Einstein’s Disease (05-14-2025): From Burnout to Buy-In Mike Carozza 30-Year Fitness Legacy

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Einstein's Disease. Through real world insights and powerful conversations with industry leaders, we help you break past limitations and rethink success. Are you ready to push the boundaries of what's possible? [00:00:18] Speaker B: Hello, my name is Greg Ellers and I'm the host of Einstein's Disease where we explore the challenges and overconfidence and stagnant thinking of professionals and personal growth. Our mission is to help individuals and businesses identify their blind spots, cultivate vulnerability, and unlock their full potential. Get ready to challenge the status quo and deliver new paths to success. Today's challenge is how small business owners penetrate a greater growth audience and the mistakes and successes of growing a small business. My host today, my guest today is Mike Caroza, founder of Caroza Fitness gym in Stanford, Connecticut. Full disclosure, I've known Mike for 25 years. When I lived in Connecticut, I went to Mike's gym and he was my personal trainer for many years. Mike, thank you for joining me today. [00:01:11] Speaker A: Thank you, Greg. Great being here. [00:01:14] Speaker B: That's great. We want to discuss some things you and I have been discussing. Most recently the challenges of owning a small business, Mike, and getting to the next level of success, be it more, more clients in your situation, more success for your clients. That in the end, as you know, in small businesses we've talked about the best salesperson always is your client. And I think that's where we're going to start today. A challenge, Mike, is process. When you look at the most important things that you've been committed to over the last 20 plus years in this, once the doors open, how do you keep people coming back? What is that? Because it's a problem. It's a challenge to make sure that people keep coming back. Every time your doors open is, it's two, it's Tuesday. Are they coming? Are they not coming? Do you have that anxiety? How do you overcome that from when you first started? As we talked about when you were in the phone booth on the, on this Greenwich and Stanford and then move down to the water and where you are now, how do you overcome that anxiety and how do you look at it every day to be able to put that plan together? [00:02:30] Speaker A: It's funny how that has definitely changed, I would say more over the last five years than it did in the beginning. In the beginning, it was very organic. Things tended to happen pretty much almost on their own. I mean, I, I always ran, you know, somewhat of a tight ship here. It was small, so that, that made things a lot easier. But I think as it grow, as it grew, I had to Think about exactly what you said quite a bit more. You know, how we handled new people coming into the door. They weren't going to just sign up and stay. How are we going to keep them intrigued in not only this gym but and invested in themselves and their goals? So we put together a system and so far the system seems to be doing pretty well. It starts with me reaching out to that person. I reach out to all of our new prospects coming in. I try to get a handle on what they're looking for, what their goals are, what their background is and then how much of a commitment are they willing to, to put in to themselves and is this the right fit for them? We start everybody with a two month membership. That two months is for them to get a feel for if this is the right fit for them. And it's also a good feel for us to see if they're, they fit well and they drive well with our culture and our beliefs, our methodology, the way we train with the coach, where we run the community. [00:04:03] Speaker B: And so when you talk about that two month commitment, Mike, people come in with a predisposed opinion, not only about a gym, about CrossFit and about themselves, not only maybe their physical standing or their capabilities. How do you work with getting them to break down some of those barriers? Because I walk in and you size me up and you're like, this guy could lose 30. He thinks he's a bench press guy and he doesn't need to bench press, he needs to do all these other exercises so eventually his upper body can gain strength. How do you, how do you work with those people to subtly get them to recognize the nuance of true physical fitness, CrossFit to get them to become stronger people and to get them to stay past the two months? Because I come in thinking I know everything, I just need a place to throw some weight around. [00:04:57] Speaker A: So, so CrossFit does a good job of explaining what it is. Constantly, constantly varied movements executed at, at high intensity. So right off the bat people come in and they know right away that it's not going to be a buys and tries kind of a day. They're not going to be doing legs and go home. There's going to be a lot more that, that's, that they're going to be invested in or asked to do, to be part, to be part of the program. The other thing that we do is define fitness, you know, so that we can explain to them like a little bit more about what fitness is, not just being able to run five miles or be able to do 50 push ups. Right. So work capacity across broad time and modal domains. So it's basically the more you can do, the more fit a person a person is, which tends to make sense for, for a lot