204 - Breaking Boundaries: Transition from Finance to Founding a Fitness Network with Generation Iron Fitness Network's Edwin Mejia Jr

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.

Edwin Mejia Jr., welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the co-founder of Generation Iron Fitness Network. That's a mouthful. And the website can be found at generationiron.com. It's one of the most interesting businesses I've ever run across. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Doug. Appreciate you having me on.

So how would you describe Generation Iron Fitness Network? What exact— I, I, it's so much, but there must be a way to describe it for a simpleton like me in just a few words.

It's, you know, look, Generation Iron today is known as the leading independent strength sports publisher in the world. What we do here at Generation Iron is that we are curators of strength sports content. We produce, create, and also distribute the largest entertainment catalog of strength sports films, short-form content for fitness, health, news, entertainment, And we also provide tools and, and all the resources and expert knowledge from our writers for readers and listeners around the world that wanna learn about training, nutrition, guidance, and entertainment.

Now, I know you're a native New York, New York guy, and you worked for Lehman Brothers for a while. How the heck do you go from finance on Wall Street to being the co-founder of this massive media empire that you've got? What's that story all about?

So that's a great, that's a great story and a great question. For me, it's been, it's been quite the journey to say the least. I mean, we, you know, born and raised in New York, I said to myself, I always wanted to work in finance. And, you know, after playing baseball in college and realizing I wasn't going to be a major league baseball player, you know, I got injured sophomore year in college. I started doing internships in finance. That for me was a blessing in disguise because I realized very quickly that I needed to have some form of experience in the finance world before I graduated college in order to land a job as an analyst in one of the top banks in New York City. And luckily for me, I worked very hard to achieve that. I gained some experience, met some really great people, portfolio managers and asset managers in New York. And then my senior year, Before my, the end of my, well, the first semester of my senior year, I ended up getting an offer to work at Lehman Brothers as part of their global real estate analyst program. And then fast forward, May of 2008, just to, I put my 2 weeks notice in because I realized very quickly, Doug, that I learned a lot. I met a lot of great people, but it really ultimately wasn't for me. I wanted a little bit more. I wanted something different. I wanted to get into the arts. I had a passion for the arts. I had a passion for media. And I've, you know, I've been very good friends with my business partner today, who's a good friend of mine and went to school with, Vlad Yudin, who's a director. And he said, hey, why don't you come on board and help me produce this film that I'm doing? When I was producing this film called Last Day of Summer, which is actually the poster right behind me, and it's a film that we produced and sold to Showtime and Entertainment One. Had Nikki Reed from the movie Twilight at the time, and we sold it internationally. And that allowed us to create a business out of it. And we grew our business to become a distributor and hybrid producer of film TV content worldwide.

And today, when I look at your website, I'm just— my jaw drops at how the breadth of what you guys are doing. It's unbelievable.

You know, we've been very fortunate to work with a lot of great people over the years. I After, I believe in 2014, 2013, we met Arnold. Uh, it was very— it's— that was a pivotal moment for me and it changed my life in many ways. Not only because he's someone that's been very influential in the fitness bodybuilding world, but someone who is very, very revered and obviously respected. I realized very quickly that I loved fitness. I learned a lot about health and nutrition through him and his events at the Arnold Classic. And we did a movie called Generation Iron. Which introduced or reintroduced the world to bodybuilding similar to how Pumping Iron did for that generation, but Generation Iron did it for a new generation. And we started working with the Olympia, which is the Oscars of bodybuilding today, and the Arnold Classic. And that made us realize there's a huge opportunity to tell, you know, amazing, unique stories in the fitness space. And now we've grown our catalog to over 40 titles. That are distributed across Netflix, Hulu, Prime, and many streamers around the world.

Wow. So you've been doing this for a while now. I mean, you started this back in the late, late, what, 2009, 2010, somewhere in there.

So we've been producing since 2010. We've been producing a lot of fitness docs, fashion docs, music docs, and then we've been in the fitness industry now that, you know, we've grown into for the last decade.

Wow.

So we've been in the deck, you know, for the last 10 years we've been not only producing live events for like the Arnold Classic and the Olympia, but we've been producing a lot of the, you know, the, the streaming network platform with the platforms of fitness, strength sports, that you see today.

So what is it that gets you excited to get up in the morning and go to work now today after all this success?

