What Did 2020 Teach my Team and I? Last meeting of 2020, Happy New Years!

All right, cool. I just wanted to. I guess it's kind of cool, just us. So I wanted to kind of see, obviously 2020 has been kind of crazy. This is our last meeting, I guess, before the end of the year. So I just want to kind of go around and see what, if anything, stood out to any of you in terms of what you learned from 2020. Obviously, 2020 had a lot of curveballs and stuff, you know, politically and with the whole virus and everything like that. But I don't know if you've done any self reflection this year, but over the past year, 2020, like, kind of what stood out to you? If there's nothing that comes to mind, don't worry about too much. But, like, if there was anything that you, like, look back and like, oh, I learned this, whether it be about business, personal life, whatever it might be, was there one, two. You could share whatever you wanted to share. Lee, was there anything that came to mind right away.

Like Augusta Wise, obviously. But that's kind of my talk for the conference, so I'll give you a little teaser. But maybe more personally, I think community, like, how it matters because, like, for me, like, my church never got together this year because, like, it was just too big. So it was just like online streaming and, you know, like families. And if you have at risk people in your family, like, you're obviously not gonna see them. So it was cool, like, being able to work here because we could still work and still have some community. So that was really cool. I think I've always valued community, but it was really big in 2020, where you see, like, this person's having a bad day. It honestly might just be they haven't been with their parents recently or they haven't, like, had their friends around them or whatever. Right. So that was just one thing, that it made me value that more, I think this year. And I spend a lot of time with my parents, so, like, I didn't spend much with them this year. So that was kind of a bummer, right? So I don't know, just the value of community, family, friends, stuff like that.

Liz, do you have anything?

Yeah, I would say that I think it is amazing how much people can actually pivot and think completely outside the box and adapt. And I think we've done that this year and, like, almost reluctantly, for what most people would think. I think it's been in that way, an incredible year on so many levels. Even with your family and everything, you just learn to pivot and communicate differently. I think that's Been really good at Augusta. Like all the transitions of each of us personally in the company, I think everybody else around each other has handled them well and been very supportive of each other. I think that's really important not to have a lot of ego and pride and just support what's best for one another and candid conversations. I think that has really been a key to our success here. Saying difficult things out of love and all of that, but it's been an awesome year, I think.

Cool. Marcus?

Yeah, I agree a lot with you, Liz. I feel like a lot of ours are the same just as a team, you know, all the hardship we went through, you know, this year because of COVID even though, you know, we still got to work a lot and there was a lot of opportunity for us during COVID to grow.

I still think, you know, even that it kind of affected the whole nation and, you know, not just teams, but also people individually. So to get through that, you know, for some people obviously was worse, some people wasn't as bad, but things like that and you know, just, I guess reflecting both from, I guess a team standpoint, how much we've grown. Just this year, I mean, I've only been here two years, but I just. What I've seen in the past two years, just crazy incredible to me. Kind of life changing stuff.

Year and a half.

Yeah, Yeah.

I won't get ahead of myself.

Anything can happen.

But yeah, that team wise. And then also individually just to kind of, you know, especially visiting home for the holidays, seeing, like, can't really, like sit still. You gotta be like, doing something and some. Something's not being done efficiently. Like, I was talking to Lee about it. It's like, dude, you go visit family and, you know, something happened where he's like, that's so inefficient.

Give me that turkey sl.

It's more efficient if we pass the turkey.

Yeah, no, just.

Just individually reflecting on growth as well as the team.

The utensil before the meal or before the. Or after.

Engineer a sharp or fork.

I have something.

Okay.

Oh, do I say film?

I have to eat film.

Like, it must be pretty decent and profound. Josh, you better say something really good. You got engaged this year, bro.

No, I will. I was. I mean, that part is probably have.

Anything to do with it.

I was gonna say 2020 kind of taught me, like, personally, like.

To like the phrase, like, you never know what can happen, or saying like that could never happen has like, totally gone out the window. It's like pretty much everything this year that you could expect like, oh, that could never happen. Has happened. And I was just thinking like, personally reflect what would my life look like this year with the habits I have in my personal life and work life, stuff like that. If we weren't at a place that consistently got to keep working, like so many people out there that the job did get shut down and stuff like what would it look like? So it really caused me to reconstruct a lot of financial habits, personal habits, stuff like that in case something does happen in the future. Oh, it can never happen to us. We have a great culture, we have a great team, great company and stuff. After this year, it's kind of like, you know what, anything could happen. So it's just really made me look inside is going to person.

You decided 200 square foot but apartment wasn't so bad.

