TAKE CONTROL - Even in Hard Times

Jake, welcome to, uh, today. I don't even have a name for these things that we do, but really, really glad to have you. Um, those of you who aren't familiar with Jake, Jake Thompson is a motivational speaker who teaches teams to build grit, accountability, and compete every day. Um, his website, you can get information at competeeveryday.com, and then he also has a great book out. I like the consistent message with branding, compete every day. I read this, and so I asked Jake to come on today because I wanted to talk about some of the concepts that I read in his book, and then just as a high-level performer, get some of his, you know, behind the scenes on what he does to compete every day. So we're gonna get right into this.

Do it.

In your book, Jake, One of the things you write, you say, ask most people unhappy about their current situation and they'll tell you that they didn't choose it. It just happened to them. They genuinely believe that they didn't choose a bad boss, a failing relationship, or struggling business. So how do people choose their situation?

Well, we choose not to take action. Honestly, you and I were laughing right before we went on air about all the technology and everything that we could use on Zoom and livestream And how you're just in this get-it-done mode. Like I'm going to do it. I'll figure out how we want to improve it and adjust it later. But I've got to at least start doing it. And that's a conscious choice that you're making to say, I just need to start taking action. For a lot of us, we find ourselves in jobs we hate and positions we hate and relationships that are draining us. And we think we didn't choose this lifestyle. But looking back, we've actually made the choice to actively stay in it. If we're in a job we hate, If we're not intentionally building our skillset for a new career, networking every week with other people either in our industry or new ones, applying for new jobs, working on our resume, growing our skillset, we're actively choosing to do other things rather than pursue new opportunities. And so by doing so, we've chosen to stay exactly where we are. And a lot of times we don't think about that. We don't think about the conscious effort that we have to put into every decision we make. But that's ultimately life.

Yeah.

If we're not intentionally with the choices we make, the actions we take, the way we network, the way we build our skillset, the way we grow, then we're going to find ourselves in tough positions that we don't necessarily like. And I would imagine you see that all the time from a financial standpoint. Well, I didn't choose to go into debt. I didn't want to be in this situation. But looking back, you're like, well, you chose to spend here and you chose to do this and you chose not to. Then it slowly adds up over time that puts us into that position.

Yeah.

So it's not one choice that we're choosing to stay. It's all of these other choices that have compounded that have really resulted in us being in a position we don't like.

Yeah. It's interesting. As you said that, I am recalling a conversation I had with one of my clients. He owns some bars in downtown Salt Lake. And when COVID happened, he wanted to get on call 'Cause he was super anxious and stressed out and kind of freaking out. Like, obviously the state just shut us down. We can't have people in here. How do we make more money? And so like, I'm brainstorming ideas with him. And at the end of the day, everything was like, nah, I don't wanna do that. Nah, I don't wanna do that. And so I just think like, especially for gym owners, like, look, 2020 has been rough. And depending on your state government, it's more rough for some than it is for others. And certainly there are elements that are out of your control, but with the compete everyday mindset and not playing the victim, what are you doing to at least show up and work with the things that are inside your control? Um, and you know, especially right now as we're recording this, it looks like some states are already going into a second shutdown. But to the idea of not being a victim, I know like CrossFit LLC and Orange Theory and another couple groups of fitness people, they are already lobbying to Congress. Like, like you have to separate some of the— you can't just do a blanket gym facilities have to be closed down. Especially those of you who are listening, you, you know what it's like. Like, you know, when your member comes in, every single piece of equipment they touch And so when you give them a spray bottle and a rag to wipe down their stuff afterwards, like our gym has never been more clean. And we have had members who have caught COVID and they were like at a workout. And so they had to tell us, I got COVID. So then we had to notify the classes. We haven't had a single like person who had COVID give it to anyone else in our gym because of how clean things are. You take things within your control and you focus on those. Have you seen anything like that? Like, you know, victim versus producer mindset?

I think you're seeing it all over the place this year. I think people are understanding more than ever how much of life is outside of their control. But what you're seeing is people are either stuck in place mentally of like, well, I can't do anything until life returns to normal. and it's everyone else's fault and things are outside of my control. And I've lost this and this. And then you see other people that are like, I've lost a job. But guess what? Target grocery stores are hiring. It's not ideally what I want to do, but it brings in income right now. And I'll go do that. I'm not worried about my pride. You'll see gyms, for instance, like you said, they're switching mentality. Okay. How can we keep supporting our members? Virtual workouts, checking in on accountability, calling people, anything and everything like that to be proactive And really, I think that's what's going to be the big difference once this somewhat storm passes is the people that refuse to be the victim of that circumstance. They understand things are outside of their control and not everything's going to go their way. But they're choosing to make the most of their situation by controlling their attitude, effort, and actions every day. They're going to be just at full-speed sprint when this thing opens back up. And everybody else that's kind of waiting is going to look and they're going to just assume that those people at full speed are lucky break. Well, they just had better circumstances than I had when some of them probably didn't. But they just weren't sitting still saying, I'm waiting on someone else to come rescue me. What can I do today? And that's ultimately, that's that leadership mindset. It's that personal responsibility. It's owning your situation, whether you put yourself in that situation, you had actions that resulted in you being in that situation, or things were outside of your control. You still decide how you respond to it. And you can respond and sit in place like the victim or you can just choose to get up and get after it and make the most of your situation knowing that is the only way you're going to capitalize on future opportunities.