Yeah, look, for me it's been working with new people, different people, and meeting people from around the world that really not only impact our lives but help They tell incredible stories and being able to work and meet people that really can inspire and motivate you to change your perspective and create new perspectives and learn how to look at different things in a new light. I mean, for us, it's really about motivation, inspiration, and creating a story that provides a lot of empathy, right? These underserved stories really need to be told in a way where they can reach new viewers and new audiences. And that's what, that's what motivates me every day.

Wow. So you're out looking for stories of people. So let's just take the bodybuilding space, for example. Maybe you've got a kid in some country that's a little underdeveloped and he has this dream of being the next Arnold. And those are the stories you're looking for, the ones that get successful.

100%. I mean, we spent some time in Ghana, we spent time in Brazil. I mean, seeing how people live in these parts of the world, it's, it's quite fascinating. But what unites everybody is their interest for bodybuilding, for fitness, for strength sports, and obviously the dream to become the next Arnold. It's really fascinating and I love it. I mean, I love strength sports. I think strength sports is at, you know, there, it's at the center of everything that you do today. Nowadays, everybody wants to get into strength training. Everybody wants to get into some form of functional fitness. And I think that is what makes Generation Iron special, where we're marrying not only the, the movies and the films, but also the education as a platform too.

Well, I, I mean, it's critical stuff. I mean, I do, I, I have a coach and I do my strength training. I'm 73 years old. I do strength training once a week, Pilates twice a week, walk 3 miles every single day, you know? And I mean, that's how you have to be if you wanna live.

And, and look, I mean, it's your, your testament to that too, Doug. I mean, for, for you to be living that and, and being that like that way every single day and and be having that to be a part of your life. It's very, very important. Yeah. Consistency is something that we, we really preach here. And what I love about bodybuilding and strength sports is that there's a discipline behind it that really translates well to your nor— your day-to-day business.

That's right. That's right. And it allows you, I mean, when you get, get a little older, it allows me to keep doing the things I love. Like Fridays, this Friday I'm going skiing, you know, I'll do 9,000 vertical feet in 2.5 hours, right up the hill here. You know, I mean, 73 years old, it's cool.

That is impressive. I mean, well, I hope that, you know, obviously once I get to your age, which I know everybody doesn't, sometimes they don't even think about it, but I think you want to be living a healthy, active lifestyle and, and, and at the very least have health as a priority in your life.

Well, and I think that's what I like about you and your business is that it's, it is, it inspires everybody to say, hey, I can do this. I may not be an Arnold, but I can get into shape. I can get fit. I can eat well. I can exercise. And you're right, it takes discipline, but it's totally doable and it's doable without a whole lot of expense if you have to do it at home, for example.

Exactly. And then nowadays you have gyms all over the place. You have at-home gyms, you have, right, online training platforms and programs, you know, and a lot of great coaches online that are reaching people that have never been able to, they've never been able to reach before.

Right.

It's a huge value add to that that you'd never had in the past. And we try to connect the dots as well with our coaches and trainers and readers online. And I think that what— that's what we really love to strive for, not just entertaining, but be able to provide a voice for coaches as well.

I saw you do a little— you do a little martial arts stuff. I'm a secondary black belt in a Northern Chinese animal style. I was curious about that.

Yeah, look, I mean, we, we ventured into martial arts and MMA and all that back in 2016, 2017, we did a movie called The Hurt Business, which was really exciting for us. We went out to New Mexico, we went out to Florida, we went out to Canada to interview Georges St-Pierre, spent some time with him on training. We spent some time with Ronda Rousey, Jon Jones, and we were able to work with the UFC and Bellator on that film. And that was a really inspiring film because it really showed The behind the scenes journey for some of these athletes in terms of what it takes to prepare.

Pretty rough.

And physically, and I was happy to work with, you know, Kevin Costner on that film too. He was a narrator on that project and his kids are big fans, MMA fans, and they'll show artists as well.

Cool. So as you think about all of this and your, your success in, in a multimedia company. Kind of directed at fitness generally. What is it that's unique about you that you bring to the table that has made all of this work?