of people, you want to be able to run a mile, you want to be able to do pull ups and you want to be able to throw a 2K in other eight minutes, you know, some, something along those lines. So, so defining those things and gives them a kind of like a starting point of what we are, what our program is. And then we try to explain, or I try to explain to them what our culture is. You know, our members here are pretty much the same across the board. They're kind, they're humble and they're very hard working. Yeah, we don't whine, we don't make excuses and we don't complain. And that's kind of like that bottles everything, you know, up together. If that's not what you're looking for, the two month trial is definitely not, not for you. But if that sounds like it makes sense, this is the place to be. [00:06:30] Speaker B: When you and that, that, that element of culture. I'd like to kind of think about that, have you talk about that for a moment. From the standpoint, how has your culture changed because of what you've learned from your clients and your regular attendees? Because you had a predisposition. I've known you a long time, a very sincere person. But sometimes you can't be that nice. Right? I mean, there's elements to business that your client base has helped you create some of that culture and maybe change some pretty conditions that you thought about the business that have changed 100%. [00:07:17] Speaker A: I think our members defined the culture. You know, I didn't, I didn't come up with that on my own. I'm not that smart. So these are, this was feedback that was given to me, you know, throughout the years. You know, hey, Mike, you know, I don't know if you noticed, but people here are pretty awesome. Like they're very kind and very humble and they work really hard. And then so by them giving that to me, it allowed me to kind of put that on the wall. And that took a lot of time. When I met you, I had no idea. And if somebody didn't fit in, the way I ran the business was, let's just see how long they can last instead of taking a step aside, taking the time to maybe have a conversation with, with them to see if we can kind of change some, some habits and patterns to See if they can fit into the community and the culture a little bit better. So that's definitely, you know, the path of how that happened and that's how I handle it today versus before. I made a ton of mistakes, there's no question about that. I continue to make mistakes. I kind of enjoy making mistakes, but so far so good. [00:08:31] Speaker B: And the self deprecation with making mistakes, that's a true characteristic of people that are able to be entrepreneurs for a long time, which you obviously have been. When you say you enjoy making mistakes, what is it about the mistakes that you make that you enjoy from the standpoint, not only personally, because you've grown a lot and I mean, I knew you when you had hair and, and you. But you. But a lot of things have changed. So when you say that you enjoy making mistakes, expand on that a little bit because there's so many people out there that are viewers or listeners. We've got a million people that would that, that see this every week or listen to it every week that are entrepreneurs that are making mistakes. And they don't look at it through that lens, Mike. They don't go, God, that was. I can learn from that. [00:09:24] Speaker A: And then I probably didn't either. It's hard to even to think about a mistake being a great thing. But in hindsight, I think every major mistake that I made and every time, every setback that came my way, I was able to come out of it a little bit stronger. I think it made me stop and think about the way we were operating, what we were doing, what I was doing to maybe contribute to some of those mistakes, to make sure that they didn't happen again. It could be anything with regards to how I handled membership, some of the leases that I was part of, and there's so many aspects of running the business. There's so many mistakes and opportunities to make them that come about. So it was that. It was digging myself out of that hole and having a little bit more confidence and knowing that a setback is not necessarily going to knock you out of the game if you don't let it. You have to think a little bit different. And I think back to when I first started, when I knew you. I would have never in a million years taught a group fitness class. Never, never crossed my mind. I could have put money on it. And now fast forward. I absolutely love it. You cannot take me off the floor. And if it wasn't for, I think it was 2008, 2007 was when I started doing group classes. People were losing jobs they couldn't afford, private training. I had no other option. So what I did was I started small group, semi private training. Little by little, I got more comfortable with what I was very uncomfortable with and turned it into this. [00:11:21] Speaker B: That's fantastic. So we're going to cut away because we, we got to pay for the show, Mike. But we're going to come back in the next segment and we're going to talk about some of the solutions that you have found not only post Covid, but even pre Covid that some of our small business owners can potentially use to their own benefit. So with that, we'll, we'll be right back after our commercial message. Thanks very much, Mike. Look forward to talking to you in a minute. Hi, this is Greg Ellers. Welcome back to the show. I'm