I really liked what you did. Like attitude, effort, actions. You completely control those. And if there's everything else out of your, in your life is that like you don't have control over, at least you have those 3 things. And you can make a big difference. Another thing in your book, and I think this kind of ties into that, you talk about the underdog mentality. You say whether champions are highly skilled or have average talent, it's this underdog mentality that creates them. And I think you quoted, and I've heard it so many times, I don't know who the quote originally originated with, but it was like hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work. But sometimes you can have the talented person who also works really hard. So talk to us about this underdog mentality.

Yeah. You've got those guys and they're a rare breed honestly that you have the most talent and the most work ethic. Because what you often see in sports and life is incredibly talented people have very low work ethic because they're so used to it at lower levels or early areas in life being so talented, they just naturally could show up and win. You would see it in sports. You know, kids so talented at basketball, middle school, high school, they just show up and they dominate. So they're not used to working hard. And then they get to college and kids way less talented but just know how to put in work consistently start beating them. And you see it in business and you see it in life. And so the underdog mentality is really the idea that there's someone always better than me and I have to constantly be striving to outwork them. That it doesn't matter how good my talents are, what position I'm in. I still need to take on the mindset that somebody else is better. And when we meet, I've got to be willing to outwork it. And what you see in great businesses and athletes and leaders is they always carry this mentality even if they're the best. Because the hardest thing to do in sports is to repeat as a champion. Hardest thing for any of us to do. Once we hit a goal, if we hit a financial goal, if we hit the health and fitness goal, You usually see a lot of people start to drop off right after that because they become very content and complacent because they've won once. They have the idea that, well, I'm the champion. But somebody that always has that underdog mentality, they said, okay, this is what I've done. But still, somebody's up here. What am I going to do to try to get better? What am I going to do to pursue more of my full potential and just stay hungry in the pursuit of that goal versus allowing victory or progress to make us complacent?

Yeah, I love that. And I think especially now with the current environment that we're in, having that type of mentality of just working hard regardless of your talent level— good things happen if you keep things in motion, and working hard is a way to keep things in motion. Um, you also in your book go into the 4-minute mile story, so I was wondering if you could recap that for us and then help us understand like How can we apply that to ourselves as gym owners?

Yeah. So the story around Roger Bannister is prior to the 1960s, no one had ever run a mile in under 4 minutes. People, sportswriters wrote about this, journalists wrote about that it was human or physically impossible for a human to run a sub-4-minute mile. The minute that Roger Bannister broke that mark, like 60 days later, someone broke that mark, his mark. And then not long after, someone else broke that mark. And as of late 2016, you've got I think over 4,000 people have run a sub-4-minute mile like in tracked timed events. And really the importance of that story was showing that once someone kind of dares to press that impossible of like business can't be done that way, things can't be done that way, it's impossible. Once somebody does it, everybody starts following suit of like, oh, I see that it actually can be done. Now, how am I training? How am I working? How am I going about my day-to-day to get to that level? And really, it's the idea of shattering those self-limiting beliefs that so many of us carry in business. You know, if you get so narrow-focused on this is only the way to run a gym, this is the only way to operate a business, this is the only way to coach clients, then you lose out on the opportunity to learn from other industries entirely, other companies. And you could see that, man, this one problem that I just believe is impossible because because the people in my network tell me that you can't do it any other way. Well, suddenly I see this gym owner and they've actually found a way to be effective overcoming that. And this is how they manage and operate their system. Or in the cases we've talked about, running finances from a profit-first standpoint. What a game changer that was of, oh no, you can't operate that way. This is how businesses always run until you start to learn that framework. And then all of a sudden, it's like, how fast can I get there? And so the story is really being someone who's not afraid to look at an impossible situation and pursue after it to see how can I overcome this? How can I do this? Knowing that it gives you the opportunity to be a leader and show other people this is how something can be overcome. This is how you break those impossible records. What are you looking at in your life that maybe is impossible that really isn't? You just need a different perspective or a different approach to overcoming it.