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, right now in our space, we've been dedicated to creating premium entertainment content, premium content for film, TV, documentary series. We have— we've been in a situation where we haven't— we've been filling a void, Doug. In the strength sports space for film and stories that are for underserved stories. And we've been doing that now for the last day, I would say the last decade or so. And that's what, what's really differentiated our platform and our ability to, to stand out amongst other peers in the industry and fitness and bodybuilding space. So we've been able to create content that not only inspires, motivates, but also empowers. People. And we do that with our films. And now we've also become a distributor of all that, all the mediums in our space too.

I'm curious about you though, personally. What is it about you?

For me, I mean, look, I mean, the one, the one thing, I was never really into fitness. I was a baseball player growing up. However, the, the opportunity to feel better every day and change people's perspective of health and nutrition is really something that inspired me. I grew up really with a family that was from the Dominican Republic, who came here and immigrants and really created, trying to create the best possible opportunity home for, for their kids. And growing up, I didn't have all the resources available to me, all the information that I needed to necessarily become successful, but I knew that I wanted to create a better opportunity for myself. And that obviously stemmed from health and nutrition. Working in finance was great, but you know, I remember working those late nights, having all those carbs, and I didn't want that for myself for a long period, for a, for a long period of time. I knew I had to change. And I think fitness itself was something that really allowed myself to change my perspective on content, nutrition, how I, my health and business.

I, I, I, the thought came to me as I was listening to you that, that the whole technology around streaming with Netflix and Disney, now Disney Hulu, and all these other streaming companies that are streaming over the internet, it seems to me that that provided the opportunity for you guys because you could produce content that they were looking for that they could distribute out on, in, on their platforms to other people. Would, would that be fair, a fair assessment?

Yeah, look, I mean, as I entered the industry back in 2010, 2012, I realized very quickly that we needed to retain ownership of our content. You know, the reason why I say that, Doug, is because we were in a situation, we were an industry, and still to this day, people follow this model where you produce something and then you license it. Those days are long gone. We realized very early that we wanted to retain ownership of the content that we produced. And that allowed us to not only create better projects, high-quality projects, but it allowed us to retain ownership and have the downstream revenue distribution model that we have. And then that allowed us to sell or license certain windows to Netflix, Hulu, Prime, and many of the streamers. But we still retained our, you know, our own ownership of our windows through our electronic sell-through windows for rental and purchases. And the reason why that was so important for us is because we were able to grow our audience organically very early on. So we retain an audience now that reaches millions of viewers and readers. So we're able to monetize that and provide them with high-quality content. But at the same time, license the subscription windows to the streamers as opposed to selling all of their rights.

And that makes total sense to me. And, and the streamers are happy to license because you're giving them a built-in audience.

Correct. And that was really the big bargaining chip that we had going into our discussions with many of the streamers is that not only are we bringing an audience, but we're also providing talent that is really to promote these titles, have millions of followers. Early on, Doug, people would laugh at social media, but sometimes social media became so powerful. You know, you see nowadays, you see guys like The Rock, Mark Wahlberg, that they'll get the exclusive to release a trailer on their YouTube, on social media. We did the same thing with our audiences that had millions of followers and athletes that have millions of followers as well. And then we were able to monetize our audience pretty quickly.

What, what's your, what's your, what, what, what kind of responsibilities do you have day to day for the kinds of things that go on in the business? I'm just trying to understand how your day looks and what kinds of things you do as a co-founder of the company.

Yeah, it's a good question. So I run business development here. So I, I handle all in-house productions, co-productions. I also oversee all of our distribution partnerships and our streaming platforms. So on a day-to-day basis, I would say I would divide it into a third, a third, a third. A third of our business, a third of my day goes into development, assuring that we continue to create great quality content with partners that we've already signed on with, producers, filmmakers, and also the streamers and distributors that have come, have come to us to aggregate content and to distribute content. Another third of that is involved in overseeing our production process, making sure our production is on time, making sure that our edits are on time, ensuring that our trailers and our videos are being done right, sitting down with our marketing, marketing guys here to make sure that we can review that. And another third, of course, is dedicated to just focusing on listening and working with our team to making sure that we can get the valuable feedback that we need to continue to grow together as a group and as a team.

How many people are involved in the, in the company?

We have right now 17, 17 core people in our team, right? That consists of editors, producers, and also our marketing team.

And then when, so when you get a film project in, of course you, you're gonna assemble the crew and, uh, the, the people, the, the talent and all that. And those, that can those can be— I don't know, I think you guys probably run pretty lean budgets, but you're still talking 20, 30 people sometimes.

