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What’s the secret to building a successful business that lasts? How do you overcome the common challenges that entrepreneurs face? And what steps can you take to ensure your business continues to grow and thrive?

In this episode, I sit down with Adam Schafer, a prominent figure in the fitness industry with more than 15 years of experience. Starting as a personal trainer, Adam co-founded Mind Pump, the #1 rated fitness podcast on Apple with over 2 million downloads per month. Adam delves into the challenges entrepreneurs face and how to turn setbacks into opportunities for growth, offering practical advice on building a thriving business in the competitive world of health and fitness.

In this interview, you’ll learn . . .

  • How to reframe business setbacks as opportunities for growth and innovation
  • The critical role of networking and relationship-building in accelerating business success
  • Why embracing extreme ownership is essential for effective leadership and scaling your business
  • Key lessons in hiring and managing teams for sustainable business growth

And more . . .

So, if you want to understand how to navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship and build a successful business, click play and join the conversation.

Timestamps:

(04:41) Is inconsistency in friendships a personal trait or a byproduct of success?

(09:48) Will you ever consider slowing down in your business pursuits?

(12:42) In the future, how will you balance financial achievements with non-financial achievements?

(24:34) How do you evaluate the significance and magnitude of your goals?

(26:24) Can you share more about the new service you launched for fitness professionals?

(40:24) What lessons have you learned from hiring the wrong people in business?

(50:12) How can you transform past mistakes into valuable lessons for future growth?

(59:34) How can you build friendships with successful people even if you don’t feel successful yourself?

(01:13:25) How can surrounding yourself with uplifting individuals lead to greater success and personal growth?

Mentioned on the Show:

The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation

Phoenix

Legion Training Quiz

Mind Pump Media

Mind Pump Trainers

Transcript:

Adam: Probably one of the things I am most proud of is that year over year we have grown and to grow and to grow consistently year over year for 10 years in any space is really difficult to do. And it’s not like a few bucks. We’re into millions of dollars. So to continue to incrementally go up by millions of dollars every year, I’m really proud of that and I’m proud we’ve been able to do that.

And there’s a part of me that the natural side of me is to share and to help others do that. And I’ve. There’s been a lid on me for a long time about teaching and helping that because part of that Kind of has to I have to share some of that stuff. 

Mike: Hello. Hello. I am mike matthews. This is muscle for life Thank you for joining me today for an interview.

I did with my buddy adam shaffer Who is one of the co founders and co hosts of the mind pump podcast the biggest? fitness podcast in the world And as you will hear about in today’s episode, one of the biggest fitness podcast businesses, in fact, probably the biggest, I don’t know of any other fitness podcast that has as successful of a business as MindPump that generates not just as much revenue, but more importantly, as much profit.

Now, the success of the Mind Pump business isn’t something the boys have talked all that much publicly about because it wasn’t really relevant to their mission with the podcast, which was to teach people how to build muscle, lose fat. Get healthy in an enjoyable and sustainable way. However, now that mind pump is offering a course and a community specifically for trainers who want to build a business, Adam finally has an excuse to talk more about the part of mind pump that is most interesting to him, which is the business, how to build the business.

And that’s what today’s episode is going to be about. In it, Adam is going to share some of the key lessons he has learned over the last 10 years or so of building MindPump into a multi million dollar business. Before we get started, if you like what I’m doing here on the podcast, and if you want to hear my musings on mastering the inner game of getting fit, So you can reach your fitness goals faster.

Check out my book, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. In it, I share wisdom and insights from hundreds of scientific studies and scores of legendary artists, authors, entrepreneurs, philosophers, generals, and conquerors. As well as my own biggest a ha moments that have helped me overcome the things that were most holding me back.

Here’s a little sneak peek of what you’ll find inside. The easiest way to instantly increase your willpower and self control in any situation, no matter how you feel in the moment. Three science based psychological tricks you can use to stay strong during moments of temptation. A simple 10 minute technique for beating procrastination and skyrocketing productivity.

How to stop telling yourself, I’ll be happy when, and find immediate joy and satisfaction right where you are. The 40 percent rule that Navy SEALs use to dig deep and screw up their courage when they need it most. And more. And all that is why I’ve sold over 60, 000 copies of The Little Black Book, and why it has over 1, 000 four and five star reviews on Amazon.

And you can find The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Mr. Adam Schafer, it’s great to see you again. Always good seeing you, man. We were due to catch up, as we say, just because, for people listening. Adam, we always enjoy any discussion that we have.

We just live busy lives and end up in our routines. And, I understand, I was telling Adam, you know this, I was telling Adam that, really I even have to think about maybe not go as far as scheduling, but I have to keep in mind that I need to make some time to even make phone calls to just maintain relationships.

I don’t see many people in person these days, just because of my living circumstances and my routine. And I never take it personally when somebody I would consider even a good friend hasn’t reached out in a while because I know what it’s like to be busy and to have so many things going. And I know what it’s like to feel like you actually just never have enough time to fit in everything that you want to fit in.

Adam: Do you think that’s a actual individual thing or do you think that’s something that you acquire as you reach a certain level of success? For example, in my opinion, like as I’ve climbed that ladder over time, I’ve recognized that my friends who are like Uber successful are like that.

What I’ve derived from that is that, if you got to that level of success, you understand the thing. The amount of things that you have to manage and relationships and this and that. And so you could not talk to each other for six months a year And there’s not this animosity of oh, we’re not friends anymore because you didn’t call me back You didn’t talk to me or something like that.

Am I just not important enough? Yes, but it but at lower levels of climbing that kind of Say success ladder. I would have that a lot with certain friends, especially friends that I grew up with and stuff like that. They take it personal because it’s man, I love you, but it’s not that I’ve just got so much on my plate and so many other people that I’m always having to manage.

And it’s just, it happens, right? So do you think that’s a thing that’s built in you? Or do you think it’s something that once you reach a certain level, you had more of an understanding? Yeah. 

Mike: I would say it’s the latter for me personally, because when I was younger, just trying to figure out what I’m going to do with my life, I always had a work ethic and I always was a kind of a goal oriented person, but I also had more of a social life and just did more random things just because they were fun.

And when I was dating. My wife, she lived in Germany. We did long distance for two and a half years. So I would go there every month or so. And we would just have fun on daddy’s money and just go cavort around Europe. Really, I’m not saying that to brag. I’m just saying I was that guy for. A period.

And then though, when I got a little bit older and okay, now I’m married, getting ready to start a family, it’s time to quote unquote, get serious, more serious about work and really figuring out how do I find something that I enjoy, find something that I feel matters, find something that is more interesting than just selling widgets for a profit, and that can provide a certain quality of life that both my wife and I would like that’s when there was a bit of a shift for me because and maybe again, this comes back to, I’ve meant, I mentioned that I’ve always been a goal oriented person and I’ve been willing to work hard for things that I care about.

So once that thing that I cared about crystallized for me, then that’s when it changed. And I’d say it changed pretty markedly. I went from, I would say just being. Maybe a moderately hard ish working person who had a fair amount of free time to also just savor, to enjoy life. And a lot of that involves other people because those generally are the most enjoyable experiences that we have is doing stuff that’s fun, that we enjoy with people we like, right?

And so it it went from that to, I just was gone. I was a hermit. It was a very hard working person, seven days a week, took very little time for anything. Very conscious of, I’m not going to say every minute, but certainly every hour. I was very conscious of every hour of every day. And what was I doing with that time and how was it contributing to the goals that mattered the most?

And for many years, that for me was. Building my businesses because that was the one thing that was going to make all these other things irrelevant or make them all a lot easier. And so I’ve seen that also with very successful friends of mine where, I can think of one guy actually not sure.

He’s made hundreds of millions. Maybe he’s even a billionaire. Not sure and stay in touch with him. Loosely. He’s very busy CEO of a big company. We’ll catch up from time to time. And he’s conscious of the time I’ve noticed that he has, it’s about 30 minutes, 30 or 45 minutes and then he’s got to move on to the next thing.

And I have another friend, very successful and sometimes catch up calls. They might go a little bit longer, but typically. He has a schedule and there might be a gap in his schedule. So he has 45 minutes and we catch up, but then he’s got to move on to the next thing. And I may not hear from him for a week or two weeks.

He might go off traveling and he’s got a lot of work and it might even be three weeks. And yes, that is in my experience personally, and then with the some of the most successful people I know who are still in that mindset of striving, like they’re still trying to achieve things. That’s the rule rather than the exception, and I suppose I’ve seen.

With some very successful people, a little bit later in life, where there’s, there seems to be a change in terms of what are they trying to do now, and they’ve strived, they’ve succeeded, they’ve accomplished the biggest goals that matter the most to them, and now the goal is actually to savor life a bit more, and to put more time and energy into relationships, and to Consciously just enjoy life more.

And that makes sense to me. I’m just not there yet. Personally. 

Adam: Do you believe you’re going to be, do you think, cause some people think you just keep moving the goalpost, right? And then you wake up one day and you’re 75 you’re uber rich and you never stopped and smell the roses.

Or do you think, to me, you strike me because I feel like we have this in common where I have a pretty set. Kind of plan and idea of where I want to be comfortably, both financially business wise, where my family and then I feel like, okay, I feel like I could shut it down or at least turn a big portion of it off.

Are you, do you feel like you have a very clear picture of that? 

Mike: Based on my experience with myself, I’ll say this, I’ll be surprised if, so long as I have my health and I have mental acuity and I have energy, I’ll be surprised if I can just, Take it easy, quote unquote, and not really have much on the agenda not really have much that I’m trying to achieve at all.

That sounds boring to me and I’ve never been the person again, I haven’t been. Who I am now, and I’ve liked to think that I’ve improved as I’ve gotten older and I’d like to continue improving, but I have always had that part of me that likes to have very clearly defined goals that are challenging, that require a lot of hard work.

