In this episode, Mike Andes discusses how his personal health regimen, disciplined mindset, and marriage commitments fuel the rapid growth of his $1M lawn care business. He explains why daily non‑negotiable workouts are essential for stress relief, idea generation, and decision‑making, and how profit‑sharing motivates his team. Mike emphasizes that money cannot buy health; discipline is required to maintain fitness, nutrition, and recovery, especially as entrepreneurs transition from field labor to office work. He shares the concept of a "marriage constitution" with his wife Brianna, setting concrete health and weight goals as part of their partnership. Throughout the conversation, he stresses focusing on long‑term goals over short‑term inputs, giving oneself grace, and using a clear vision to silence inner doubts. He also offers practical advice for busy entrepreneurs on balancing field work, recovery methods, and avoiding the trap of celebrating past wins without setting bigger future targets. The dialogue blends entrepreneurship strategy with personal development, illustrating how holistic well‑being underpins sustainable business success.
Chapters
I moved across the country to build a $1 million lawn care business in 1 year. The uniforms finally came in.
The minute you talked about profit sharing, it clicked with them. I know. Money motivated.
Then I'm going to show you the part I've never shown before, and that's what gives me the energy to be able to run all the businesses, and that's staying in shape, being fit, and staying healthy. Perfect. And before you click off and like, I'm here for the business stuff, if you don't have the healthy foundation for your body to operate, you're never gonna be able to outperform your competition or be able to push yourself to be able to build a big business. So without any further delay, Terrell's gonna ask me questions while I'm working out. So in between sets of me grunting and pushing and try to put my 30 pounds, push it around, hopefully get a thing or two from this.
When business gets crazy, does the gym become more important or the first thing that you stack?
I work out 7 days a week. I do it mostly because it makes it non-negotiable. It's not like a thing that I can talk myself into, like, oh, tomorrow I'll do it, or like, oh, I was gonna take a break. Like, when you're super busy, you need to be efficient. And for me, even when I'm like super stressed out or like there's a ton of stuff going on in the businesses, this is like not my escape, But it's a great place to like put your energy towards something other than the businesses. Because if that's all you're thinking about and you're super stressed out and you have tons of cortisol, it's a good place to release it. It's like in the gym, working out, exercising. So that when you can go back to the business, you can think clear. Also, a lot of my best ideas come in the gym.
For those people that are working like 50 hours in the field a week and they're like, I got my exercise, I don't need to go to the gym. What do you say?
Oh, I agree. I agree. If you're out in the field working, you probably get 5-hour workouts every single day. That's cool. And so you actually will be focused more on rest and recovery, whether it be a sauna or cold plunge or meditation or massage. Like, that's really important. But I think for the— what happens a lot of times once you grow out of that phase of being the laborer and you're doing sales, you're doing admin, that's when you get the gut. That's when you gain 40, 50 pounds. That's when you start getting aches and pains. But if you're out in the field, You could literally eat 5,000 calories a day if you're working outside all day long, which is a great thing to have. But then as you grow the business, because that's the whole objective is to grow the business, and you're not doing that anymore and you're in the office or in the truck all day just doing estimates or something, you got to go out and disconnect.
People maintain their trucks, their equipment, the shop space. Why do they have such a hard time taking care of their bodies?
I think in general, if you have a lot of money, you can exchange it for Things very easily, i.e., a shop space, truck, equipment, even hiring people. But no matter what, how much money you have, to get in the gym and work out still takes the same level of effort. You can't buy your way to like a 6-pack or buy your way to a healthy body. It's gonna take discipline no matter what. And so you either have those, those raw ingredients of discipline or you don't, and having more money doesn't help you. I think sometimes We go to the easy button of like, I can buy trucks, I can get equipment, I can hire someone. Yes, you can with money, but like no matter how much money you have, if you don't do the hard work of exercise or choosing right decisions when it comes to food, like you're just not going to have a healthy body. Okay, it just feels weird, it feels awkward to do this machine. The fact that you have to stand on that side so it's not like—
oh, what's the message you would say to someone who's in denial about How unhealthy they are, like overweight.
Yeah, I think a lot of times speaking to like my audience, business owners, we say, okay, well, this year or this, you know, 2 years, I'm gonna focus on the business. But what you fail, we all fail to do, is prioritize the things that actually fuel that growth. It's like in order to have a good business, you make good decisions. If you're fat, overweight, you get tired by 2 PM, You're living off of caffeine, you never sweat, you never lift weights, eating unhealthily. There's no way you're going to make better decisions than a person that has clarity of thought, lots of energy throughout the day, doesn't have an energy crash in the afternoon, has a healthy relationship and marriage because they stay fit. And
how do those 2 things relate?