Sometimes, however, it depends on the project, depends where we're shooting. A lot of it does vary, but we've been very, very, very efficient with our team, and we're very careful to not overcrew up on certain projects. As you know, documentaries are a little different. Documentaries are a little different. You want to be very lean depending on where you're shooting. We shoot in basically every continent imaginable except Antarctica at this point. And we know that sometimes less is better, less is more when you're shooting in certain locations to get the best quality stories.

So do you have a, like a cadre of, of people like directors and cinematographers and sound people that you, you go to when you have a project and you're ready to go?

Yeah, so we have our director, my producing partner Vlad Dudin, he directs a majority of our original programs that we create. And we have another director we work with directly out of LA, but we have a core team here, our core camera team, it's all in-house. And then we have a core editorial team. Just why we've been vertically integrated for years, and we've been very efficient with our content. A lot of filmmakers take years to produce projects. And in Europe, that's usually normally the case. For us, it takes a lot less because We keep everybody and everything that we do in-house.

You can handle everything from pre-production all the way through post-production and distribution.

Correct. I mean, that's, that's really the only way these days as a hybrid independent producer to succeed in today's marketplace. It's almost impossible to continue to create, you know, successful projects. Sometimes they take too long to create.

Right. So this show is called Listening with Leaders, because I am, I think listening is the foundational skill of life. Tell me about how you learned how to listen.

Yeah, look, I mean, I think growing up, I've, I've realized playing, playing in collegiate sports, playing high school sports, I think I, that provided a lot of a discipline, pretty much a big discipline for me. And I realized very quickly that listening has to be, it has to be instrumental to learning success. And accomplishing things as a group and as a core team. And that is something that I learned very quickly in sports. And I think I'm very thankful for my opportunity to work in sports and carry that over to not only the finance world, but now the media entertainment world as well, and the distribution world. And I think listening has provided a lot of valuable feedback for us to grow as a team, to grow as a company, but more importantly, create and cultivate talent. You have to be able to listen in order to be, you know, be able to work with great talent.

Yes. I, I mean, I teach a skill that allows you, allows people to listen other people into existence so they feel deeply, deeply heard. And when you, when you get that skill mastered, you can calm any angry person in 90 seconds or less. You can build trust and loyalty and rapport, all of that. Because you're focused on listening from the speaker's frame of reference rather from your own frame of reference. You ever, have you ever seen that work where you're actually listening to somebody to make sure they feel heard?

Yeah. Look, it has happened several times. In fact, you know, with some of our core members, I think having an opportunity to listen to them really helps strengthen our culture. It helps strengthen not only the communication, but helps with executing the visions that we have for each individual project. We could be working— right now we're working on about 14 different projects. Wow. We have to be able to have a lot. Well, have to be able to listen, have to be able to sit down and really gain the feedback that's necessary for us to continue to proceed with our projects.

Where do you see your company going in the next 10 years?

That's a great question. I mean, for us, it's really important that we are the number one resource for all things strength sports, entertainment, fitness, news. We would like to describe ourselves, Doug, as the ESPN for strength sports. Wow. We want to be the ESPN for strength sports, meaning that we are a one-stop location for all you need in terms of training, nutrition, guidance, entertainment, and, and, and health. I mean, that's, that's really what it comes down to for us. And we want to, we want to continue to be the number one leading catalog for strength, sports and fitness and bodybuilding.

I mean, it's inter— I'm not, you know, I don't spend a lot of time in that space, but I'm wondering how well known a brand you are in the, within the fitness industry. So I'm thinking about, for example, your local fitness clubs, coaches, fitness coaches, people like that. Are they— are most people that are in the business aware of who you guys are?

Yeah. So most people do know us in the fitness industry. They know us, of course, from the films and the film content that they see on the streaming platforms. So we're very grateful for those partnerships that we've been able to establish in the streaming and in the TV world. But we've been— we've launched personal training facilities now. We've launched a personal equipment training facility in New York.

Oh, physical facilities, brick and mortar.

Yeah, brick and mortar personal training facilities with specialized coaches, uh, in Dubai. We're launching in Florida, we're launching in, in, in Amsterdam as well. And then in addition to that, we've been working with a lot of nutrition and doctors as well in the strength space. You know, people want to learn about how to gain lean muscle, quality muscle, how to retain mass, how to lose weight the right way. There's a lot of questions that come up, and believe it or not, sometimes searching for that online can get a little bit complicated. Well, we want to be able to facilitate that and simplify it in a way where we have the right experts, coaches, and trainers on our platform providing that information.