I like that, and I like going through that and seeing if I can do it and so forth. So I. I doubt that would change. I’m open to experiencing whatever, but I think there are certain things that are just baked into whatever we are at our essence of our consciousness that maybe there’s some wiggle room, but you can never just flip that switch off.

Now those goals could shift. Maybe there is a shift and it’s has something to do with developing Deep relationships with a lot of people, but to me, I don’t know if that’s an end unto itself aside from just enjoyment and that’s fine. And I like to have some enjoyment in my life, but if we’re going to go to the cliche of 80, 20 I’m okay with 80 percent work and do hard things and be uncomfortable and 20 percent take it easy, enjoy.

Go on trips, eat the food, look at the rocks and so forth, 

Adam: yeah, I I apologize for hijacking your podcast and asking you the questions, but I just, this is on my mind a lot, I think about this a lot at the current stage of life and business that I’m at. And not sure if I’ve completely formulated what that will look like exactly.

And I have days where I feel more of this way, less of that way, but I I do feel like that’s a lot of what’s on my mind right now. So I always like talking to guys. 

Mike: I have a question for you then. So for you currently with where you are and how everything’s going, which I want to get into on the business side of things, and you look to your future of not necessarily at what point would you feel like you’ve done enough and now you could just sit in that chair indefinitely and be happy, right.

Or be satisfied with yourself smugly. But with where you want to go, is it. How much of it is financial versus non financial considerations, which could be many different things. Maybe it’s specific accomplishments or something else. 

Adam: I thought it was financial for a long time. Like I thought it was this dollar amount of like security.

Mike: Yeah. Saying, Oh, if I just had 30 million or 50 million, then I could finally check the box. 

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. I really did think it was like a place like that, but recently I’ve had something happen that has really made me rethink that because we have got to a place, I don’t know if I told you this cause it was after you and I talked last, but we, in January of this year we moved to a three day work week.

And so that’s been interesting. And it’s been a really interesting experiment. I find myself. On the days off, this would be a day off doing stuff that would be considered somewhat work, right? Even though I’m going to hang out with a buddy and talk to you and catch up, like it’s a scheduled thing where I’m on, we’re doing an interview, right?

So I found myself like getting a little stir crazy having four days off every week. Now, of course, there’s been times where it’s this is amazing, right? We take off for the weekend to go to the lake for a four day weekend and feel like I get plenty of Fun and play and recovery and then back to work again, but I find myself missing the job missing work more than I would have realized, especially if I’m not busy doing something active, like that were, like I say, going to the lake or going on a Yosemite trip with my best friend or something like that.

If I’m not doing that. I can’t just sit around at home. I feel I feel like I’ve lost purpose and it’s in fulfillment. And yeah, there’s this part of me, and that has nothing to do with a dollar amount, right? It’s not like I need Oh, it’s because I don’t have this. 

Mike: Yeah, an extra X million dollars wouldn’t change that at all.

Adam: Wouldn’t exactly. It would not satisfy or change that feeling that I’m having. It’s purely wow I really do love what you said, having a goal and working towards that. And there is there’s something to be said about the struggle. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but there was a really interesting moment that I had with Katrina.

This was like, I don’t know, five years ago or so, somewhere around there. And I’m driving home from work and I’m really like frustrated with my partners and I’m like cussing them out loud and and what I’m mad about is that I think that. I feel like I’m, I care more about this scaling or moving or these other things.

And the other guys don’t care as much and I’m bitching and I’m yelling. And I’m like, she’s on speakerphone in my truck. Cause I’m driving home and she lets me go on this rant. And then I I stopped and I like, are you there? You listening? And she’s just yeah. All right. She goes, are you done?

And I’m like yeah, I’m done. What does that mean? What do you have to say? She was just like, would you have it any other way? Would you want it any other way? And it really stopped me in the heat of that emotion. And it made me really think about it. And it’s man, if it was all easy and there, there wasn’t this struggle of frustration and difficulty and like wanting to give up or She’s right.

Like I wouldn’t want it any other way because then it would be boring and it would be miserable and it’s so and I do think that’s a really important thing to teach yourself to do because those moments come for everybody no matter what level you’re at. In your stage of, making money or scaling, whatever it is you will, everybody has those moments.

Everybody has those moments where they want to pull their hair out or scream at a partner or a coworker. And they, and it’s can you, in those times remove yourself from that and actually think even bigger about it and go, wait a second, if it was easy and I just got all the answers and it wasn’t difficult, would I actually really enjoy that?

And it reminds me of. The famous show what’s the black and white show that was God, what’s the name? It’s so famous right now. I can’t think of the name of it right now, but it’s, they had this episode where the guy, he gets shot. And then he comes to and you think he’s dreaming and all of a sudden he’s in this like heavenly place and there’s a, huge, luxurious chandelier and a piano playing the background and someone walks up and serves him with a drink.

How can I help you, sir? And he’s he’s can’t figure out where he’s at. And he realizes quickly that he’s just everything he wants is getting handed to him. Oh, he wants him to eat and beautiful women come in. And, would you like to come over to these tables and gamble? And every time he throws a dice, he wins and everybody celebrates and his money keeps stacking up.

And he’s just man, this is amazing. And the show like fast forwards a little bit. And, it’s a week later and he’s, you can tell he’s throws the dice, he wins again. He’s and now he’s not even over it. And he’s I don’t understand this. This is heaven.

Why what is going on? And the guy looks over and goes. What makes you think you’re in heaven and obviously the moral of that story is that he’s in hell and part of hell Would be literally getting everything you want when you wanted it always winning always succeeding always and it’s like he was a robber, right?

So that’s I should have told that I know I butchered that but he was robbing a bank and he was running away. And like the police officer shot him and then he died. 

Mike: So it’s the poetic justice, you like getting things, the the easy way here, let’s see how you like this. 

Adam: And it’s, I think it’s such a, like a, it’s like a very powerful exercise for you to think about that and go you, we think that we want this dollar amount or we want all these things and it’s really it’s the process, it’s the journey.

It’s the struggle. Where the beauty lies and I think the older I get and the more experience and as I climb the ladder of success or whatever financially I realize it isn’t it’s not a zero a dollar amount and whatever it’s literally like finding these things that I enjoy struggling at finding goals that I like to set or like to go after recognizing that it’s going to be difficult.

I’m probably going to fail on the way. But learning to love and enjoy that process and then when those moments happen being able to remove yourself from it and be like, hey, this is one of those times right now where I’m really frustrated. I’m angry at either a person or a situation and I need to be able to, I just think that’s like a, I feel like it’s a super hack into learning how to be uber successful.

And I find this in common with my, all my friends and people. I know that are really, they have figured this out. They have really figured this piece out that the beauty is in, in that struggle so that when these moments come, that happens to everybody, they just look at it differently and then reframe it.

And because of that. I have thought a lot different about what later years look like. I, like you, I don’t think I could ever, or I don’t think I ever want to stop at everything. In fact, even just scaling back to three days a week has made me feel like, I don’t know if I even like scaling that much back to your kind of 80, 20 rule.

Like I’m starting to realize too, maybe mine’s not 80, 20, maybe mine’s I want to struggle 50 percent of the time and have or maybe it’s 60 percent of the time and 40, I think that’s what I’m trying to hone in on is because I definitely realized Going, cause I’m, if you think three days a week is work and four days, technically not, I’m more, what is that?

That’s more like the 60, 40 of me not working. And that’s too much. I don’t like already. So I already find myself booking things on Thursdays. Yeah, 

Mike: I’ll do an interview. Checking your inbox. Come on, something interesting. It’s got to come in here. 

Adam: Yes. And I know obviously there’s people probably watching and be like, oh, it must be nice for this guy.

It’s yeah, it is. It is nice to have that option. It’s and I think that I’m very blessed that I can make that decision. But I guess the hack there, though, is understanding that along the way, because if you think it’s going to be when you, you reach a certain dollar amount I think that you will find yourself.

Probably pretty miserable. And the people I do know that have a lot of money that are miserable. This tends to be it. This tends to be, they just keep moving the goalposts. They just keep it. Oh, it must not be, a million dollars. It must be 10 million. And then it’s oh, it’s maybe it’s not 10 million.

It must be a hundred million. And so I think I think I’ll forever look for things that I’m not good at or that I struggle with, but I like doing, or I want to pursue. And I guess at this point in my life, I’m just trying to figure out what balance of that do I like, how much do I want to struggle and be difficult in my life, but I’m definitely learning that it’s more than not.

I want more struggle, more challenge than I want easy, which is crazy to think. Can I. I don’t think I would have known that until this kind of recent transition of the three day work week and it’s really made me evaluate that a lot more and shifted the way I look at like maybe my later years, you know 

Mike: You definitely don’t need supplements to lose fat and no fat loss Supplements are going to make a major difference in your bottom line results How you eat, how you train, how you sleep, those are the primary factors that determine how quickly you lose fat.

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Use the coupon code muscle when you check out and you will save 20 percent or get 6 percent cash back and try Phoenix risk free and see what you think. Do you think about the magnitude of the goals and how big do you want to think? And that’s, that would be a reflection of. Your own estimation of your abilities, but also your appetite for pain, right?

Like how much pain are you willing to take and how far might that take you? 

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. I do think about that. There’s a part of me that always wants to like set goals or go after things that are stretching my capacity at the same time. I’m like also trying to balance this At what point though, do I sacrifice the other things that I’ve already decided in my life are far more example.

Like I know that my wife and my kid are, especially being a father now, fatherhood to me is a relatively new five years now, new thing for me to have all of a sudden, it was non existent and is now the top of the chart. And so I think okay, I definitely want something really hard. I definitely want to pursue something.