with my guest this week, Mike Caroza, owner and founder of Caroza Fitness. Mike, thanks for coming back. And in this segment, as I closed out the last segment, we kind of want to get into a little bit about the solutions of Einstein's disease, when you had to deal with preconceived notions about how a business would work and it didn't and you had to make some changes. And one of the solutions I'd like to start on is when we talked initially about people coming through the door, how you were going to manage your business as your business began to grow, you had to think about hiring people. And it's sometimes hard just to have yourself as the only employer because you get tired of yourself. But you start hiring people, you bring in a whole new element of chemistry. And I'd like to let you share with the audience a little bit about when you started to grow and you had to hire people. How did you talk to me or talk to the audience a little bit about how you went through that process, some of the mistakes you made that created better people that joined your group and how that worked. Because we all know and we all face it all the time, hiring people's difficult thing, chemistry is, you know, it looks good for an hour and then three hours later you go, what was I thinking? So. [00:13:36] Speaker A: Absolutely, if you could, if you. [00:13:38] Speaker B: Could kind of give our audience and other small business owners some of the solutions that because of the challenges and what you've overcome and in, in that process, it'd be great. [00:13:49] Speaker A: So this topic really reminds me a lot about the, the three mergers that Jim went through. And what happened was, I mean, gyms are tough. It's a tough business. It's not a business that's, that's meant to last for 30 years. They come and go. And I was fortunate enough to come, come, come across a few people locally that were looking to either emerge or get out. They were going through some tough times. And in my head, they had a very similar membership base. The program was very similar. They were trainers. So I was very naive, thinking that we were the same. And I assumed that my passion and their passion was equal. And I signed the paperwork, put the two families together, and things got crazy. Things got a little crazy. The cultures were different. The program really wasn't the same. The way that they ran the business was totally different than the way that I run the business. The time I invest was completely different than the time that they were willing to invest. So all of these things turned into this kind of like, storm, perfect storm for me as a business owner. And then all of a sudden I was dealing with almost like triage members, didn't know what was going on. So that, that's probably what, what this kind of reminds me of, of the most. And you know, in, in hindsight, if I was to kind of go back, I would have stopped a little bit, I would have slowed down that, that process. I would have gotten to know not only the owner of the business a little bit more, but, but maybe even some of the members, the members. Just to make sure, similar to our two month trial membership, that this was going to be, that this was going to be a good fit. I, at the end of the day, I got lucky that it didn't taint my, my community and the culture that much. I mean, I went through a few tough periods with, with people, but. But it did, it did end up working out all right. And the way that I do things now is completely different. You know, my kind of vetting process for coaches is a little longer or a lot, lot longer. Probably longer than they want it to be. But I feel a lot more comfortable once I get them in. I make sure that they're a good fit and not just somebody who loves to work out or looks really good in workout clothes. You know, the people that embody our culture, our methodology and our practices. [00:16:32] Speaker B: And that's great. So you had a couple of episodes of the Hatfields and McCoys trying to bring things together. It didn't stop you from being able to keep your business going. But when you move forward and you go through that process of vetting new coaches and you go through the process of not only their trial period, but even before that, what are some of the things that really check the red Box, meaning I'm not, I'm going to finish this interview, but this isn't going anywhere. And what is it that is in the green box that you look at and say I think this person could be a great fit here. What? Because like you said, it doesn't matter if they look good in, in a, in workout clothes because most people that are trainers, they don't look like the Pillsbury Doughboy. So you're not going to have, that person probably isn't applying for a job. So you got, you got to get to the next level. What are some of those positive and negative attributes? Because they're probably no different than somebody that's running another business because you're going to probably come back to some of their abilities of character or whatever they might be. But I want to hear them from you, Mike. [00:17:51] Speaker A: Sure. So I usually start with availability. So the first thing I'll usually ask is when are you available to train? When are you available to coach? Our classes are at 5:00am, 6:00am, 9:30 and 6:00 clock at night. We train from 5:00am in the morning until 9:00 clock at night. So we do run a full, we run a full day but if somebody comes to me and