Which parts?
Marriage and
fitness. In Home Service Boardroom, we have the second course is all about marriage. And one of the parts we talk about is what's called the marriage constitution. So Brianna and I did it when we were— right after we got married. It's basically a written promise to each other about what's gonna happen. Obviously, you do your vows. Like, we did our vows in the ceremony and everything. Basically made promises outside of, I will love you forever, 'cause I don't really necessarily believe that you'll love someone forever based on nothing. Like, for example, if they killed your children, would you still love them? No, you're gonna be mad. Um, and so what parameters of the love that we give to each other, like, what were the conditions of that? Mm-hmm. And one of the things that I promised to Brianna was like, I would stay at a certain, say, under a certain weight. And if I ever went over that weight, I would do it for less than a year. When I work out, I'm doing it for my partner, the person that has committed themselves and their body to me for the rest of their life. I should be like being the best version of myself for them. Rule number one: if you start a rep, you finish the rep. When I was like 11, 12, I started breaking out acne, and so I don't think I'd be as healthy as I am today if that wasn't for that. Because like, if I had any fatty foods, if I had a whole bunch of pizza or chips, I'd immediately break out within an hour. Yeah. I tried like everything in terms of creams and all that stuff, but it just wouldn't work. So it kind of started going away when I was like 19, 20, but all throughout my teens it kept me from eating bad stuff. And then when I'd sweat afterwards, your skin just is, uh, sweating and obviously getting toxins out. No half sets. But I think in general, it's like, use whatever you got. If it takes social pressure from having acne to be healthy, let's go. I know some people say it's like vain to work out and stuff, and it's like, oh, you're only thinking about yourself. What about your grandkids? What about your children? Um, what about your kids that are gonna have to take care of you when you're 65 and and you can't walk, or you have a, you know, heart disease because you're 100 pounds overweight. Is that selfish? Somehow we've like made that okay, and I think it's crazy. Do fitness trackers help you make better decisions? It's like up until 2 years ago, 3 years ago, I never wore a watch. I never tracked my steps. I never tracked my calories. So I don't think you need to. Like, just making decisions. It's like, should I stop at the gas station and have a donut? Probably not. Oh man, I need at least 4 hours to survive. I need 6 hours to be a decent husband and a good human. And if I get 8 once a month, I'm a happy guy. In my 20s, I would last 3 to 4 hours a day or a night for a week, then crash. I was exhausted a lot of my 20s. So I probably sleep probably about 6 hours a night now on average. What's your favorite thing to do? But like I need that to mostly in the evenings after work to still have energy with for Bree and not be like just completely wiped.
Basic practices that always really help.
Don't judge yourself. There'll be periods of time when you don't work out, don't eat healthy, don't get sleep. But if it's a conscious decision you're making in order to sacrifice for the goals, like I do all those things so that I can be a great husband, so that I can build a great business. So I can give to other people. And there'll be times where you might have to deviate from the course on these smaller decisions in order to reach that goal. But I— don't judge yourself. Miss a workout, who cares? If you have a bad meal, who cares? If you gain a couple pounds, who cares? If you don't sleep tonight 'cause you're stressed out about the business, don't. That will not adjust or affect my performance. And so like one thing that's to be careful of when it comes like fitness trackers, sleep trackers, and like getting all dialed in with your health Is you wake up and you're like, my readiness score is 37 out of 100. I'm gonna have a bad day. Like, I almost wanted to hack mine and be like, every day just says 100. Doesn't matter if I slept 2 hours, like, I'm going. So don't use anything as a crutch as to why your performance will be affected. And so my ethos is it doesn't matter how much I sleep, whether or not I work out, whether or not I feel good, my goals will pull me in the direction of where I wanna go. And I will perform at the level that is required to hit them. And when you have that mindset, it's like, okay, 27 readiness score. I'm gonna kick this day. I will show you. That's always my mentality when I see a low readiness score. It's like, I'll show you. You'll see, you'll see what a 27 gets you.
How do you teach someone to give themselves grace?