I know that’s going to make me work challenge. I’m going to fail at, but not at the sacrifice of that. If it comes above being a good dad. And so I think I’m like, when I think about things, it’s the lens that I look at it. And I don’t know if that’s something you can relate to or not, or if you remember what it was like, you’ve obviously been a dad longer than me, but I definitely know that once that happened, it did shift the way I look at some of these things.

It’s yes, I want to go after something. Yes. I’m willing to sacrifice time, all these things like that, but. Not if it’s so much that it starts to, I start to not spend time with my son, or I become this kind of absent father who’s building his empire. ’cause I don’t have a desire to keep going at the sacrifice of that.

And so that’s how I feel. Like I, I look at how big of a goal am I willing to go after. 

Mike: Now let’s use that as a segue to business. We started on a tangent that is interesting to us, hopefully interesting to the listeners. But. The primary topic that I wanted to speak with you about was business.

And it’s something that I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I think it’s at least as interesting to you in all the time I’ve known you as fitness and in, in some, I think maybe it’s sometimes you’re even more interested talking about business and thinking about business than fitness.

Maybe you vacillate back and forth. And over at mind pump, you guys have had a lot of success. You don’t talk about it much publicly. If people really follow and pay attention to things, they can maybe connect some dots and figure out that you guys are doing quite well. But maybe not as well as I don’t think that many people know you guys are doing as well and you’ve done as well as you have, because that’s not the focus.

The focus is helping people with their fitness and with their health. And recently you launched a new product, a new service. To help fitness professionals do better in their business. And so you had mentioned offline that finally you have a good quote unquote excuse to talk more about business that your partners are okay with that.

They go, okay, fine. I guess it is part of our business now. And so I’m just going to leave that with you and see, I’d love to talk business with you and this new product and service and 

Adam: yeah, it’s been funny because it is What’s true is that I actually 100 percent enjoy the business talk more than the fitness science talk.

It’s just to, I am, it’s, I think a lot of why the four of us guys have worked so well together at mind pump that is not Sal. Sal is science guy, study guy. And I love that a part of Justin’s like performance sports guy, Doug is like number crunching in the back and systems and all that stuff guy. And so we all, Tend to have these different things that we’re more passionate about.

Now we share the fitness thing in common, but we’re more, and what’s been tough for me about the business side is that, this whole process has been an amazing journey and a lot of learning lessons. And when I learned something, especially if I failed something, figured out, like I, I like to share, I like to share, I like to help others.

Like it’s helped me grow and be a better version of myself and be successful is by doing that. Giving to others sharing the things I’m learning. And it’s been tough for me because Doug’s really put a lid on me when it comes to talking about the money and the finances and rightfully I think that we did a really good job of not talking too much about that to convolute our message of helping people, but you’re right. We are now we’ve transitioned the business. Into helping other coaches and trainers scale and build and have a financially successful business. And now it makes a little more and I, by the way, it’s still a little bit of pulling teeth.

I, we got into a little bit cause Doug made a comment about me saying something like, putting our numbers out there and some of that. I said, Doug, You got to understand that this business that we’re doing now is teaching other trainers and coaches how to build a successful financial business.

And if people, and there’s still people, believe it or not, that don’t think that don’t think mind pump is that successful and just think we’re forgot. 

Mike: They might just say, They might just listen to the podcast and they like the podcast as far as they know. Okay. It’s a podcast and you guys sell some workout programs.

And is this your full time thing though? Like how many times you’ve been asked, people will still ask me that. I don’t, I take no personal offense, of course. And I’ve been fairly open with legions numbers because I’ve thought about this. Should I share this? I don’t care to get attention for it.

But if it’s relevant to a conversation and I’m to, to your point, I’m trying to establish some Bode feed days. Just for some context, Legion will do about 50 million in sales this year. Okay. So there’s some context. Now, maybe I’m going to share some business advice or some marketing advice, and it’s not for the purpose of making me look cool.

I don’t care at all, but it’s just to make what I’m going to say a little bit. More credible than okay. So Mike has a podcast and it’s it’s popular and I’m going to take business advice from this guy and Legion. I guess I’ve heard of that. I don’t know. Everyone has a supplement company.

Adam: I think it’s a bit even more extreme for people like you and I’d say us fall in this category because. In today’s era, the, the formula is as soon as you get a little bit of success, you can afford a payment on the Lamborghini or anything. As soon as you can start faking it, you start faking 

Mike: it.

First, you start with renting it. You rent that. That’s what you do first. 

Adam: Yes. So as soon, and that’s been the formula on the social media and really the four of us, when we, everybody was pretty successful now, obviously we’re far more successful today, but everybody was good financially.

Everybody had already had houses, cars, retirement, a lot of stuff before we even all got together. So for us, it wasn’t like that. And plus we were all turned off by. That formula that was happening, especially in the fitness space, because we know there’s not a lot of money in fitness. So I know these trainers aren’t that rich, you know what I’m saying?

I don’t, I know how it is to make money in this space, but yet that is the social media game. As soon as you’ve got a little bit of money and success, even if you’re faking it and renting it. And so I think that because of that, that’s somebody’s comparing me to this, 25 year old fitness influencer.

Who’s, been rocking his Lamborghini for the last two years. And so whether I like it or not, 

Mike: Or now you’re competing with the be your own boss work from home crowd as well. 

Adam: Yes. So yeah, so this is now. I do it for the same exact reason for you is just to build some credibility of who’s this guy talking about business and telling us, or giving us advice around this what, cause he’s got a little podcast or it’s no, the business has done pretty well for quite some time.

And I’d say, and we’ve scaled, we’ve been 10 years, we’re on 10 years in January. Probably one of the things I am most proud of is that. Year over year, we have grown and to grow and to grow consistently year over year for 10 years in any space is really difficult to do and it’s not like a few bucks.

We’re into millions of dollars. So to continue to, incrementally go up by millions of dollars every year. Hey, that’s a great question. I’m really proud of that. And I’m proud we’ve been able to do that. And there’s a part of me that the natural side of me is to share and to help others do that.

And I, there’s been a lid on me for a long time about teaching and helping that because part of that kind of has to, I have to share some of that stuff. And so Doug’s like finally let up and go, okay, I get it. I know we’re about this. And I’m playing that dance right now of trying to, be transparent, be honest, share with us, doing it in a way that I’m not trying to come off like we’re bragging.

I’m not, I don’t want to, it’s not me to show that. So it’s really about that is building that credibility before I go tell other trainers and coaches how to make money. I best have been doing it for long enough, making a lot of money. And so I think that’s where we’re at with the businesses and yeah, this business has been it’s been interesting, challenging 

Mike: from what you’ve told me.

Adam: Yeah. So I knew that the size there’s a, I’m curious if you’re aware of this formula, trying to remember where I first read it or heard it, but they say about 4 percent of your consumers. We’ll spend 10 times the revenue. You could basically go okay, if my average sale in our case is about 97 or so, and 4 percent of our buyers should do 10 X the revenue.

Now that might not sound very much, but once you’ve scaled to a size volume wise, like where we’re currently at now, like the business on average, we do between 250 and 300 program sales a day at that average dollar of 97, 97 to give some context. So I remember sitting down, this was a year ago.

A little over a year ago now, it’s almost a year and a half ago and sitting down and number crunching that and going, Oh, my God we literally are missing out on 2. 5 million a year by simply not having a product. Our consumers would want for that dollar amount. So instantly it was like, to the drawing board, what made the most sense for us and what we’re doing.

I could have went the route of. I guess big training packages for the general population and so big programs that we went You know what like we love helping coaches and trainers There’s an opportunity to help them scale and build their businesses That’s probably a more likely product to fit in the 900 to a thousand dollar range And so then we went to work and then, and rule one, or, the same rules apply to this business as every other business we’ve been before.

It’s okay, can we go out and deliver something that is so valuable that when somebody pays that kind of money, they get it, they go oh my God. This was worth 10 times that I got that. Or can they take things from that tactically go implement it into their business and see the difference in revenue for themselves that trumps any dollar amount they spent on the thing or invest on the thing with us.

And then can we also find a way to build into it and grow the value of it over time? So it just keeps getting better and better. And so that was the first problem to solve. Could we create that? And we spent a year building the content around the course. I felt like I saw or we saw a massive need in the market.

I think in your experience, when you look at like national certifications from the best ones out there, and ASM and CSF is to say all these great aids, all these great certs, they primarily focus on the core things to be a good trainer, meaning like, how do you take, nutrition, biomechanics, program design, all things that you need to know if you’re gonna take care of clients, none of them put a lot of energy or any focus.

On okay, now that you’re a trainer and you’re knowledgeable and you can really go help a person How do you get people in front of you? It’s like there’s a I feel like there’s such a massive need in the market for that and I and this is also this harkens back to my journey In the space. So I’ve admittedly have shared on the podcast many times that I don’t think I was a very good trainer.

I wasn’t like I was the youngest least experienced, probably you could even say least buff trainer when I entered the space at 20 years old. And I quickly was thrusted into leadership and managing 20 trainers underneath me that were smarter, more experienced, better looking than I was. But yet I was leading it.

Why? I had a knack for business. I had a knack for numbers. I understood I had a passion for that, and I’ve always been passionate about business. And and like what I naturally do when I learn, I give, and so I was doing that with my peers at an early age and they were all having more success. And so it made.

The natural progression from the leadership team, they saw that in me like, Hey, this kid’s young, but he’s helping all of his peers make more money. Let’s put them in a leadership role. And so that’s how I got to that position. So for me, this was like, like I went a long ways working for a company, 24 hour fitness and had a lot of success, not being the smartest when it comes to the physiology, nutrition, biomechanics side of being a personal trainer, but because I understood the business side.

