writing this to shit all over your dreams of being a business owner.

Nope, far from it.

Nor am I here to make excuses.

I fucked this whole thing up.

I always had good intentions, but that and a nickel will get you a jaw breaker from a vending machine at your local arcade. I wanted to share this with you because the coach in me wants you to move forward with caution. I want you to realize that before you get on that bull, you better have those ducks in line and know that the glory and freedom that often get put on owning a business rarely become a reality.

I want to share this cautionary tale, because chasing down the dream of business ownership seems to be trending in our industry, and I don’t hear too many people talking about why it might be a bad idea.

I’m not the smartest guy around, but I’m not the dumbest either. I’m intuitive and have a wicked creative side. I’m strong willed and will fight to the death at the drop of a hat.

I’m a Marine.

I once did 177 get ups in one hour with a 24Kg bell for a fundraiser and then drank whiskey and danced the night away at a wedding. I can get shit done – when I want to – and that’s the thing about being a business owner that caught up to me.

The accounting, the marketing, the interviewing, the blah, blah, blah side of business that I didn’t like finally became not as fun anymore, so I just let off the gas and coasted.

That’s how you lose $4,000 in revenue in a month, and that’s the thing about losing business, it always goes much, much quicker than it comes.

It wasn’t over a bad customer experience either. In six years I can count those on one hand.

It’s because people move, lose jobs, get in relationships, and any other reason that has nothing to do with you.

There is no amount of success that can protect you from that and for that reason, you can never let up. Never.

Well, I did.

I knew what I had to do, and I just didn’t want to anymore. It didn’t make me happy like it used to. I know, I know, you’re supposed to delegate and hire out for all those items that you suck at, and that brings me to my next shortcoming.

I suck with money.

via GIPHY

I mean, I’m good at spending it without thinking, but I really suck at doing the right thing with it.

If you don’t want your business to own you, you better have a fucking stellar plan for every dollar that comes in the door.  It seems to me that every successful business has a numbers guy somewhere in the mix.

That’s no coincidence.

Then there’s me, just throwing money at things that won’t do me any good in six months, let alone a year.

I paid my staff too much; I charged too little for my product; I wasn’t patient with purchases, and I got into a lease that put me in a position where I was fighting uphill from day one.

I never gave myself a chance, but I never saw it because I always thought that if I treat people better than they would ever expect, then that would motivate them to produce. I thought that if I was aggressive with purchases and leases that it would pay off overall.

I’m not saying that employees shouldn’t be paid well and that aggressive moves don’t pay off. I’m just saying that you should have a plan for everything, and it better make sense to someone that knows numbers.

Have a numbers person!

In the end, that will make or break your business no matter how good your product is.

There are plenty of shitty gyms out there making a large profit because they have their numbers on lockdown. There are also a lot, and I mean a lot, of unbelievable coaches getting their asses kicked because they are not equally as good of a numbers person.

I’ve learned from the many, many mistakes that I’ve made over the years.  I know that I will continue to learn as I sort through and process all of this.

For that, I am grateful.

Any time we can learn from our mistakes it was worth it.

The only thing I’m ashamed of is that I allowed myself to think that my identity and character were defined by a title that I slapped on myself but was never really cut out to live up to.

That kills me a little bit when I think about it.

I let it stress me out and change who I am. It stressed all my relationships and probably none more than the one that I have with my family. My hope is that maybe one or two business owners out there who are feeling alone and completely fucked mentally read this, and it lets them take a breath and realize that they are not bad people or coaches because they are having a hard time with their business.

It’s easy to feel like a failure in that position, but the reality is that you had the guts to take a shot and that’s great. If you’re the type that just cannot go back to working for someone, then I hope this pushes you to get the help you need to right the ship.

But if you’re like me and can be perfectly happy and have a lot to contribute in another arena then I hope this gives you the guts to do the right thing for yourself and the people that you love.

About the Author

Mike Connelly: Former Owner of Rebell Strength and Conditioning for 6 years, current Fitness Director for Fitness Formula Clubs at their Oak Park, Il. location and co-owner/coach at Strength Faction.

Serves as a consultant to the Chicago Blackhawks organization for off-season camps for the past three years.

Categoriesbusiness

The Art of Getting Your Shit Together

Getting your shit together is a skill that escapes even the best intentioned and seemingly organized people. This is especially true in the fitness industry, where the expectation is we work while others don’t. All…the…time.

In today’s guest post by Chicago-based strength coach, Mike Connelly, owner of Rebell Strength & Conditioning, he shares some of his insights on how to balance the teeter-tottering of work/life balance.

Copyright: vicnt / 123RF Stock Photo

The Art of Getting Your Shit Together

If you read Tony’s last blog, The Grind: Hashtags, BS, Truth, and a Little Too Much at Times, and found yourself questioning your value in “the grind” then I have some good news for you. You’re not alone. I hate “the grind”. Can’t stand it.

You know what I like? I like spending time with my wife and daughter. I like going out for some drinks with my friends on the weekends. I like reading books that have nothing to do with what I do for a living. I like watching documentaries. I just really, really, really like not working.

There, I said it and I meant it.