And I'm just curious, how much, how much work do you do in reaching out to younger people?

Oh, right now. So our Gen Z, we're reaching about, I would say 40% or 35 to 40% of our audience is reaching out to young, young Gen Z audiences. I mean, we have 75% of our audiences here in the States. We have another 15 in Canada and the rest, the majority of that is spread across UK, Australia, and so on. But we're reaching a, a young, young audience right now, particularly on YouTube where we're reaching over 700,000 subscribers. And we have a few podcasts that we run and manage as well. So we're reaching a lot of big, big people on the world, big people that are into nutrition, bodybuilding through big names like Mike O'Hearn, a lot of strength athletes in the space.

Good for you. Ah, it's just sounds, it sounds so exciting what you're doing and so much fun.

It's a lot of fun because obviously we get to work with a lot of strength athletes, bodybuilders like I mentioned. There's a lot of legendary bodybuilders. We're working on one right now with Robbie Robinson, who was the first Black bodybuilder to grace a cover on a bodybuilding magazine. He was also in Pumping Iron. We're doing his life story, um, story. Uh, we're also working on Chris Bumstead's life story, most famous Canadian bodybuilder alive. He's the, the 5-time reigning champion now. Many people compare him to, to the Arnold of today and A lot of great projects that we're working on and we're excited about. And this year we're also producing a documentary on the 60th anniversary of the Olympia.

Wow.

In Las Vegas this October. So we're shooting that and we're working on that project as well.

So you wake up every morning with a smile on your face and you go to sleep with a smile on your face.

Oh, you know, let me tell you, Doug, there's a lot of— being an entrepreneur, there's no You have your days and there's days people, there's always a problem, always a challenge. But you know what? What's helped me a lot in facing those difficult moments and challenges that I've had over the years is having a partner that is very supportive and people that you can work with, that you enjoy working with, that you can depend on. Because a lot of, a lot of entrepreneurs out there might have the impression that you could do everything by yourself. It's not. It's not possible. It's not possible. I'm a firm believer that you need strategic partners and you need partners that can help you grow and vice versa. Good for you.

One more question. I'll let you go, Edwin. What's one thing about yourself that we would never know about unless you revealed it to us?

I'm a very, very, very— I would say I'm very involved with our Latin communities in New York. New York State, as well as many other states are facing, especially public access networks, Doug, are facing an existential crisis right now with cable, right? Cable television, as you know, there's a lot of cord cutting in cable. So I've recently become a chairman of the board at BronxNet, which is a nonprofit public access television network here in New York State. Out of the Bronx. So we have become, uh, an incredible training facility for young students that are looking to go into the arts, into media, want to know technology, broadcasting, editing, filming. And we've also become a voice for Bronx Night and Bronx natives and communities in the Bronx, underserved communities. We're becoming a voice for everybody that wants to tune in about anything that's happening in the world, anything that's happening locally with Bronx. So we are, we are part of, for me, most people don't realize that I am giving back to our community and consistently working with our community to make sure that they get the proper training, information, and education, something I didn't have growing up. And I wanna make sure they have an opportunity to learn about technology, media, and just a new avenue of how to create a career.

Great. That, that's really great. I know that, uh, Community access has been a really important aspect in many, many communities around the country, and it is threatened. It's threatened by funding shortages, by technology changes, but it's always been a place where young people can learn and voices can be heard that otherwise would not have an opportunity to be heard because of who they are and what they're saying. And I presume that's what you're supporting with the Bronx Community Access.

100%. I mean, we've had our interns, part-time and full-time employees become anchors, become broadcast producers at ABC, CNN, all these great networks around the country. So we want to continue to do that. And I want to be able to continue to have BronxNet grow. We have an incredible facility for VR training now. There's AI being implemented. So there's a lot of things like that that I want to be a part of. That a lot of people don't know about that I do get involved on a daily, weekly basis.

Well, good for you, Edwin. It's been so great talking with you today. I mean, you're an amazing guy doing amazing work, and I'm honored to be able to have this conversation with you.

Doug, thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it, and I hope to see you and meet you soon.

Absolutely, you're welcome.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up, ratings, and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Facebook and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.