And. Honestly, there hasn’t been a lot of people that have entered that space and done a really good job of helping coaches. So I thought there was a massive need in the market to create a product like that to help people. And there’s a lot of like sales courses and sales gurus out there, but we wanted something very specific.

To personal trainers that but the stuff, the conversations, the challenges they’re having with. And so that’s the product. We put all this time and effort into building that and it’s an at home course that they can go through as it’s about 40 hours of content. So it’ll take you probably a few weeks, maybe even a few months, depending on how.

Fast. You learn to make your way all the way through it. And then that community is inside a private forum. So once you purchase that course, you’re now in a private forum of all the other trainers that have, and then I allow them to steer the content going forward. So one of the things that’s been awesome is I’ve been able to leverage the popularity of mind pump podcasts to garner the attention of any science, doctor, medical, professional.

In our space that would love to get on our platform, of course, for themselves. And so what I do is I ask my coaches every month. Hey, where do you guys shop? Oh, you have trouble training clients with menopause. Let me go get the New York Times bestseller for that. Or let me go find one of the most experienced doctors with clients that are challenged with menopause.

Get her inside of our forum. Have her speak to you, trainers and coaches, how to help these people for an hour. Then I take that content and bolster the certification course. So now going forward, that’s in the course. And so that’s really what this year has been about is, first delivering a product that everybody bought and said hell yeah, this was worth it.

Now using that community to help steer on how do I make that product even more valuable and then bolstering that content and say, and then what I’ll do. Is I’ll actually slowly increase the price on that product over the course of the next, say, three to five years. So as I build out the content and we, what we did, we’ve closed enrollment.

So it’s like we open enrollment so people can come in, then we shut it down so we can focus on the community on what their needs are. And then I’ll open it back up, say in a month or two. And every time I do that, I’ll incrementally move the price as cause we’re building more into it up. And so people that are in it from the beginning will.

Get it as they automatically get all that value, and then it offer offers me the ability to continue to scale the product as we go. And so that’s been the formula for that business right now. And it’s doing really well. It’s more so now that I fired the CEO that was running it before.

This is example of what we were talking about earlier, a mistake I made was thinking this was the right person for the right job. We really wanted to build it and then set it and let it go and allow, pay someone really well to be that person who oversees it, manages it, and does all the things that I said.

And then the guys and I could just focus on the podcast and steer leads in that direction. What we found is that was not happening and it wasn’t happening for a while. And so I’ve now reinserted myself back into that business. And currently I’m going to run it. I don’t know. At what point, if I will relinquish leadership to it, certainly not until I feel comfortable that I have built the right systems and found the right person to remove me out.

Ultimately, that is the goal. But for now, I’m scaling it. I’m running it. And the guys are right. All of us. I say me it’s not just me. Obviously, my partners and I are all working on it, but I’m spearheading it right now for us to. To scale and grow and some context for numbers when we launched that business, it did a three quarters of a million dollars in two weeks.

So we did about 750, 000 in the first two weeks of launch after that big launch, which of course the podcast, all four of us were focusing on building all these leads. We had about 3000 trainers show up to the live launch after that. The thing just went and was trending at about 7, 000 a month after doing three quarters of a million in two weeks.

And I allowed it to stay there for a good six or seven months, hoping that this guy would figure this out and turn it around and just hadn’t. And then just by reinserting the four of us back into the business, we saw a 10X within two weeks of what I had been doing. It’s off and running again.

And then hopefully I can fix a few things and keep scaling it. 

Mike: What mistakes do you feel you made with, do you think with this guy, it was the wrong hire? Did you not do your due diligence on the front end or I’m just curious, like what lesson have you taken away from that experience? And it’s obviously not yeah, the guy sucked.

That’s the lesson. 

Adam: No, definitely not. It’s not the lesson. The it probably for me was. There’s a couple, there’s a couple of lessons in here, mistake number one was, and I’ll tell you why I did it right to, and not to make an excuse or justify this, but like the thought process of cause a lot of, I have, I’m part of a network of other, like high performing CEOs that would think a mastermind group that we all meet and talk about business with that.

And they’re all like, man, why did you pay him so much right out the gates? Why didn’t you attach? Some of his to his performance. And why didn’t you only pay him this kind of salary? And then he can make because I was afraid it was going to do too good. Like I wasn’t sure I knew the power of the brand and the size of the podcast that my guesstimation was, it should be about a 2.

3, 2. 5 million business out the gates if we do everything correctly. But I, the upward potential was bigger and I didn’t know. And I didn’t want to give this guy a salary and go, Oh, and I’ll give you 10 percent of the business or a three, whatever, a percent of the business. And then it just explodes and it explodes because of the power of the brand and not particularly because of what he did.

So that was mistake. Number one was thinking that way. I thought that way. I was more afraid because I, by the way, I also have made that mistake in the past. I did that early on in this business. When I first started the advertising department almost six years ago or whatever it was, and I had somebody early on and I gave them percentages of everything and they had a base, but then that thing just, That took off so much and it got to a point where, we were such a demand to advertise on our show that there was no work that he had to do other than like sending over a contract and getting it signed because people were trying to sign for the next year before the year was even up with us and book out.

Mike: Yeah, it’s the salesperson who just has to resign and actually gets commissions when it happens without their involvement. 

Adam: And so literally it was because also when I let go of that person, I took that back over myself personally and I would basically spend about 30 to 45 true days of hard work of the cause now it’s no work.

I started to organize everything, sign those contracts, negotiate some of them get the details all ironed out the scheduling, blah, blah, blah. It’d be, it could take me about 45 days. And I would do their entire work for the year and the amount of revenue that he would be making almost a half a million dollars based off of how I originally structured it.

So I made that mistake. And so I was really Hesitant to do that with this thing. I was like, man, I don’t know. One of the things i’m learning about this media business is that Most of the time i’m wrong and i’m not sure and I don’t want to Estimate that it’s supposed to be this and then tie this guy basically make this guy a millionaire for just showing up I want him to earn it.

So anyways Mistake number one was that was just giving him a very high, higher, standard CEO, executive salary, right out the gates 

Mike: standard, maybe for a business of a certain level of income, like you’ve shared the number with me, that’s a generous, that’s a generous salary. Probably something that.

You would have to be the CEO of a business doing probably at least, 10 million is probably low for talking about a business with normal margins. At least it’s probably, it probably needs to be a bit more than that. It’s probably 20 plus million a year would be 

Adam: so I definitely, and my thought, this is, again, my partners and I, want to believe in people and the idea.

In fact, this was like a off off air or whatever kind of conversation, Sal and I debated this back and forth. I actually did want to pay him a little less and then make him earn it with like benchmarks. And he’s Hey, why don’t we, why don’t we give him right at the top and see if he elevates to that and lives up to what his judge of his character at that time was that, Hey, if we pay him substantially well and take good care of him, he will want to show us, or he will want to live up to that standard.

That didn’t happen. So that didn’t happen. That was a big mistake. 

Mike: Unfortunately, I think it’s probably just an example of you get what you reward, right? So if you are heavily rewarding what could be almost nothing, at least in the beginning, most likely because you guys are launching it, you’re driving it and it just goes and it’s going to just go for at least some period of time.

I don’t think Sal is necessarily completely wrong in his line of thinking, but I think he was probably looking for the exception rather than the rule, because as a rule, if you’re rewarding somebody for not having to do anything they’re probably just not going to do much. 

Adam: Now, the other thing was, and this is a lesson I feel like I’m always, I know this lesson, I know this rule, yet I still, and I’m sure you have examples of stuff that like, you know better, and yet you still, bang your head against the wall or allow yourself to continue to have to learn this lesson the hard way, which is like, This is for me, it’s like when my gut tells me, to cut it or to let go or move on the soft empathetic side of me tends to allow it to drag on longer.

And I always know the sooner I would have done that. So looking back, I probably would have saved the company, I don’t know, at least 100, 000 or more, if I would have made that decision sooner. And who knows how much faster we’d already be on track is looking out on track we are already.

Maybe even more that I hurt the business by not doing it faster. So those were the two learning lessons. Now, the positive side of this and the foresight that I did have, and part of what led to the salary and all those things was, I remember like having this conversation and I said to the guys, I said, listen, The reason why I want to hire and do this with somebody else is because we have so much on our plate and we were already attempting to build towards this.

And we just weren’t, we were getting distracted with everything else. It was like an afterthought. And it’s we need to financially commit to somebody that we know we’re paying a bill who’s going to spearhead and drive this thing. Because at this point, we’re leaving so much revenue on the table that every month that goes by that we don’t have it, we’re losing potential revenue.

And so I’m willing. To pay this much because I know how profitable this business will be. So somebody who gets it out six months, a year sooner than us is worth this much money for me. So even if I realized later on that he’s a terrible fit and we got to get rid of him, the time that he executed the project in comparison to what we would have done.

Pays for his salary and some, and that, and the potential mistake. So I actually said that and had that kind of foresight going into it of I needed this to get done. None of us were spearheading it because of all the projects and things everybody else doing. Let’s financially commit to somebody who’s good.

And that is the one thing he did do. He did move that along. So that was his only floor was supposed to be his only focus. Was moving that we definitely got it finished way faster than what we were. What we were done in six months, we accomplished in two weeks with him leading it and like making sure we were shipping things off.

And we needed that. And so that part of it, when I look back I don’t know how much I would have done differently. Obviously I wish I would have hired somebody who was maybe a better fit, but we needed that. We needed somebody that, and we needed to be financially committed. We needed the accountability to execute it in time because I knew how much revenue that we were partitioning out.

So all in all. It’s and it’s like how I try and look at all failures or mistakes. It was an opportunity for growth. It was a learning lesson and we fail forward. We learned from that mistake. 