Stay more focused on the goal instead of the inputs of today. The inputs of today will lead to the outcome, But over the course of 5 or 10, 15, 20 years to build something great. Talk to any entrepreneur that you look up to, they've been in the game for years and years and years. And so falling out for a week or a day or a month, or not having a great relationship with your partner for tonight or like this week is not going to mean that you're not gonna have a good marriage or you're not gonna have a good business. Like if your best employee walks out on you today does not mean that in over the next 20 years you can't build a great business. And so stay focused on the outcome, realizing that your heart rate will go up and down, You'll be stressed outta your mind. There'll be times, ups and downs, but like lower highs and higher lows is the mantra because you make better decisions in that mindset and it allows you to stay focused on the long term. When you get really, really high, super excited about stuff, or when you get super, super low 'cause bad things are happening, it prevents you from being able to think clearly and keep the end goal in mind. The 20, 30-year goal, where are we trying to go? And you can still enjoy all the ups and downs. Yeah. Like everyone thinks like, oh, you're so like, so forward-thinking, you never enjoy the moment. That's a bunch of hogwash. I can enjoy the lows, absorb it, feel it, feel like, get that feeling. It's like partly why we're doing this challenge. I get all these feelings of someone that's starting out from scratch with nothing and the anxieties that come along with that. Yeah. And you can also feel the elation, the highs, highs, like all amazing stuff happening. You can feel that in the moment and enjoy it and process it and, and then also be like, okay, That's an input to this output, and that allows you to be able to get through low moments without quitting, because the only way to fail is to quit.
How do people not get caught up on their old wins?
You'll only be caught up in your old wins if the wins ahead of you aren't big enough. So running, running a 1-mile, that might be a huge feat for you, and you'll look back to that running that 1-mile forever until you realize your goal is actually a marathon. So for a lot of people, if you're constantly stuck in In the good old days, maybe it's 'cause the good old days are better than what you have in front of you. You might need to reset what your goals are and make them bigger, make them clear, 'cause they will pull you towards them.
Do you have like inner voices that you're deciphering?
I don't know, dude. I'm not like, I'm not a very deep thinker. I come from a family of a lot of deep thinkers, and I just haven't seen it serve people very well. And so, I think much more in terms of like, this is my goal and I'm working towards it. And so are there voices inside of my head? Sure, there's probably 100. There's probably not just 2, there's probably 100. At the gym, there's times you want to eat different types of food. There's times you want to compromise on your goals. And like, that's non-negotiable. Like, I'm sorry. Like, it's like when I— on my second date with Brianna, we were— I was— I took her on a boat ride. We went across the bay and had dinner. And we're like, okay, if this is going to be real, let's like put all the cards out on the table. And I said, I just wanna be really clear and upfront about something. You've probably heard me from other people that I work a lot. That's not changing. And like, my goals aren't changing. These are my goals. And like, they're the most important thing to me. The ups, the downs, the inner voices, all the voices in my head, who cares, dude? Like, this is the goal and we're working towards it. Yeah. And every time I question myself or doubt myself or hear a bad voice in my head that says otherwise or tries to deviate me from that course, I have to just get clear on the goal. Yeah. And so when we talk about the missions of all the businesses, when I feel like I wanna quit on these businesses or like there's really hard times where people say negative things about you and it hurts and it stings and you're like, why am I even doing this? Like, I could just sell stuff and just live a good life. Every moment you go back to the vision of the mission of this. Like, it's more than just like, my goal is to make home service business owners rich. For the media team, our goal is to help home service businesses grow without breaking with software. And our goal is to change the level of professionalism in the industry with Augusta Lawn Care. It's more than the mission statement. Those are the things that go into my head every single time one of those 3 businesses is having a moment where I want to quit. When the software is breaking, everything's horrible, and I'm just like spending gobs of money and pushing money back into the business. It's like, oh, we're doing this so the people that I love, the people that I relate to the most, home service business owners, don't have to grow their business and break financially, break in their relationship, break in their physical life. Like in their physical body. And I get really, really clear on that. And I have all these mental images of people on the Turnaround Show or owners of Augusta or people that have talked to me. I have like, oh, I'm doing it because of that. I'm doing it for them. I'm doing it because this will solve that problem. If you want to quit, you get clear on your vision and your mission, and that gets you through all the voices. Cuts through all the noise. Like, will I ever be able to make every home service business owner rich? No. Will I ever be able to change the level of professionalism in landscaping industry? By whose metric? Will I ever be able to help home service business owners grow without breaking? As many as I possibly can, but not all of them. So I'll never achieve any of those 3 goals. It's an infinite game.
Bar. Thanks,
dude. You're
good.