Don’t get me wrong. I do like coaching people. I like managing a team, setting goals, and accomplishing goals too. But, and I’m going to steal a gem of a thought from our industry, I want to use the minimum effective dose to get that shit done.

If we want to cut the fat off of our work load then we are going to have to first determine what is fat and what is essential to our success. It takes some effort and help to get your shit together but I can tell you, without hesitation, that it is well worth the trouble.

Here’s a couple of things that helped me get my shit together. I hope they help you too!

1) Make Sure You’re On the Right Path.

We spend a lot of time outside of ourselves these days. We are heavily influenced by the outside world, leaving little to nothing coming from within ourselves. That can be a huge detriment to our productivity. A lack of confidence in creating our own paths leads us to chasing someone else’s and we end up completely void of any idea of what WE want out of this.

When I first started coaching I had this idea that I wanted to be that guy that can rattle off a bunch of science terminology and statistics from studies and that would legitimize me as a coach. I was overcompensating for never having finished school and thought it was going to keep me from ever being successful.

I wanted to follow the path of the coaches I admired, which is logical. Here’s the thing though, I was chasing a ghost. I am not the coaches I admire. I am just me and that’s just fine. I don’t have a laundry list of pro athletes that I train. I do work with some, but the overwhelming majority of my business is with general population clients.

Do they need me to recite Anatomy Trains to them for them to achieve their goals? Nope. Do I need to revolutionize training to grow my business and make people happy? Nope.

Here’s what I need:

  • I need to create a community that provides comfort and motivation to those that choose to be a part of it.
  • I need to be competent in the basic training facets. In my book, that’s one form of an assessment, one method of movement preparation, a solid template to build my programs from and an understanding of what differentiates programs, and a reliable network that I can refer my clients to should a problem arise that is outside of my lane.

Believe me, if you find one of each of these facets, that is all you need. If it works, it works. No need to pile on.

The point here is that while it took a while, I have finally found MY path. In discovering that, I have been able to cut the fat off of my to do list and save myself a ton of time. If you want to know what will make you happy in your work, the answer lies within you and not on social media.

2) Huge Dumps Are Healthy.

For a very long time I lived under the lie that I didn’t need to write things down to be organized and productive. My thought was that my accomplishments to this point were proof that my “system” worked.

That’s special, isn’t it?

What I was disregarding is the fact that regardless of what my perception of my level of success and happiness to this point was (which were somewhat miraculous considering the dumpster fire that I have going on in my head sometimes), tightening the screws on your processes is never a bad idea.

Enter the brain dump.

Every Sunday I perform a ritual. I lather myself in shea butter, light my favorite candles, put on some Yanni and spend an hour inside my head. Some of that is true. Well, ok, it’s an hour that I spend inside my head.

It is somewhat of a ritual though.

I do get away from “the noise” to center myself and dig through the rocks inside my head. Not literal rocks, although if you have met me before you may wonder. I use “rocks” in the sense that it is used in Gino Wickman’s book, Traction. “Rocks” are the big things that I want to get done in the long term. They are my big goals that are comprised of a ton of smaller points to work through.

While a legit list of “rocks” is going to be relatively small, the action steps that get you to your “rocks” can be lengthy and hard to keep track of. Unless of course you take some time every week to check yo’self.

A good brain dump will clear your head, relieve you of stress, and leave you with a list of steps that will help you dominate your work week in a clean and efficient manner. Knock that shit out every Sunday afternoon and I will bet you dollars to donuts that you will sleep like a baby come Sunday night. That’s right! No more Sunday Scaries (that’s what my wife calls stressed induced insomnia)!

Brain dumps are not only good for clearing your head, but they will keep you laser focused throughout the week. Keep that list with you and use it as a guideline for what you need to get done. This will keep people like me that get distracted by shiny objects on task. It might take some practice and getting used to, but once you get it down you will not know how you survived without it!

3) Find Your Bible

Now that you’ve dumped your brain out what are you going to do with what you came up with?

Figuring this out wasn’t easy for me because even though I had started doing my brain dumps, I was still left with the task of organizing all of it’s products. It’s a legit obstacle that presents itself in different ways to everyone. The key is to find some sort of tool that works best with how your brain works.

My good friend, Todd Bumgardner, uses a notebook. He’s a hipster. If something like that works for you, go for it.

I need a little more structure and flow. Something that looks and performs cleaner. For me, the Action Day Planner works like a charm. It has a simple and manageable layout that does not confuse my apish mind.

Does it matter what you use?

No. Just use something that you can log all of your brain dumps and weekly notes in for easy reference. Anything above legal paper folded into your pocket should suffice but it’s going to depend on your style and what you need to keep up with the task. I suggest that you not just buy any old planner. Shop around and flip through them until you find one that makes sense to you.

And That’s That

There it is. Three things that will help you organize your grind and leave you with as much time as possible to do the things that we actually want to do. And let’s face it, if you are telling us that working more is something you actually want to do, you are full of it.

If you would like to gain a deeper understanding of how I have successfully organized my time and so much more, join us in Chicago on May 6th and 7th for the Spring Strength Faction Seminar. HERE is a link with more information