Mike: I think that last point, I think it’s an important mindset, something that I consciously do, and that is.

Is find how I can not only learn a lesson. So think back, what could I have done differently? Kind of extreme ownership. Let’s assume this is completely my fault. What would that look like? And without blaming myself, but more just owning up to, I could have done something different here. So let’s look for that.

What could I have done different to get to at least a slightly better outcome? So that’s looking back, but now you’re sitting with. The mess. So now it’s how do I take this mess and turn it into something even better? And sometimes it’s hard and you have to really think about it and you have to get over your own emotions about what’s going on, but I find that to be.

A constructive way to deal with problems, to deal with failures to deal with your stone worker for your house that you’re building ruining three slabs of stone. And now you’re at a stone and now you get to go and find new stone and a new fabricator and so forth for people that don’t know I’m building a house and that literally just happened and, but to, to my point.

So what I told my wife, she was. Pretty upset about because she bought, she chose this stone like two years ago, one of the first things like materials that she bought and she wanted in these different rooms. And now we can’t use it anymore because the stone fabricator broke, I think three slabs and one.

Okay. What are we going to do now? And they started to talk about taking pieces and cutting them and putting them together on 

Adam: some duct tape on your. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that. That conversation ended quickly. But I said, okay, let’s, we’re going to get credited for the finances. So let’s, you had mentioned some time ago that if you hadn’t bought that stone, then you thought you had to buy it.

Then you actually had more time than you thought you would have actually probably picked something else out. You really liked that, but there are other types of marble that you like even more. You probably would have gotten something else. Let’s use this as an opportunity to do that. Let’s take the money that we get.

From the stone that’s now ruined, we can add some money to it and let’s get something that’s even better. And just an example, it’s silly and it’s first world problems. I know it’s nice. Yeah, it must be nice. I understand, but it’s just an immediate example. I’m dealing with right now of how I try to deal with setbacks and deal with situations that.

That could spiral emotionally in the other direction. 

Adam: There is zero productivity in dwelling on the negative of any situation, like zero, there’s no benefit at all to do that. And there’s a difference between dwelling on the negative and then looking at what you could have done better. That’s not dwelling on the negative.

That’s like observing. And I think part of that is from right out of the gates, reframing the way you look at it as this is an opportunity. Always like to your example of what you’re using right now is yeah, okay. This really sucks. We can all agree on that. And this really makes me, my initial knee jerk reaction is upset, but right away getting out of that mindset and right away trying to get in the mindset of, okay, how is this an opportunity?

What, how can I turn this into something better than the situation that I’m currently in? And the faster I can get my brain over there, the quicker I can get to a result and the better the result is going to be 

Mike: and the better you feel. There really is an emotional, I think, catharsis that comes with this again, to give credit to Jocko for using his extreme ownership concept.

Now, of course, many people have spoken about this going back thousands of years actually, but this idea of radical responsibility, so to speak, I think that there’s a lot of power in just the emotional catharsis of it. It takes you out of that victim mindset. It takes you out of the blame. Look what you did to me, to your point.

That’s very unproductive. And also it’s unhealthy and it’s unhealthy. Mentally. It can become unhealthy physically. It also. It can become habitual and that’s a disaster. If that mindset becomes habitual, there’s very little you can do for that person. 

Adam: And no, nobody who is really successful wants to hang out and be around somebody who’s like that.

And probably one of the greatest hacks that I’ve ever hacked into in elevating my success is surrounding myself with other people that are doing more than I’m doing. And attaching myself to those people. And those people would never allow me to be around them. If all I talked about was how difficult it was for me and all the challenges that I’ve had and all the stuff that happens to me, if I was that, there’s no way those type of people would allow me in the room or allow me to hang around if that’s how I talked.

And so I think that’s important. So all the reasons you said it’s important. I agree. And then in addition to that, if you believe that you’re an average of the five people you spend the most time with and how valuable it is to evaluate the circle of people that you communicate, you talk to, you spend time with and in your ability to elevate, then you’ve got to understand this because nobody is going to want that person or nobody of real success is going to want that person around that, that, because that’s another common trait when we talk about these people that You’ve met that are uber successful is they do not have time to gossip and talk about negativity.

There are problem solvers. And so even then it doesn’t mean that they’re immune to challenges, hardships, and problems. It just means they have the ability and the skill to reframe it right away as an opportunity or right away, move into how do we fix this? How do we solve this? I’m not talking about what happened to me and how bad it was.

I’m talking about what I’m doing to solve it and solving problems. Like you learn that as you hang out with more and more people like that. And so I think it’s important if you are going to, cause I get this out when I talk about the five people thing and elevating your circles or that people always ask me like how do you do that?

Or do you have to go meet people like that? It starts with. Your mindset, the way you talk, the way you act, because people like that will not be attracted that trust me, everybody normally has an opportunity where you will meet a family friend, or if you go to church or you go to a sporting event, like you’ll eventually cross paths of these uber successful people.

What will allow you to build a relationship and a friendship with them is a lot of how you carry and conduct yourself. And if the first time you meet that Cinta millionaire. And you’re sharing how difficult your life and all these like victimhood type bullshit to them a day and ever come back They’re not calling you back.

They’re not talking to You know, and so I think that’s important to understand that it first starts with you as the individual and your mindset, reframing, having the right attitude like that, and then we can talk about how you attract other people of success like that who want to be around you. And I think that’s so important.

So at least for my journey, I lean on the fact that I’ve been able to build relationships with people like yourself, because I think. Those people like being around me and the character that I’ve been working on for 40 something years. If I’m pretty sure that if I had that kind of victim mentality, and I’m not immune to a lot of shit that’s happened in my life, if I talked about that, when we got together, I just think that you would be so unattractive that you would find a way not to call me back or not to reach out or not form that relationship.

And so you have to be like that if you want to attract other people. And if you can’t do that for yourself first, good luck trying to find a network of other people. Who wants you around? And so I think that’s so important that those that are listening that are in their journey of success and personal growth and they’re heading to that track.

It starts with the work that you do first internally, your mindset and having that type of attitude and then learning how to put yourself in that position in those rooms because you have to first develop that character. If you think that those people are gonna Yeah. Sal and I have this guy right now who met us and he’s mistake giving him our cell phone number.

And he’s just, he has no social skills whatsoever. He’s annoying as hell. And it’s here’s this person who got close enough to us to, for us to share our personal number. And he’s now lost this probably ability to build a relationship with us. Cause we’re both so turned off by the stuff that he talks about.

He communicates and how annoying that this person could be. You may get in. Possibility to get in these networks or circles, but you could easily blow it by how you carry yourself and conduct yourself. I think that’s it’s something to, I don’t know, speak to or pay attention to. Because I’m real quickly you’ll become a very unattractive person to be around if all you do is talk about how hard it is for you and how difficult it’s like those successful people don’t want to be around them.

Mike: I’ve thought about this because in some ways it can seem like a chicken and egg problem, right? Okay, if you’re somebody who recognizes that. Your inner circle is mostly populated with people who you really don’t want to emulate who don’t have the same types of goals and so forth. And you want to upgrade, you want to upgrade your inner circle.

And if what you’re focusing on is let’s say you’re focusing on success, financial success, business success, and you haven’t achieved any success yet. And this is I’m just repeating things. This is how this conversation has gone. And. In times that I’ve had it with people and so what they are asking me is how do I be around successful people?

How do I cultivate friendships with successful people when I’m not successful? Myself and I think it’s I think it’s a valid question. 

Adam: It is. It is a valid question and I have a spiel for this because I love to talk about this. Okay. And I draw the parallels to a really important part of my trainer journey.

So there became a time in my fitness journey training. People where I really started to evaluate man, nobody is following and adhering to these diets or a very small percentage do even the ones that do after they, they’re done with me, they put all the way back on. It’s they’re not very successful with it.

And part of this is, I think, to people can be rebellious at nature. And so if you tell them you can’t have these things, you can only do this, sure, they could probably discipline stuff for a while, but then eventually that rebellious side comes out. Okay. So how does that have to do with this?

Yeah. Later on in my career, I fell into this hack of how to get people to adhere to their diet better. And what I started doing as a coach and a trainer is I stopped writing meal plans. I stopped telling people these parameters. Instead, I told them to go get something, go after something. And what I found out was if I told clients, instead of telling them, stop eating McDonald’s, stop doing the Coke, stop having the candy, I just went I would have them track so I could see their stuff for a week.

And then I, and everybody is like under eating on protein, under eating on healthy fats, overeating sugar, not enough fiber. There’s a whole host of like common things that you see. So there’s plenty of stuff that they’re not doing that they can’t be doing. So what I do is instead of saying you can’t do anything, I go, all I want you to do for the next two weeks is hit your protein intake every single day.

What about McDonald’s? Are they, I don’t know. I’m not worried about that right now. Just commit to getting that. And then what happens is. In order to do that, some of those things naturally just fall off. 

Mike: Yeah, all of a sudden they’re not as hungry as they normally are, and they’re eating the McDonald’s, but they actually, they just cut their McDonald’s in half simply because they’re not hungry.

Adam: That’s right. And and then that we’re having success with that, and then I, okay, let’s go add fiber. Now I want you to track fire. I’m not gonna tell you what you can’t have anything else. And then all this stuff. And it’s it’s, they have this like epiphany of Oh my God, it’s like crazy.

You didn’t tell me I couldn’t have these things. I just had to go get that. It’s yeah. When you start to feel your life or your diet in this situation. What the things that your body needs to be successful, to be healthy. Like it’s amazing how much the shit doesn’t make its way in there. And so I think the same thing about people in your life, instead of overthinking it Oh my God, I need to know the exact meal plan.