right off the bat tells me they can only work from 9 to 5 and I'm looking for somebody from 5am to 7am they can be the best person in the world for the job but just doesn't, doesn't fit with, with us. So that's usually where I'll start once I see that they have a schedule that does or looking for a schedule that works with our schedule or what I'm looking for, then I'll get them in the door. So we usually will have them train here for two months in classes. Gives me a chance to see how they are with other people. It gives my members to see if, if they're a good fit. The nice thing about having 300 members is I get 300 suggestions and feedback from 300 people. So that alone makes my job fairly easy and an easier decision to make. When it comes to somebody. I do believe that they trust my decisions, but I also want to know how they feel when they're around someone before I, I put them on the floor in front of them or have them train, train them one on one. So, so that's usually, you know, where I, where I go with it. I also like to know what their, what their short term and long term goals are. That always helps me make a better decision and who I, who I bring in and that's the majority, that's really like the majority of it. Once I get them through two months in the gym and my members get it, get a feel for them. We do so much community events and activities. They know what the responsibilities are of the coach and trainer. So when we do have these events, I do expect everybody to be there. This is the kind of gym where everybody knows each other's names, you know the story, they know their goals. It's a pretty tight community. [00:20:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And you really touched on something there on the end. Well, in the interim when you, when you have 300 members that are opining their, their view on potential new coach. Let's talk about that addressable market because one of the most important solutions to any small business or medium sized business is understanding your addressable market. How many people, I mean you live in Fairfield county. It's, it's a pretty large area in terms of population, but you can't have everybody and you've got to be able to continue to provide the right service. How have you been able to balance and have you gotten to that position where you've said, you know what, I've got the right amount of members, I don't want more, I need more members. But how do you go about that addressable market in terms of getting them? Because I have a small business and I need more customers. And you had that same element at some point in your business. As mature as you are, you still have to be thinking about that. How do you go about that, Mike? [00:21:21] Speaker A: So with new members, what we started doing, which really benefited me a lot was we pay our members for referrals. So every referral that they bring in and signs up, we pay $50 to that person. That, that's probably been the best decision that I made as far as getting new prospects and members over the years. It's something that I wish I did from the very rich. [00:21:46] Speaker B: I wouldn't be, I would have retired by now. [00:21:49] Speaker A: Right. So, so that was, you know, that's, that's, that's been something that definitely sticks out in my mind when, when, when we're talking about, you know, new members and how they come in the door. So when it comes to the coaches and the hires, the feedback that I get from these 300 people is very different. At the end of the day, we're providing a service and the service is fitness. And we want people that, like I said, are hard working, goal oriented. And you know, sometimes the feedback is a little bit, can be a little bit off topic. It's not gonna be like, I like Greg. Cause he has the same dog that I have. Let's, let's let, let's, let's let him coach. We're providing a service, and that service is coaching. So, you know, that's definitely, you know what, what I mainly look for, aside from get along with getting along with the community and making sure that they're doing. Doing their job and they're getting. They're all getting there with what they need. [00:22:52] Speaker B: No, that makes, that makes perfect sense. So as we close this out, one of the solutions, and I think I'd like you just to kind of touch on it. A business is passion. If you don't have passion for it, you're not going to be able to be around for 30 years. You've gone through periods of time where your passion probably has been challenged beyond Covid when you started your business or when you grew your business. How do you keep that passion? Because every business owner needs that. [00:23:25] Speaker A: So I thought about this, actually, a few days ago, some friend of mine brought that up, and he was probably right. It was a neighbor of mine. And my passion is it's definitely there. Sometimes it's there more than it should be. It's something that I kind of have to dial. I sometimes have to dial down. But it's also something that I think my clients and my members understand. It's there. It shines every day. They don't have to ever worry that Mike's not invested in this or Mike's not. Doesn't have my best interest at heart when he makes a decision. So the. Sorry, I lost. I lost it a little bit. [00:24:15] Speaker B: Oh, that's okay. You're all right. [00:24:17] Speaker A: What was the. [00:24:18] Speaker B: Well, we were, we were on, on the passion side. But