Yeah. So I think you guys have gotten the drift here. We're talking about stuff we've learned in 2020. So we'll come to you in a second. I'll give you.

Well, mainly about COVID you're saying.

Yeah, well, because of COVID and all the stuff that's happened, right. So I think for me, business wise, I said in my, in that video the other day, I made about goals, some of the stuff I've learned. One other thing is like, from a business standpoint is like our country, like really rewards risk at the end of the day. Like if you, if you lose and you mess up, whether it be stocks or like business, like you get a write off, you don't have to pay as much taxes as you lose, you know, and then, you know, if you do well, you get to take deductions for employees or for real estate you buy. And like, so I think I learned that more this year because when the bailout happened, I call it a bailout, stimulus package, whatever you call it, at the end of the day, like the average employee made, you know, $1,200. And that was good. But the amount of money that came to business owners and to people like, if you own real estate in a bad spot, you just don't pay your mortgage for 12 months. You're good. Like, that's crazy, right? And so.

I never would have thought the government would step in and pump that much money into the system. Right? So even what we've done here, like a lot of it has to do with the fact that like the gym was saved by stimulus money. Hundreds of thousands of dollars because we shut down for three months. Every single contract had to be vo and so would we have survived. Yeah, we would have been fine, but like, the fact that we got saved that way is crazy. Do I support that? I'm not sure. Because the amount of dependency we have on a government, which is. Can come into question from an ethical and government standpoint. But that's what I learned from a business standpoint, from a personal standpoint. Man, I had a good one. I thought it was good. What was it?

I totally forget. So why don't you guys talk now? I'm sure I remember Brad.

So, yeah, I think overall in 2020, it was just kind of a good.

Experience of just kind of good reminder just to kind of always be flexible and kind of, you know, you never know what's going to happen, but.

You can pretty well always kind of adapt and change. And, you know, it may be a road that you never envisioned yourself going down or, you know, that you didn't think was in play before or something like that, but you, you can just always kind of pivot and change and just kind of do what you have to do to keep marching down the road, so to speak. So.

Yeah, I think that's kind of been one of the main ones for me. I mean, yeah, thinking back here, even to, you know, here in March and April and so forth and, you know, usually where you would hear from the office, you know, the phone was ringing off the hook and whatnot kind of thing. And then I guess March and April, it was like everybody just kind of froze for a little bit and. And you know, it kind of started picking back up again after people got sick of looking at their backyards or so. But yeah, I mean, so, yeah, it's just, you know, you kind of just gotta be ready to pivot, I guess would probably be my biggest takeaway from 2020.

I remember. I personally. So one thing that was really interesting this year was like, because we had so many things that were going on that were so polarizing, like whether you look at the election like year this way or this way mask, you're either this way or this way. Like, people were so emotionally charged on different ends and even like racial issues, like all this stuff going on. It was really interesting to like not create content as much as just try to lead people that were on different ends. Right. And you're kind of like.

How do you bring people together on an issue, like wearing masks in a meeting and like make a decision like, hey, look, this is not charged. We're not trying to sides here. Like, we're just trying to do what's right here. And so that was difficult even for, like, closing down the gym. Like, half your members think you gotta close the gym, you gotta listen to the law. The other half is like, I'm gonna die if you don't. If you do that right, like, where's the balance here? Right? And then finding out, like, how to lead from a position when you really don't want to take sides. You just want to do what's right for people. And then making it clear to people that you're not choosing sides when you do keep the gym open, versus in the spring when we did close it. And people were mad at us, half of them. And now the other half are mad because we're open. Right? So, like, how do you do it where you're not hurting people? Because that's not the intention. We don't want to. Like, I don't really care about if you disagree with me. It's like, but what's right for the people? What's right for the people you're leading or the customer and the sake of the gym. But, yeah, it comes to me from a personal side. Ben, wanna wrap it up?

2020 has taught me that.

Perseverance and sel and.

Staying true to your values and your principles are the most important thing to really have your personal drive, move forward. And as far as on a, like, more global scale or.

Like, not just myself, this entire year has showed to me, like, everyone's true colors in a lot of ways. And so through that knowledge and that awareness, you can make a lot more easy moves as far as your own personal level goes. And that's what 2020 taught me.

Austin, do you want to share?

2020 brought the hustler.

After.

What.

I went in and tried to earn as much money as possible.

On site and stuff, and I was.

Able to, but also was able to learn more about myself and knowing that I could put my mind to this.

Stuff and.

Do it and come out.

On top on me.

Thanks so much, everyone. I think we have another team meeting in 15 minutes, so thanks so much.

Sam.