I need to know the exact people. And where do I go for this? It’s just like networking events. And yeah. Yeah. It’s like you, you overthink this process. Don’t worry, the shitty people will start to fall out of your life. And by the way, this is really difficult because I get it when let’s say your core five, cause this was me.

Okay. Is like high school buddies. Go all the way back to high school. You guys have loyalty and a bond and you went through lots of trauma together as kids. And so you’re extra bonded and this is your five, but then you recognize you’re an adult. Now you’re in your mid twenties. You’re trying to climb.

You’re trying to get better. You’re trying to grow, but your five friends are losers. They just aren’t. They’re not, you love them, but they’re smoking weed, sitting at home all day. And they’re not doing shit with their life, but you love them because they’re like a family member to you. And you’re like, fuck, how do I do this?

How do I go? Improve my circle when this is my circle and I don’t want to tell my best friend who would go back to the seventh grade with, I can’t, I don’t want to hang out with them. Do you break up with these people? No. What you do is you just start filling your time with these other people and you attack it that way.

Where it’s just you know what? We all have these opportunities. Like he said, church events gyms, business meetups, events like you, there’s lots of things where you can start to put yourself where other successful people are hanging out. And you start with building a relationship with that person.

And you focus on adding value into their life. And that’s how that relationship with her. And then that person starts to take up some of the time that you would be spending with this shit, but friend, and you’re not breaking up with that friend. It’s just, you’re filling the time with other productive people that are adding value to your life that you’re learning from that you’re growing and what that might look like this is in this young generation has a hard time not to be a jab at them, but I talked to a lot of 20 year old kids and this is what?

Go work for free. Yeah, okay. I was helping this kid who’s wants to work on real estate right now. And I’m like, dude, right now. You are not at the earning phase of your journey, but you’re at the learning phase of your journey. So stop looking about trading your time for dollars and how much money you need to make and think of right now I need to get 10, 000 hours in order to be a master at this, so go learn.

Okay. I’ll tell you right now in the real estate space, if you go show up at some random realtor place, you’re Find out who are some of the best guy or girl in the whole place and be like, Hey, I would love my introduce yourself and say, is there any way that I could help you set up houses, pick up your signs free on my time?

I’m interested in this industry. I’m interested in this space. I heard you were the best in the whole town. And I just want to see if there’s anything I can do to help you for absolutely for free. I’ll go pick up your signs. I’ll go stage your houses. 

Mike: And if you want to look like a unicorn, bring a good idea to them and offer.

Adam: Yeah. Oh whoa. That’s next level. 

Mike: And then if you want to be the rainbow unicorn you bring a good idea that you’ve actually already put some work into and you’ve already started implementing it and. You’re you have a proposal like hey, 

Adam: That’s like that’s next level That’s like home run like if you do that that’s even i’m even talking baby or steps 

Mike: They anybody if they say no, it doesn’t matter move on to the next person because they’re a fool 

Adam: Yeah, exactly.

And somebody will recognize that. And let me tell you, there’s a lot of kids that work for me today that have listened or heard me say this and have found a way into our jaw, into our ecosystem by doing things like this. Because I’m always bet on someone’s character skills to me, or it can be developed, can be taught, but character you either got it or you don’t.

And when I see that in somebody, I’m always. Almost always willing to give a shot to that person. And so if you’re trying to build your circle and put, fill it up with people that are going to add value to your life and elevate you, then go after those situations. And like I said, put, plug in any industry, go find who the best is and go find a way that you can have value.

A home run is like you said, if you can solve one of their problems and actually bring it already handled for them. 

Mike: It could be something simple. You imagine somebody comes to you and says, Hey, love your YouTube content. I’m really interested in YouTube marketing. I’ve studied about this.

This is what I want to do. I see an opportunity for you. Here it is. I’ve already done some keyword research. I’ve vetted this. I would love to implement it and I don’t need to get paid. I’m here to learn. If it could go, if it could go my way, I would love to just intern, do more free work, prove that I’m worth something.

And if I can do that, maybe I can get a job. 

Adam: That’s a great example, right? That’s a great example of that. You, if you came to me and you said, Hey, Adam, I watch your YouTube. I went ahead and change some of your thumbnails to these images. And I changed some of your keywords and this like that. If you want to try and implement it, I’m pretty sure you’ll get 10 to 15 percent more views for that.

Mike: Here’s the logic, quick little explanation. 

Adam: Yeah, and then let’s set it let’s say and then I go plug it in and do it and I go Holy shit, that kid was right. We just increased our views by 10 percent like i’m calling that kid back He’s getting drunk so that I we can play this game all day and give all kinds of examples to Every industry, but this is where these young kids get stuck It’s Oh, how do I do that?

How do I build a circle? That’s how you do it. And you don’t measure your time to like your hourly pay. I normally get paid this much an hour. And so why would I go set up homes for a 

Mike: real or worse? I think I’m worth this much. And I think I’m worth 10 times what I normally get paid.

Yes. Yes. Go prove that. Go prove 

Adam: that you are that way. And when you do this, okay. And this happens. Okay. Like you mentioned. Okay. Maybe some idiot dismisses you. He’s rude. He doesn’t spend any time. That’s okay. So what? Somebody will the right one will like the person you wouldn’t want to work with that guy anyways, if that’s his character.

And he’s too dumb to see the type of character you have and not want to find a way to help or work with you. Then shame on him because, but you’ll eventually get to a guy like me. You’ll eventually get to somebody like me in his industry. Who sees what you just did and goes whoa, hold on. I know I’m not hiring right now.

Mike: Yeah, but I’m always hiring the right people. 

Adam: That’s right. That’s right. And and this is how you do this. You don’t need to have a breakup conversation with your five loser friends. You need to go seek out. The type of people doing the things that you want to be at the level where you want to go find ways to provide and add value to their life or their business and be willing to do that on your time and you start relationships this way and it’s incredibly powerful when you’ve done that and we love that and this philosophy.

Doesn’t change no matter how big or how successful you get is how I’ve approached all my relationship. One of my favorite things about like this has, it’s got like compounding interest too. And I like to use real examples of like how this plays out in my life today, like just 20 something days ago, I reached out and I believe I reached out to you too, a bunch of my friends that once I fired the CEO, I took over that position.

I had a couple of things that I wanted to do right away. I knew that I could drive up. That Instagram page that has tremendous value, right? Giving all kinds of free information to, I knew that I could hold a webinar. So boom, it’s booked a webinar. I got the involved in the Instagram page.

What I was able to do because I had been doing this for years was to tap all of my friends. And there was probably about 17 or 18 of you guys in the health, fitness, podcasting, and Instagram space. I just sent a quick message. Hey, could you do me a favor? I’m trying to get some traction on this page.

Like that it’s a free challenge, not asking for money for them. And I’m asking for you guys to sell anything for me. Can you share a free, valuable page that I’ve built? And I instantly, I took that page from 700 to, I think it’s a 3, 500 followers like that. And it was, but it was all because. All the years of doing things for others and spending time with these people and building these relationships.

And so now I have built the credit with these people to be able to do that. Like it wasn’t like right after Mike, I did something for Mike one time that I could call Mike and ask for a favor. I would never do that. It’s that I, over time I’ve built a relationship with Mike. Therefore I felt comfortable with asking a small favor like this that I know isn’t a big ask and they would all, and like instantly everybody did.

It wasn’t, there was no hesitation. It was like quickly everybody responded and did it for me. And right away it had this huge impact. And now that’s a source of where we get our leads. I’m now at got 3000 more people that we’re talking to just from two weeks ago that I wasn’t all because of the. Time and effort into building relationships that I’ve been putting in for the last decade or two decades of time in business.

And so this starts now, no matter what age you’re at and the more of this that you do, the greater this circle, one of my favorite sayings is your true net worth is your net circle, right? And so that is or your network, excuse me. So that ability to grow that makes it so much easier now for me, or like how I got this YouTube guy, right?

I told you before on, we got on air that I, once I got rid of our, or let go of our producer that was running the YouTube department or anything like that, immediately I was out looking for somebody else who can assist me and help me. I did an interview just like this with a relationship with somebody that I’ve continued for five or six years.

That by the way, even my partners, they’re like, why are you, why do you keep taking calls and spending time with this guy? He’s not sick. That’s just who I am, dude. Like I’m, I like the person, they have good character. Yeah, I may not see how they can help me right now, but it’s not why I build these relationships.

I build these relationships to build my total network regardless, because one day maybe well guess what? Five, six later years later, I call him up and I go, Hey, said, Doug, the episode that I did with you, I didn’t think I did a really good interview. I know when I do an interview and I’m like, Oh man, I’m flying.

I’m hitting good points. There’s like viral clips there. And then I know other times where I’m like, that wasn’t the best conversation. And it wasn’t one of the best conversations, but it’s gone viral. It’s got 300, 000 views on a channel. That’s very small. And I’m like, Hey, what are you doing on YouTube to get that kind of views?

He’s oh man, I can tell you, I hired this guy who works for Tom bill, you worked for this person. He’s I actually. Before I even interviewed you, I had the title already decided and I had questions already pocketed that he gave to me and I was like, what? Okay. Let me talk to this guy. Cause I just, and now he works for us first week of him working all of that.

Okay. Does it happen if I don’t first? Focus on building my network and then the people in my circle, I would have never been able to tap that person. I would have never found that out. Or if I were to have, I would have been through a long period of trial and error, but it was like overnight was able to fix that, have it up and run it like that is.

And this is the stuff that. People on the outside that see the business or here, maybe the numbers and the success, they don’t see the inner workings of those little things that we’re talking about right now that are massive things that are massive to be able to reach out to the, the Mike Matthews, the Jen Cohan’s, the Ben Polkowski’s, the Ben Greenfield’s to be able to text them and within hours, they all do something as a favor coordinated for you.