Yeah, that's, that's great. I, when I read it in the book, my first thought was pricing. So many micro gym owners underprice, and they have this mental roadblock of asking for more. Yet, at least in this case, we have the Roger Bannisters already in the industry who have already breached that barrier for us and have charged more and are more profitable, and doing more good work for their members. Look, right now with COVID the model of renting equipment that the Gold's Gyms and the 24 Hour Fitnesses have, that's a very suspect model right now. Do I think it'll come back once restrictions and life gets back to normal and maybe we look at facts instead of hyperbole? Yes, I think that model will come back. But like, it was like 2 months, um, that it was like the end of April of this year. So like a month after COVID closures, Gold's Gym permanently closed 32 locations and filed for bankruptcy. 24 Hour Fitness permanently closed 134 locations and filed for bankruptcy.

And there were a ton of those here in DFW.

Yeah. Look, that, that's a low model, right? Like $10 a month, $20 or less. Micro gym owners have higher accountability, higher touch points, so they're generally going to be $100 or more. So I think if you guys are listening to this, I hope if you feel like you're struggling profitability-wise, the first place to potentially look is, are you actually charging enough? And find those Roger Bannisters, the other gym owners who've already done the hard work and have figured out how to raise their prices and give a good value. We're not talking about raising prices for the sake of raising prices. We're talking about raising prices to match what you're already giving. And if you feel like you need to give more, then do that. But, um, you know, usually profitability problems come because there's an undercharging issue going on as well. So Jake, you're obviously a very high-producing individual. What are your morning routines? How do you get in the mindset of competing every day?

Yeah. I think it starts the night before, to be honest with you. And so what I try to do at the end of the previous day is outline what are my 3 biggest work targets for tomorrow. So I review my calendar. What are my meetings? What are my commitments throughout the day? But what are the 3 projects, tasks, progress steps that I have to take. I usually put them right on a sticky note, put it right on the computer monitor so that when I sit down the next morning before I even log in, I see what my 3 keys for the day are. In the morning, once I'm up, usually first thing is make a nice cup of black coffee because I am a coffee addict. I'll sit and read for about 10 to 15 minutes. Either for me, either a devotional or a book I'm working through. Right now I'm reading through The Greatest Salesman. By Og Mandino a couple of times through. Then I review kind of my day. What's my calendar look like? What is my list of action steps? And then for me, I try to write 200, 300 words really quick. It's part of the kind of the daily email I send out to people. But I try to do that first. I then go get a sweat, whether it's an outdoor run, I'm getting a workout in the garage, I'm gonna go up to the gym and grab a workout with class. Then it's back and then it's attack. So what I try to do is really get up, get my mind working, get my writing muscles in terms of the little habits that get me where I want to go. Then I move my body, get the blood flowing, and then come in pretty much ready to attack the day. And then kind of start it over. At the end of the day, I'll make the plan for tomorrow so that I can attack it with the same intensity and more than anything, focus because I struggle ADHD. So for me, especially between that and running the business with a few different channels, my attention can be everywhere. And I can have those days where I'm going, going, going, but not really getting the right things done. And so implementing this kind of system and structure has helped me to really identify what needs to get done, focus in on that, and make sure I'm kind of taking care of mind, body, spirit throughout the process as well.

That's good. So those are the I just kind of hit the principles, right? Like we all are going to have slightly different things that help us do though, like get those other parts activated, but mind, body, and spirit. Like, you know, if you don't have a morning routine or an evening routine, look at those things, right?

Yeah.

In the morning, you want to try to wake up your mind, your body, and your spirit. And in the evening, you probably are looking to, um, Calm your mind, body, and spirit so you have a good rest. And a lot of times, like you do, like you said, planning your next day. I mean, I know usually if I'm tossing and turning at night, it's because I'm thinking about the next day.

Yep.

Because I didn't write it down. I didn't write down what am I going to attack the next day. And so now I'm worried, oh, if I do that, do I have time for this? Well, if I, uh, I don't know.

Writing it down gives your mind that space to kind of just Well, and even just having, for me, I'll have a notepad next to my bed. Just the random nights that I'll just get an idea. I'll hear something. My wife's watching TV or I'm reading something. And if I would, sometimes if I found myself like getting into my phone to make a note, I would get distracted by other notifications. And so having a pen and paper helps me get it out of my head because if I don't write it down, it's going to sit there and just stew while I'm trying to relax and sleep which doesn't help. If I get on my phone, it's easier to get distracted by emails and social media and things like that. And so a pen and paper just kind of helps get it out of my head on a paper and I can look at it tomorrow or address it later in the week.