what we're going to do is we're going to cut. Cut away to a commercial break and we're going to come back and we're going to dive in on the solution side with your success in the. In the community and doing a lot of different things to be able to get not only Coroza fitness out there, but fitness in and of itself and your. Your members within the community. And with that, we'll. We'll take a quick break and be right back. Thanks a lot, Mike. [00:24:46] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:25:02] Speaker B: Hi, this is Greg Ellers. And we're back. Back to Einstein's disease with our guest, Mike Carozza, founder and owner of Caroza Fitness. Mike, it was, it was very important, I think in that last segment where you really shared some of the challenges that you've had because all small business owners have, have some of those same similar challenges, be it their customer base, their addressable market, the passion that they have to get up every day and truly believe in what their going in and providing a service or an opportunity to their employees and themselves. In this segment we. I really want to dive into that social aspect that you brought to, that you raised in the last segment. Caroza Fitness is, is known to be a very social and family oriented business. And, and what why I say that is participating in different events. People get on a bus and they go to the tough mudder, they go to some other event that you organize. And there's a element of the people in your organization, members and coaches that think this is just a normal part of life, it's an aid or it's one of the tools that gives them the ability professionally as your customers to, to have more success. I want to touch on how you made that conscious decision to become a more social organization because a lot of small businesses and a lot of our listeners, that's not normally part of their DNA and it is something that you obviously had to do. There was some risk involved. Is it going to work? What is it going to cost me? Do people care? Let's talk a little bit about how you made that leap into some of those social engagements and most importantly, that feedback to your, to your client base. Because as we talked about in the break, I mean you've got 100 or 150 members that have been with you for maybe a dozen years and 20 to 30 that have been with you from the beginning. So you've clearly created, as you mentioned in the first segment, culture. But more importantly, you've been able to build on that. And I think one element of that to explore and to share with other people is that social aspect that you've created because people know what corrosive fitness is even if they're not a member. [00:27:33] Speaker A: Sure. Community is probably one of the hardest things to maintain here. This business would have been a lot harder, probably a lot smaller though, if I was just teaching people how to work out. But it also excites me. No matter what happens today, good or bad, tomorrow is going to be a new day. And you know, I was kind of started fresh. The our community events are really what drives the gym. You know, outside of our workout or CrossFit program, we do six to seven socials a year. We do races and events, fitness events probably five or six times a year together. We do boat outings in the summer stuff in the winter. And it gives me an opportunity to get to know the members a lot more because when I'm here, I'm usually going back to back with sessions or classes and I don't really get a chance that well to know who my people are. It gives them a chance to also meet each other. And the friendships that were built here over the last 30 years are incredible. Marriages, kids came out of it. Currently I'm training grandparents, their kids and their grandkids, you know, all within the same place. And you know, when 30 years ago or 25 years ago, when I started this, if you told me that that was going to happen, I probably would have laughed. Another thing I would have bet money on. But, but it's, you know, it's incredible that we have, we have a facility where, you know, I didn't even get a chance to talk about our special needs population. And that's always been a big part of, of Coroza Fitness. And then we have our semi pro and collegiate athletes and then we have everything in between and be able to run a gym and a community with the diversity of those people. It's hard, it's challenging, but it's extremely rewarding and it's really what makes the gym. [00:29:56] Speaker B: So when you talk about some of those elements, did you try some things and they failed? Did you. How, how was it that you're now at the point where you can have half a dozen social events, a half a dozen race events? What was it that got you to not only take that risk, but when something and, and what didn't work? What, what did you have to change? Because going from being a, a, a fitness coach to, to managing a business and maturing with it like you have, you've gone through those times, you're like, I don't really want to be out there in front of all those people. That's not what I want to do. Because what if it doesn't work? Share with our, with, with our audience some of the tools or, or some of the mentors that, that helped you through that. [00:30:50] Speaker A: It's a big, it's a big risk every time, I'm not going to lie, every time I put an event out there, there's a small chance, I know in my head that I might be the only one at the