That doesn’t happen. Had I not put. Hours and years into keeping relationships and doing for others, but because of that, there it’s, I’ve built a lot of credit all over the place that allows me to do that. And that has helped me be very successful and I couldn’t do it without all of you guys, there’s no way.

And. I can’t stress enough on how important that is first. When I first put that time and effort into my relationship with Mike Matthews, with Jen Cohen, with Ben Pekulski, I’m not going oh, I get paid this much. And so if I’m going to spend an hour with him, I should get this in return. And, oh, if I did this for Ben or Mike, 

Mike: Or making a note like did a favor for Mike on August 25th 2017.

And after two more favors, I will be asking for a favor. 

Adam: Yes. And that’s it because that’s a follow up I give for people. How long do you do that? I said, you do it forever. And you know what? One at a 10 may reciprocate it. Cause let me tell you, I told you that I reached out to about 17 people that did it, but I probably have done.

For 50 other people who wouldn’t reciprocate that. That’s just part of the game. Like you just have to, you have to know that part of building your network is along the way, you’re going to find people that don’t have the same character or don’t value that the same way. And you can’t allow that. To deter you from this vision or this goal of building your network out and stop giving and stop adding value to others because one bad apple or five bad apples that don’t reciprocate that.

That’s okay. It’s like in what the way I look at that is I wouldn’t want them in my circle anyways. That’s the type of person they are where. I have continued to do things for them for a long period of time and never asked anything. The one time I asked for something that’s really simple and basic and they blow me off or they don’t do anything.

It’s okay, like we’re not what I thought we were good. I don’t have to spend any more time investing in this person anymore. It now opens up that opportunity for somebody else who will. And that’s how it works. And then one day you look back after two decades of approaching your life this way.

And you’re like, I’ve got a pretty good Rolodex of people that are far more Intelligent and successful than I am. And I tell you what, that may be more powerful than being the most brilliant person in the room is to have a network of people like that, that I could reach out to that are far more intelligent and successful than I 

Mike: am.

And the great sounding board too. And I found him just speaking personally in having close friends who are, Smarter, more successful and so forth than I am. I think that also can produce a little bit of the effect of anybody who played sports knows that when you’re playing a game with a lot of people who are worse than you, if you’re the best player, one of the best players on the team, and that’s just generally the experience and evil from game to game, it’s very hard to continue to grow as an athlete in that type of situation.

Whereas if it’s the other way around. If you’re one of the worst players, you’re good enough to be on the team, but basically everyone is at least a little bit better to a lot better than you, that is going to produce as a rule that can be exceptions. Maybe you have an exceptional individual who’s just driven internally, but even in that case, what did they say? You need the Flint and you need the steel, right? So even for that person, they’re going to grow faster by being surrounded by people who are better than them and being okay with that. And deriving.

Motivation from that? 

Adam: What you find out, and I love sports analogies ’cause I’m such a sport nut too, is like as you level up in sports, if you compared, rec league to organized league, to high school, to college to semi-pro to pro, what you start to realize too is there are different types of characteristics and behaviors.

At each level tends to have, and if you are the lowest of the wrong and you get to be in this, let’s say I’m a decent high school athlete and I get lucky enough to make a, college team and I’m barely made the team, but now I’m around all these great college players. And I realized oh, shit, do they all get up at five o’clock in the morning before school? And they run and they, Oh, wow. A lot of them are actually following their diet. Damn, nobody in high school was doing that. These guys are all doing that. Then you get to the pros. You’re like, Holy shit, these guys are investing in their recovery and they have specialists for this.

And they’re, they don’t leave a practice until they’ve shot a thousand more times. Damn, I never seen anybody. Business is the same way as you like, move up the rung of you have, you hang out with your nine to five friends. They just clock punch. They just do their job. They don’t care anything about what’s going on.

It’s there’s habits, there’s behaviors, there’s characteristics about, even if there’s a bunch of individuals, they still share a lot of things in common with how they approach life and business. And then you move up and you’re like, Oh, these are entrepreneurs that have a little success. They make six figures a year and have made a living for their families.

I see some things that are in common. It’s then you make it up to the, like the million dollar guys and girls and you’re like, Oh shit, there’s like another level to how these people approach life and business. And then you get to the sent to millionaires. And it’s as you go up, you start and what’s beautiful of being the weakest link in that situation and putting yourself in those rooms and getting that in those circles is you’re right.

You will, you’ll naturally, you’ll start to pick up those behaviors and it works in the reverse too. 

Mike: Yeah it’ll happen through osmosis, whether you like it or not. It’s going to happen. 

Adam: Yes. Yes. And that’s why this is so important because it’ll either pull you up or it’ll pull you down. So I can’t stress enough to the young entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneur that’s listening to this, that if you are not evaluating your circle consistently.

You that you, that’s step one, you have to be painted, open your eyes and pay attention to who you’re surrounding your time with. And if you were the smartest one in the group, they are pulling you down. I don’t care how motivated you are as an individual and it doesn’t mean you can’t be growing them.

They are pulling you down. And if the other opposite is true, you’re actually in a room where you got everyone who’s smarter than you, they’re pulling you up, even if you keep falling and struggling. So with that, they’re helping pull you up. And so you have to pay attention to that because like you said, by osmosis, you’re going to adopt some of those characteristics, the way they communicate, the way they act, the behaviors that they do for either good or bad.

And to me, it starts with understanding that. And I wish I knew that I didn’t learn that until like mid twenties. I wish I understood that at a younger age. Cause I think if I would have hacked into that earlier, I think I would have climbed faster because I can definitely look back at my life.

And I definitely had these like stagnant periods where I was comfortable, where, paying the bills, having fun, having a good time. But when I evaluated where I was at success and business wise, it was really plateaued. Guess what was also happening at that time? My, my circle was plateaued.

I was surrounded, I was hanging out with the same dudes I had already elevated above all of them. I was the most successful friend of that group. And because I had all this loyalty and attachment to them, I continued to hang out with them and I wasn’t. Proactively seeking to add other people in my life that were going to add value and elevate me.

And once that light bulb went off, it was game on and still. And to this day, I just have that. I sit back and you’re like, who’s who am I spending a lot of time with? Or who am I not spending time with that? I should be spending time with and proactively go after it. 

Mike: And just to pick up on, on this comment of being pulled up or being pulled down.

If you’re somebody who’s trying to network up, so to speak, Then you do have to understand that in your case, Adam, and in my case, to whatever degree, if we’re being cognizant about who we are investing our time and energy into, we do want to make sure that we’re not investing time and energy into people who are going to pull us down.

So it’s okay. If we’re talking strictly success, business success, it’s okay if we’re going to invest time and energy into somebody who has not achieved as much business success as we have. Totally fine. But, and this comes back to character that you’ve been talking a lot about, but they cannot be somebody who has not achieved as much business success and who has the character Or has a character that is going to bring us down.

And so in this conversation that I’ve had with people who have asked me similarly, people will ask me about this point of network and how did I approach this and how can they better cultivate an inner circle of people who are going to bring them up. I always try to make this point that you have to think about it from the other person’s perspective and even coming back to giving value, right?

Reaching out saying, Hey, I came up with this new YouTube strategy that might work. It’s not that you’re trying to, you’re not trying to feel good about yourself. It’s not about stroking your ego. And you’re so important that people should give you their time for free. Not at all. It’s. You can only invest so much time and energy into your relationships, into your work, into anything that is outside of the hours that you spend in bed sleeping.

And if you are trying to be conscientious with your time and energy, you’re going to you’re very resistant to. Investing in places that is just going to produce nothing, and that doesn’t necessarily mean a financial return, but just nothing or even worse. It’s going to be a negative return. And so coming back to character, if I heard you right, what you are really looking for is evidence that this person has.

The character that is not going to, if I bring them in that they are going to help me pull them up, they’re not going to drag me down and I’m okay. Helping pull people up. But I need them to be all in. I need as much of their assistance as they can give because otherwise. It becomes too much of an impediment in my own life.

And so again, this is something I’ve tried to explain to people. I think that if I think about the people who are in my inner circle, I don’t actually, for me, I don’t care too much about how successful quote unquote somebody has been. It’s not so much about have, what have they achieved? Certainly not about how much money that they’ve made.

However, I do very much care about who they are as a person. And what I’ve found is the people I seem to resonate best with, they just have certain character. They’re, they are a certain type of person who also just happens to on average succeed something. And maybe the something that they chose, it’s never going to make them a cent a millionaire, but they chose it.

Because they love it and they’re good at it, that’s great. Maybe it is something that makes them hundreds of millions of dollars and they’re really good at that. That’s great too. I don’t even instinctively admire the latter more just because they’re richer. I’m not personally impressed at all by money, really.

But it’s more about what does that money represent? How did that person make that money? What does that say about them? Again, coming back to who is this person? And it sounds like You go about it more or less the same way. 

Adam: I do. I’m actually really glad that you made that point because I know sometimes it can get misunderstood as I have this measuring stick of Oh, you have to make a certain amount of money for me to do that.

No, like it’s what I value. So I have men in my life. That don’t make a lot of money at all, but they’re incredible fathers. And I admire that attribute about them. And I want more of that attribute. And so I make an effort to keep that in my circle because my definition of success isn’t just a dollar level.

It’s also being a great father. It’s also being a great husband. I’m attracted to character that now what tends to happen is those people many times are successful in all these other realms, right? That’s what you start to find is if he’s a good dad, he’s a good husband, he’s probably pretty good at his job or 

Mike: takes ownership solves problems, those things like it’s actually hard to not also succeed in your work.

If you’re that kind of person, you almost have to, right? Intentionally not succeed somehow. 