Yeah. Good. These are great principles. I hope you guys are getting some good stuff out of this. Last question we have for you. So compete every day is kind of the same concept that we hear of this hustle and grind. And a lot of people attribute that mindset to Gary Vaynerchuk. Vaynerchuk. I always have a hard time with his last name because some people call him Vanderchuk.

Yeah, Gary Vee.

Yeah, Gary Vee. Um, I was on a group training with him and he actually said that he stopped using those words because he felt like people were taking it to the extreme. So, um, with the concept of compete every day, what advice do you have about rest days? Like what's your philosophy and what advice do you give with that?

So ironically, those are the hardest days for me physically. Like a lot of people that live in the gym that work out, like wanting to take a rest day mentally was a challenge for me to get to that point to being okay of like not working out because you actually need it to recover. And in the same way, the message ties in. Competing every day is about competing against your own previous best to be better. So what are you doing today to get a little bit better than you were yesterday? And for me, the rest days, read a book, listen to a podcast, invest time in my relationship with my spouse or with friends. What am I doing to grow those areas? It's not just a, hey, I've got to be working 7 days a week, 365 days a year because that's not sustainable. You're going to burn out. And honestly, it's like running sprints. Like you want to go as hard and as fast as you can for 100 meters. And then you want to rest, recover, walk back to the starting line, and do it all over again. But you need that rest and recovery. You can't just be sprinting as hard and as fast as you can nonstop. You'll burn out. And the biggest key to when you start burning out, it means you don't have enough in the tank. And if you don't have enough in the tank, then how are you properly serving the people that you work with, the clients you have, the community you have? If you're tapped out and you're not recharging and recovering, how are you being the most creative or doing your best work? All you're really tending to do is just kind of staying busy. Versus being productive. And that's what research shows, that the longer we work, the less productive those later hours get because it's not our best work, not our best energy. So rest days for me are essential. Sundays for me are big ones because my wife and I will do church and then football. Like this time of year, like I'm watching my team either at a local sports bar or at the house. And that's kind of getaway time for me. And then usually Sundays is a lot of reading. I try not to get on my computer if I don't have to. Keep that day away so that I can make notes throughout the day. If I think of something, hey, I need to work on that Monday, make a note about it. But it gives me that space to recharge. And so just like you can't physically work out, lift weights every single day and expect your muscles to grow, expect your body to recover, your brain needs the same thing. It needs those days of rest and recovery. And so understanding that that is still part of your growth, that you are choosing time to rest, recover, and get better. still helps you beat what you were yesterday because it gets you closer to where you're ultimately trying to go or who you're ultimately trying to become.

Yeah, I love that because it fits so well with the mindset and what the knowledge of the gym owner anyways, like your muscles. I mean, when you're working out, you're actually tearing them down and it's in the recovery where they get stronger. Um, so we work hard and we break down things as, you know, mentally, whatever it may be. throughout the week. Give yourself the rest days. You're not— if you're— if you know you're not supposed to work out 7 days a week, you're not supposed to work in your business 7 days a week either. It's the same thing. And you'll actually find— I know I found this— the more I've been intentional about my rest days, I get really good ideas on my rest days. So make sure you keep that notepad close by because, because you're not focusing on other things like I don't know what it is. Maybe it's that muscle getting stronger and you see that opportunity.

It's the space. Like I laugh when, back when we all used to go to conferences and events, when I would take 2 to 3 days to go to a leadership conference, sales conference, whatever, I would be sitting in the audience. And when I hear somebody say something and all of a sudden I'm taking crazy notes that has a little bit to do with that but more like business ideas. And what I realized is it was creating that space of me going in, doing the work, Same thing every day in my office or with my team. Getting out of that, getting out of the current environment, getting into a new space, exposing myself to new ideas actually helped generate better ideas that we ultimately needed. Just as you talked about going hard for a workout and then taking a day off to be able to allow your body to recover so you can hit it again hard the next time you're back in there.

Ah, so good. Jake, thanks again for your time. If people want to get ahold of you or get more of your stuff, what can they do?

Make it super easy. You can go to competeeveryday.com or on any honestly social media platform where Compete Every Day, say hi. I run still some of the accounts. And so would love to chat and get connected with you. Or anything we talked about today didn't make sense or you had some additional questions, I'd love to continue the conversation.

Awesome. I know this is the Profit First for Micro Gyms group. And we didn't talk a ton about profit, but I think a lot of these principles apply. If you have a good evening routine and morning routine, you're going to be more primed to help your gym become profitable. If you focus on your— what is attitude, efforts, and actions?

Actions.

If you focus on those, choose the actions that help you become more profitable. So you guys, as always, profit is a choice. Choose to be profitable. And thanks again for listening. We'll see you guys later.