Transcription
I own uh three gyms in Los Angeles. We're working on our fourth gym.
Okay.
We do two million bucks in revenue. Um, I'd love to be at four million bucks in the next three years. Um, I think what's stopping me is just like patience and staying in the game long enough and continuing to just keep the faith. Like if I've learned anything from here, we're all going to have like bottlenecks and constraints that are unique to our business that we need to fix.
Sure. And we know it. And also just in the round tables, like listening to the folks that you have here, like, it was never like, oh, we hired this person and they solved it. At least at like my revenue number, it was always like they like they figured it out like it's in here or it's like it's in here.
Um, and I think back to like when you were talking about yesterday with Gym Launch and being in a dark place, wanting to get out of the business, but then you guys, you know, what ended up becoming the the Valley Accelerator model, but in your darkest days, you figured out like what that was going to be and like look where that set you up to now. But like, in those darker moments or when you just didn't want to do the work, like how did you keep the faith and then like, do you just constantly keep moving the goalpost or does that feeling just never go away?
Um, [sighs] I think the honest truth of it is I don't have many alternatives that I enjoy more than business. And so I've kind of I have a relatively bleak perspective. And so if you have a a worldview that's working for you, ignore what I'm about to say. Um, but for me, I kind of just take the the the the premise of life is that life is suffering. And so suffering is a constant. And so if I don't do anything, which I did take a year off during the sale, um, I was miserable. And when I'm growing a business, I'm also miserable. It's just different. And when a business is plateauing and we can't move forward because we're constrained for whatever reason, I'm also miserable. And so whether we're shrinking, I'm doing nothing, we're growing, or plateauing, misery is just a constant. And so I'm being real. And so then um, I mean the frame that I had has always been and I'm being crude on purpose so I apologize, but like I was 19 years old when I decided that [ __ ] happiness was my was kind of going to be my mantra. Um, because I was so dissatisfied with the fact that I could never feel like I was happy. And so then I was like, I shifted to like, well, I'll just be useful. And that has served me really well in my life is like, if I can just be useful. It's an interesting um goal because when you're useful, it's inherently a service-oriented goal because you have to be useful to someone, but it also gives you something to do because in order to be useful to someone, you have to learn stuff. And so for me, continuing to play the game has just gotten me better at playing the game. And whenever I get sad or whenever I'm, you know, going through a hard time, like right now, this is the hardest year I've had in the last eight years. So, this is a local minimum for me. Um, I actually uh ranked my last 13 years and this is uh the fifth worst year I've had. Um, but the worst year out of the last eight. So, you know, haven't had it this bad in a minute. Um, but it is helpful to remember that like, you know, when I lost everything one year twice, that was my second worst year. The worst year was the first year I started my business. And so, like everything's relative. I have problems now. They are better problems than I used to have, but they are problems nonetheless. And so the um, the perspective that I have is what else am I going to do? And if there's a day that I find out that there's something that I could do that I enjoy more than what I do now, then I will do that immediately. But there's um, there's a really interesting thing. It's kind of a Buddhist philosophy, which is that um, in all suffering there is you have suffering because there is capacity for joy. So, one can't exist without the other because the opposite of joy is apathy, not suffering. It's a thin line. It's like when you love someone and you hate them, it can happen really fast, but you don't go from love to apathy overnight. And so, um, I have suffered in the game because I also have great moments, you know, that occur within it. And so, um, for me, everything always gets boiled down to behavior, which is kind of my overarching frame for understanding reality. is that boiling everything down to what will I do and how does this affect what I do. And so what I found is that a lot of the the suffering that that I experience is actually entirely in my mind. And so for example, let's say I make a bad business decision and I lose $17 million in cash, which I just did. Um, which sucked. And when that happened, I was like, "Okay, that sucked. Um, what does this change about my life? I eat the same food. I'm married to the same girl. I work the same job. I have the same team. I come to the same building. I live in the same city. Nothing has changed about my life besides the idea that there was a number that no longer is there. And so that means that all the suffering is optional. It's voluntary. I'm choosing to decide that I'm going to suffer with this. But in terms of how my life has changed, it has changed zero. And what's interesting is that the more or rather the less you change your lifestyle in accordance with your business success, the more resilient you are because it means that fewer things ever change anything about your life.
Can you say that again?
So if you don't change your lifestyle as your business becomes more successful and makes more money, then if it becomes less successful momentarily or you have some sort of volatility in the business, if your baseline is here, the volatility up here doesn't change anything. So, it's almost like making your anchor 100 feet below the surface of the water. And so, the choppiness of the waves doesn't matter. But if it's really important for you to get these tiny blips that happen with the waves at the top of the surface, you do get higher highs, but you also will experience the crashing of the waves. But if you're just always at the bottom of the ocean, then you're like, you [snorts] can barely hear it. And so, that is kind of how I focus my attention, which is number one, what does this change about my life? And then number two, what am I going to do instead? And so the answer to that question has almost never been change what I'm doing. It's always like, well, I will learn and I will get better. And the thing is is that like knowing that suffering has been a constant at every chapter of business for me. Um, you guys cool with me talking about this?
All right.
So what's really weird about humans is that we have, you probably have heard of like hedonic adaptation, right? So like you you can only eat so much cake. You can only, you know, enjoy so much pleasure before you get used to it really quickly, right? What's really interesting about that is we actually have the same thing in reverse, which is that we actually adapt to suffering as well. But then why does suffering still hurt? And so just like pleasure, if you want to make someone suffer or if you want to punish someone effectively, then you need to change the intensity and variety of punishment, just like you need to change the intensity and variety of pleasure in order to keep the kind of the hedonic cycle going. And so what's nasty about business is that it's very good at changing the intensity and variety of punishment. It's like, there I didn't know I could [ __ ] up that way. Wow, what an experience. I'm so grateful for this. Because the thing is, the second time you get screwed by an employee, it doesn't hurt as much. The second time you get sued, you're like, "Okay, it's another one of these." Um, and so what's difficult about business is that if you stay in the same vein, it does become less painful because there are fewer things that are outside of the realm that you haven't already experienced. But you also don't get the hedonic pleasures of the novelty of growth. And so you miss out on both sides. And that's why there's both joy and suffering and growth.
Do you feel like in the mentors that you've had and the people that you've talked to that are further along the way that they have that same operating perspective or is this unique to you?
I think everyone has whatever whatever whatever their modus operandi is. So for me, this is what has worked. And so this is by no means, you know, like my content is never is never a sermon. It's always just a documentary. This is what worked for me. If you have something that works for you, by all means do it. Um, but I would say like I've never I've never strove striven um to win the award for happiest guy. I've never claimed to have that title. I I think if anything I've struggled a lot more on nihilism of why bother. Um, I would say that that's the thing that I struggle the most with in my life is like, I don't need to do any of this. I really don't. And some people say that I really don't need to do this. Um, and I do it because um, I want to be useful. And so like that gives me some inkling of meaning and so I chase that. But I definitely have bad days. Um, and I'm definitely in a season right now where it's tougher for me. But [snorts]
It's just a game.
Yeah. Well, I speak on behalf of everybody here. You made a big difference for all of our lives. So.
I appreciate it. Thank you. So, if you've hit a revenue ceiling or your entire business relies on you to grow, then I'd love to invite you out to our headquarters here in Vegas to learn how we scale. And so, my team spends two days with you to identify the thing that's holding your business back. And so, if that sounds interesting, click book a call. And if you're a fit, we'd love to potentially see you out here in.