event. So it is tough. But the more that I did them and the more I got to know our members, the more I got to know what are they interested in? Did they like to go hiking? Hiking is something that we do now regularly I do it with my family. I do it with the gym. I think it's an awesome activity for all of us to get out and nature to be able to get outside since we're inside all the time, and to just walk and talk, you know, and the more we do. Didn't. Did things like that, the more I got to know what their. What their interests are. Is it cooking, you know, so we can do cooking classes? Was it a race? At the race out in Tahoe that we were talking about, we had a few members that really wanted to do that. The good and bad thing about me is I say yes to pretty much everything. So there's not much that I won't say no to. But it was really, as far as those events and occasions being successful, it really came down to me getting to know the members, getting to know what they were really interested in and putting it on the table. And I put them in charge. So if someone was really interested in going on a hike that they really wanted to do, I might say, okay, you're going to be our ambassador for the hike. You help me with recruiting the crowd. The bigger that crowd got, more people got friendly and got to know each other. Friendships were built and then other hobbies and interests kind of came, came and were put on the plate. It didn't. Didn't happen easily, didn't happen fast, but it did happen with a little bit of time. And I'm very fortunate for that. [00:32:42] Speaker B: That. That. That's fantastic. So when we think about, and we. We talked about some of the solutions that came out of, whether they were mergers or specifically your affiliate program to get members, the solution of becoming more embedded in people's lives, they think about Coroza Fitness. I got to get to the gym at 6 before I catch the train. They do it three or four times a week. You're finding things that have given your business your passion, the ability to sustain in. In people's lives, and to think that it's something and believe because of the results, because of the friendships that are made, that Coroza Fitness is something that has to be in their lives on a regular basis, those are successes, those are solutions that you've come up with. As you think about today, May 13 and 2025, and the challenges that are out there for the next five years to sustain yourself, what kind of hurdles and challenges do you see, Mike? And. And as you think about those coming towards you, what are some of the ideas or solutions that you're thinking about? Because you need to find you need to be thinking ahead and you need be proactively taking on challenges that come at you. So things are going to change. I mean you've, you got people that don't need to go to the gym because they take Wegovy now. I mean, I, you know, I mean there's all sorts of things that happen. Pills don't, don't sustain life, but you've got challenges ahead. What, what are some of those you see and some of the solutions that you're already thinking about. [00:34:25] Speaker A: So two things I think education and educating the members is definitely a big part of it and it's something that I try to do, whether it's here kind of in a like a town hall type setting or emails that I continue to put out. I'm a big on instant Instagram and social media and Facebook and I try to reach out to as many people as I can that have issues understanding certain things. So the education piece is a big one. The other one is just having the time to spend to get to know more people. And that's something down the road that I know that I need to work on a little bit more. And I'm training from 5am I mean it hasn't changed much since I met you. My day starts at 5am, usually ends around 6pm when I have the kids, I do my best to be with them. So there's only so many hours in the day that Mike can do it. I think down the road what I'm going to need is somebody similar to me, someone that can reach out to these people and get to know more of our members on a personal level so that we know what they're looking for, we can give them what they need. Everybody's not in here to get a six pack and squat, 300 pounds. Every single person is in here for sometimes different things. And it's being able to have them receive those things that I think is what keeps them long term, keeps them happy, just keeps the business growing. [00:35:58] Speaker B: No, that's great. And one of the things I think you touched on there more than anything else, one of your biggest solutions is listening, right? [00:36:06] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:36:07] Speaker B: You said you're always willing to say yes. You rarely say no, but you probably say no more often than you wanted to admit. But it's that listening, it's a big solution for a small business owner. Right. If you don't listen to what your clients want, they're going to find what they need somewhere else. When they tell you that something needs to change. [00:36:28] Speaker A: Sure. I mean there's a lot of getting to know each other in here. And you know, they always say a trainer is like a psychologist or a therapist. And as much as I don't want to believe that, I know that I am and I know that we are. And those conversations, they need to happen and I need to have them probably more than I do and more than I think that I do. And