Adam: That’s exactly right. So I’m glad you clarified that because sometimes it can sound like I’m saying just go find all the rich guys you can hang out with. It’s no, that’s not what I’m saying at all.

It’s but what you tend to find out is something that a lot of very highly sensitive people have in common. They also, that also transfers into other behaviors and habits in their life. And so I’m looking for that characteristics in those people. And yeah, so I have men that I surround myself with that.

They, I admire something about them to me. That’s how I look at it. It’s like you are successful in an avenue that I find a lot valuable in my own life. And if I admire that, like I want that in my circle, cause I want that to bleed into me. Like I want to pick up some of that energy and it can be fatherhood.

It could be husband. It could be financial says spiritually. I have spiritual leaders in my life that are broke. Those guys don’t make any money, they live off of. A church type of income and but they help keep me grounded and focused on my highest value that it’s not money or myself or something else and so You know, I admire that their ability to do that.

And so I want that in my life and so yeah, I think it’s important that people understand that too because I know it can be turned off for somebody who Isn’t motivated by money. It doesn’t you don’t have to be motivated by money to attract that type of person and so You It’s important that you understand what that is.

And I 100 percent of continued and I’m always evaluating that. I’m always looking at what that looks like sometimes. And that can adjust and change. If I, sometimes I can be so heavy in the business side. That I know man I’m the other things that I know are really important to me. I need to spend some time with my other buddy.

Who’s like this I admire that about him. And, because maybe I’m right in the trenches of scaling a business or firing somebody. And so like, all of a sudden my attention goes here and what I try and do is evaluate that. I might look back and go Oh, wait a second. I’ve been focused so much here that my, my spiritual guy and my, my, my buddy, who’s a great father that I love, like I haven’t been spending much time with him.

I need to do that. I don’t want to lose that balance in my own life. Therefore, I want to make sure I keep that. And yeah, I think it doesn’t have to be just a money thing and to touch on the point you made. About, and this is such a great point too, that you made about me evaluating like how, because Katrina sometimes will do this.

She’ll be like, what you doing? Talking to that kid? Like I, because I’ll do this, like when I see a young kid that I think is doing a lot of the right things and putting the effort for I will make time like, because I see a young version of myself and I want to be able to give back and to do that and so long.

As I see that in him. And when I give my time, I see them take those things and go apply it and stack on the things there’s there. It is that is enough return for me because I feel like I’m not just spitting hot air and the kid is actually looking for tactical advice. Like they listened, they understood and they applied and got results.

That’s it. That’s all that’s in there. And that’s how a kid like that. And that’s why I say to her, I said, listen, I see something in this kid. And so I’m doing it right now. Okay. To have these 2 kids that are, and I meet with them once a month, every month. Plus we’re on text. I’m coming to spend it.

She’s and she’s what are you doing? Spend all this time with these 17 year olds. And I’m like, these 2 boys. Okay. Showed up at my house. I was at home and knocked on the door to offer a car wash. And Katrina is like, Hey, I met these two young entrepreneurs. I know how much you like young kids that are go getters and doing like that.

And so I booked one of the cars to be washed. And I’m like what car do you wash? Don’t want these 17 year old. She’s Oh, just that one. I’m like, okay that’s fine. We’ll let them practice on that. Kids come out, they do one of the best jobs I’ve ever had detailed on one of my car for like super reasonable.

And I went, whoa. That was really good. So then again, I book another one and then now I get to, I meet them for the first time and I see the young kids that are hustling door to door and doing whatever. And, they’re asking for advice from me and stuff like that. And I go, I tell you what, let’s meet sat down.

Give them all these things. This is what I want you to do. Go to these car meetups, go to these people that, go offer some of your services for free. And then what they do, Adam, we did that. I want you to track these numbers. How many people did you call? How many people have them answered? How many people show up?

What are your, what’s your average wash turning out to be? Like bring me back in a spreadsheet, all these things. I’m like. If they’re doing those things, that is rewarding for me. It’s rewarding for me to be able to give something to someone else like that, to see them apply it. Now, those same kids. Every time they see me, they’re complaining about how hard it is.

And it’s this. And I, then I ask him, yes, did you do this in this? Then I told you last time they go, Oh yeah, we haven’t done that. Or, Oh, I forgot about it. It’s Oh, I’m not talking to those kids again. I’m not spending any of my time. It’s not worth it. It’s not, but 100 percent we’ll do that for someone that I see doing that.

And it’s in my nature to, and who knows. Maybe those kids become uber successful in the next five, 10 years. And they can actually help me out at one point in my life, because I’ve seen that happen. I’ve seen me spend that time early on investing in helping somebody, even when there’s no monetary return in me, but I get the value of watching them apply the things that I’ve learned and then go do and build something for themselves.

Very rewarding to do and also sometimes does pay back down the road. Yeah, no, that’s like something literally happening right now in the last three months and to that point of, if I didn’t see those characteristics in those kids, I’m not letting them come in my house and spend two hours talking to them about their carwash business that makes.

40 grand a year, you know what I’m saying? That is most people that’s where my wife is like, what are you doing? Like you, this is not any, this doesn’t give you anything or help you with any. I said, no, it’s not about that all the time. It’s if I see something in somebody like that, I really admire that character, even though they’re not at a financial level as I am or business level yet, I see characteristics like that.

And I admire that. And I, and if I can help foster it. And sprinkle a little water on it and help it grow faster than what it would without my input. Then I’m very much so we’ll carve out time in my busy week to do that. And again, lesson to the kids that are listening to this, like you don’t have to be rich to get in those circles.

There’s other ways to do it, but you’ve got to have the right character. You have to have the right attitude and work ethic and lead with that and looking to add value to those people. And, eventually you’ll have some people that are assholes that don’t give you time of day, but eventually you meet a Mike Matthews, you meet an Adam Schafer and we do see that we do value that.

And then you keep doing that. And now you’ve met Mike and Adam and a Sal and a, and you, and now your list has grown of all of these people you can look up to that can help you, that can answer questions for you and accelerate. Your growth 

Mike: and then one day you need some Instagram stories to go up, you send a text message and 18 Instagram stories goes up and gets you thousands of followers overnight.

That’s actually that’s how it works. 

Adam: That’s exactly how it works and it’s the long game and it’s hard for this instant gratification generation because it’s not, 

Mike: It’s like investing. You can’t look at it as a as mere transactions, right? Cause you’re going to get really frustrated and disappointed if you look at it that way.

Adam: That’s right. Yeah. You’re going to work a lot more than the time you get paid to do a job or something like that for the time being, but like investing in say real estate or stocks or the compounding interest over time builds momentum. And it actually gets easier. It gets easier as you get older and more experienced because you’ve been doing this for years, you’ve been doing this consistently, not expecting a massive return.

And then as you get older, the returns on those relationships really start to pay dividends. And it’s an awesome place to be, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of work and a lot of people aren’t willing to put the work in and the time. 

Mike: We’ve been going, I think, over an hour and a half now and probably could go another hour and a half, but for the sake of time, I think this is probably a good place to wrap up.

We’ve gone all over the place. I think it’s been a great discussion. We got to a lot of what was on the list took a little bit longer, which I hope is okay. But I thought it was a good discussion. 

Adam: No, of course. I think what I’m going to do is I’m going to start having Katrina, like a book, a previous hour so I can catch up with you first.

And then I could, we could be more tactical for the list. Hopefully. I hope everybody enjoys, it’s as authentic as real as you can get, right? This is sometimes how you and I get caught up is over here and this is what it looks like there. I don’t think we were formulating anything.

It’s just good conversation with a good friend. So it’s good to get caught up with you. Absolutely. 

Mike: And let’s wrap up with where people can learn about this new service for this new product and service, for trainers to help them build their business as well as anything else specifically that you want people to know about.

I’m assuming most listeners know about the podcast, of course, but 

Adam: yeah, of course, the podcast. But really, the thing, the focus is the trainer side. So really speaking mostly to all coaches and trainers or aspiring coaches and trainers. And I would even add in that category, anything really in the health medical field where you’re an entrepreneur.

So if you’re, physical therapist and acupuncture, anybody who is building their health, wellness, fitness business, even though we’ve titled it mind pump trainer. On Instagram, I think that the advice that we’re giving is very related to all the fields, all fields of scaling a health and fitness business both in the digital world and the real world.

So we address a lot of that stuff. So if you’re building that business, and I would start there with all the free stuff and on there. You will see the connect to all the free webinars that we do. And we’re writing a lot of white papers right now. So we have a lot of stuff on the back and that’s happening that, and again, this is the formula for how the other business was settled as we lead with giving lots of value to people.

And that’s, I don’t need you to buy, go take up all the free stuff. 

Mike: Give your best stuff for free. Cause then people go, wow, they’re giving that away for free. This information, I wonder how good their paid stuff is. 

Adam: That’s exactly it. Then that’s exactly what I would say on here is just go to the mind pump trainer, IG, follow that, pay attention to the content, engage in there with us and take advantage of all the free content that we have, and then you’ll see the stuff that we have when enrollment opens up and everything like that, but at least go take advantage of all the free stuff we got there.

Mind pump trainer. 

Mike: Awesome. Love it. Thanks Adam. Have you ever wondered. What strength training split you should follow? What rep ranges you should work in? How many sets you should do per workout or per week? I created a free 60 second training quiz that will answer those questions for you and others, including how frequently you should train each major muscle group, which exercises you should do, what supplements you should consider, which ones are at least worth taking.

And more to take this quiz and to get your free personalized training plan, go to muscle for life dot show muscle for life dot show slash training quiz, answer the questions and learn exactly what to do in the gym to gain more muscle and strength. I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful.

And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don’t miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn’t like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have.

Ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, Mike at muscleforlife. com muscleforlife. com and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you’d like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I’m always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback.

So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.

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