that's something I'm trying to work on myself more recently than before. [00:37:00] Speaker B: That is fantastic. And we're going to cut away. We'll be back to finish up this great episode with Mike Caroza. Mike, thank you very much. And with that, we'll cut away to our sponsors. Hi, this is Greg Ellers and I'm back with our guest this week, Mike Caroza, founder of Caroza Fitness. Coming up on 30 years in business. Mike, this has been an interesting and a great chance, as I mentioned in the beginning, you and I have known each other for 25 years now on and off. We haven't talked in a long time. It just kind of picks up where it left off, which is a true sense of what a friendship is and a true sense of what relationships are all about. And I think that's where I want to go in this last segment because Mike, so many people that are listening or watching our show tonight are saying this is a great story. This guy's got some good stuff. But, but how did he do it? What, what, what was the DNA? What was the, the special sauce that Mike was able to not only be a small business owner, but, and we didn't, we haven't touched on it. But you can, in the segment about, you know, you couldn't really be that close to anybody because of COVID for some period of time, Connecticut might have been a bit more restrictive than other states, but that's where you live. That's where your business is. You, you had some challenges, but if you could spend a little bit of time giving our, our listeners and viewers a lens into Mike's ability to be a small business owner. Mike's ability to have success and overcome those challenges, not the way that we looked at it through Einstein's disease and some of those solutions to grow your business. But Mike is the person because I think that is where people will really and the business owners are going to resonate to say, I got something from this. [00:39:12] Speaker A: Sure. So when I first started, I was going to people's houses. That's how my business began. I was doing it from four in the morning with you up until eight o' clock at, at night with a 15 minute, maybe break in between travel time. It was an insane schedule, but the passion of helping people change their lives and improve their health was pretty strong. I think I got to a point and I said to myself, I can't fit any more people in my day. How am I going to hit and get a handle and get in front of more people? And, and that was taking the risk in opening up a small facility. I think that was probably the biggest and first risk that I took professionally. It was super scary. It worked and from there it just grew. And I was able to see what having a spot, having a place where people come came to me and I wasn't coming, coming to them. How much that changed my ability to operate. It gave me a little bit of time on the back end to spend more time building, building the business from there. I was fortunate enough to grow pretty consistently up until 2020. I would say that the business was consistently growing. It wasn't a roller coaster. And you know, that was pretty awesome. And I was very lucky and fortunate to have so many loyal clients and members at that point. So that was definitely a, you know, something that sticks out when 2020 was, was a, it was a kick at that point. I didn't, I didn't know what was happening. The first time that I feared that I needed to have a plan B and Mike did not have a plan B. So I, I hung in there. I, I was doing zoom sessions, you know, so I was on the phone like this for as much as people would, would allow me to. I would take breaks, I would cry in the bathroom knowing that this thing was going to come to an end at some point. And I still didn't have a plan plan B. But I hung in there. And you know, I think not having a plan B might have been a good thing for me in hindsight, because like most business owners that could have jumped ship or jumped, jumped ship did. And I'm one of the fortunate ones that stuck in there and took the punches and came out on the other end a lot better than before. [00:42:04] Speaker B: Think the success that you had from 20, you know, 2,000 up to 2020, was it a humbling level of success? Did it create any hubris? Did you start to think that your business was something truly special that you didn't have to worry about? How, because, because when you do have success and you've worked really hard, there's an element to business where you're like, yeah, I kind of got this figured out. I, I, I know what I'm doing. I have Einstein's disease. I, I, I don't need to think about it a different way. I know how to work this. What, share, share a little bit about that with, with the audience. [00:42:53] Speaker A: Sure. And I, I felt confident with, with where I was. There's no question about that. But I've always been the kind of person that was very critical on, on myself. I, I, I judged myself harder than anybody else could, could ever judge me. In my mind, I was doing all these things wrong when I was getting all this feedback and I was doing every, everything right. And, you know, that was, it was a little bit confusing, you know, at times. As far as the path of growth, there were a ton of setbacks and hurdles along the way. I don't want to make it sound like this business just kind of kept growing from the beginning up. I was evicted from a space that we outgrew. I was in a space that I didn't have a lease on and they sold the building. And I live in an area where real estate is few and far, far between. There were chances, you know, within those 20 years, 15 to 20 years, where I thought I was going to go back to just traveling to people's houses, me having a location wasn't going to happen. I think I found almost every piece of real estate at the last hour of what my attorney said I had, which, which is, it just really is, you know, it's incredible, you know, but it, but it also taught me to kind of hang in there when, when things were tough and when times were tough to, you know, not bow out, not give in, not quit. You know, these are the same things that I want from my members, you know? Right. So I kind of have to practice what I preach. Drink the Kool Aid, lead by example. [00:44:40] Speaker B: No, for sure. Do you think I like the adage, And I know you've heard it, hard work makes luck. Without hard work, you're not going to get luck. And you did. I can remember when you had the place in Stanford and the lease was up and you hadn't found the place in North Stanford, and you were like, you know, I don't know what's going to happen. I can remember that as you bring that back up and like you said, you found everything in the 11th hour. But beyond the lease aspect, as a business owner, do you feel that sometimes you're like, I deserve that because I busted my hump and I got it from the standpoint of having a better outcome than what could have been the worst outcome. Do you feel that As a business owner, because you, you worry about the worst outcome always, don't you? I mean, you, you don't think today maybe nobody shows up. So that's like a really a bad outcome for a day. Then it's a week, then it's a month, Then you're like, where am I paying my rent? But there's other elements to running a business, and you always think about your points of failure, but do you feel like your hard work has given you a leg up to some of that? Because small business owners, every day we all think about or we, we experience setbacks. [00:45:59] Speaker A: Sure, 100%. It was probably about 20 years ago, somebody on my softball team had asked me, like, how do you do it? Like, how do you, how do you have so many gyms are going out of business within the first year, first three years? And it was the first time somebody asked me that. And I sat back and I'm like, well, I'm working seven days a week. I'm working 15 hours a day. Impossible to fail. Like, how could it possibly fail? It's a recipe that this isn't going to, isn't going to stop me, and it's not going to stop. Is it going to stop the business? So the work ethic, you know, is there. The pat, the passion is definitely, definitely there. But, you know, aside from that, it's, it's, you know, so many, so many things. Aside from, from the, from, from the lease, it's more like believing in yourself. And in the beginning, I didn't believe in myself the beginning. When I started my business, I may have seemed to you like a pretty cocky, confident person, but I had absolutely no faith. And it was really my clients, it was, it was really people like, people like yourself that, that had faith in, in me, that gave me that confidence and that confidence built, built and it built in it and it built. And you know, I'm so. I still, I consider myself to be a pretty humble person. I consider myself to be somebody that makes really big mistakes often. But I'm very fortunate enough to be somebody that is comfortable in those uncomfortable times, knowing that I could dig myself out of a hole, although it seems like it would be impossible. [00:47:40] Speaker B: No, absolutely. In the last few minutes we have. Do you, do you mentor other small business people? Do people come to you and say, mike, I got a problem. This is what I need. What would be your advice? What kind of a community for small business? Are you in there in Stanford? [00:48:01] Speaker A: Sure. You know, I don't know if some people might consider this to be a mistake. But in 20 years, I probably have raised my rates once. And it may seem really silly to a lot of people watching this, but I'm the kind of person that prefers my plate to be full. I rarely went out and had to look for people and I think because of that. So I think I bottle up having this high level of dedication and passion with a price point that is either average or maybe even a little bit below average market wise. I give my members and my people absolutely no reason to say no. I don't even lock the door. The door is unlocked. Prices are decent. The coaching is amazing. It's a pretty good formula for me and it always has been and it's something that I continue to would want to stick with. [00:49:01] Speaker B: Well, that is fantastic. I think that's the best way to wrap up the show with that closing because you nailed it. I really want to thank you for being on our show today, Mike. It's been great to connect with you again. It's been a while. Your success is and your challenges to be able to share those with our audience are greatly appreciated and look forward to seeing you the next time I'm back in Connecticut. I need to get in there and get hurt a little bit. [00:49:27] Speaker A: Absolutely. It was great seeing you again. Love to cause some damage. [00:49:30] Speaker B: Absolutely. Take care of. And with that, we'll call it a day. Thank you very much for joining us today on Einstein's disease. Goodbye. This has been a NOW Media Network's feature presentation. All rights reserved.