On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. I'm excited for this conversation because I don't even know if you've come out of the heat of battle. I think the stink of battle is still on you. And you always have this funnel that's going forward. So you're never using new money to acquire new clients. You're using the money from the newly acquired client to acquire a new client in the future. For the audience, I hope you're paying attention. This is really, really, really powerful.
This is what will turn the heat up in your business period. I think of business as sport. Right? This is my NBA. This is my MLB. I feel like I'm going pro as an entrepreneur. And if I wanna be in the game forever, I need to take care of my and be healthy. Right? What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe, gathering the king's podcast, coming back to you here today with another king on the stage. I got my brother, Brian Velez. How we doing, Brian? Doing great, Chad. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Abs absolutely, man. I appreciate you taking a few minutes with me here today and giving up yourself the audience, man. We we just love hearing success stories, and you're in the midst I mean, we're we're all in the midst of our success stories, but you're like really, really in the midst of of really coming up and all kinds of changes happening in your business and seeing some major growth. And I'm excited for this conversation because I don't even know if you come out of the heat of battle.
I think the stink of battle is still on you, and I think you're gonna give some great insight. So, Brian, tell us what kind of business that you have? Yes. I'm the owner and operator of physical culture. We're a health and performance gym in in New York. So we work with high performing people. So a lot of white collar professionals, a lot of athletes, and, people who generally just wanna improve their health and longevity. I love it, man.
There's all kinds of talks around people trying to be, like, you know, a 100, a 108, a 140. You know, like you said, people trying to go for that longevity. Although you said one quick thing here, we got we got a sidebar here away from business for a half second because you said you're in Brooklyn. I have one of my favorite memories in Brooklyn. It's at a place called Peter Luger. Oh, it's great. Yeah. Yeah. Very very. Very. Exactly. I'll tell you what.
If the audience doesn't know about Peter Luger, give us just a quick two seconds on Peter Luger because it's in your hometown. I mean, it's it's one of the oldest steak houses in New York City. You know, I think if you're gonna get steak out, they're playing a great steak houses in New York City on those shortest, but Peter Lucas is probably one of the godfathers of of steak in in New York City.
So check it out if you're When I was when I was there probably 10 years ago, I had a I just had to go. I Chaz heard about Peter Luker, and I had the only option was 10:45 PM. And I'm like, well, I guess I guess I gotta take it. And, you know, of course, they come in white jackets all the way down, you know, the whole nine had Porterhouse for 2 that night. It was good for you. I was by myself, just to be clear, but I ate the whole actually, I did eat the whole thing.
I saved a couple of bites for the next morning. It was a delicious breakfast in the hotel. Anyway, Brian, let's talk about business for, a little bit here. You're helping people become their best version of themselves physically. Kinda gather in the Kings help people become the best versions of themselves in their business and marriage and all the other things in life.
And so we're like, kind of spirits here, and I think that really becoming our best version is really ultimately what we're trying to do. Why is that so important for you? I mean, obviously, you're on the physical side and you're helping people become, you know, elite Physically, why is that, like, the inner part of the depths of who you are and why you do this? Yeah. I mean, for me, I think training just makes you a better person.
You know, training I've been playing sports my entire life since I was four years old, multi sport athlete, start lifting weights when I was fifteen. And through the ups and downs of life, training, going to the gym playing sport, That has been the thing that has kept me on the the straight and narrow path and kinda kept focused throughout my life.
So I genuinely do think people who train are better people, So, you know, I think it's changed your mindset, not only just your physical, but your emotional state, your mindset, you you move with more focus, more intention. And I wanna give that to as many people as possible. I know how much it has impacted my life. And to the extent, I could give it to more people who are open minded about training and taken care of themselves. I mean, I I really wanna give that to people.
Yeah. And I think training, probably everybody who's listening has train to some degree, but maybe there's somebody listening right now that really doesn't understand how training physically could impact them mentally and or in business.
And so since this is a business podcast, tell us how how could that person listening right now understand the benefits of how they could become a better business owner or a better thought leader or a better thinker, a better leader, just by training and doing the hard things that you just talked I mean, I think when you do hard things every day, it makes everything else easier. That's first off. But having your health is the foundation for life. Right? I think of business as sport, Right?
This is my MBA. This is my MLB. I feel like I'm going pro as an entrepreneur. And if I wanna be in the game forever, I need to take care of myself and be healthy. Right? And so when you when you built these disciplines and these habits over time, whether it's, you know, waking up at a certain time, pushing yourself in the gym, eating the right things throughout the day, You feel better. You look better. You're more confident in yourself, and you just move with a different type of energy.
Yeah, man. I'm going pro. Or I mean, you know, the the the idea of some people maybe already think that they're pro, which is great, but even at a pro status, it's not like in fact, if anything, it's The pros are the ones working out even harder. They're working even better or or or stand up later or waking up earlier. They're doing it even more extreme Chaz my point. Right? Right. Right. I actually think of it. I'm a big baseball fan.
So I actually think of it as I'm in the I'm in single a baseball, and I'm trying to I mean, the minor leagues trying to kinda know, get promoted, work my way up, and get to the majors one day, and maybe the hall of fame. So, you know, it's a it's a journey, it's a grind, but, you know, This this is really what we play for. And the great thing about business is you could play that sport forever.
You know, there are plenty of guys who are playing business into their sixties, seventies, and eighties. And, you know, I wanna be there too one day. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, especially if we're gonna live to a 140, bro. Eighty is just getting rolling. I mean, come on. Okay. So health has been important, important enough for you to be able to share it with other people. Tell us what happened for you to even start this company. I, obviously, did something beforehand.
Give us a just a little bit of the backdrop, why you became an entrepreneur. Yeah. So, you know, I think it I think I was subconsciously imprinted when at a young age. So my father, actually, he was in the marine corps when he was younger. And he started a real estate business when he was 29 30. And this is a guy who came from nothing. He was an immigrant from Puerto Rico. Went to the military at seventeen, eighteen years old. Got out and then started his own business.
And, unfortunately, it passed away when I was a child, but I did have very fond memories of him when I was young, being in his office, sitting in his desk. And just I think at that point, it was really imprinted into me that, hey. You can actually work for yourself and make a good living. And so, you know, kinda fast forward a little bit. Sport has been a huge part of my life, been athlete my entire life.
But as I got into school, you know, obviously, I was playing competitive sports, but I was also a good student. And so I, you know, I went to Columbia University. I say it applied math and economics. So traditional engineering background got into working at a hedge fund as a trader and then eventually in Wall Street as a equity research analyst at Investment Bank, so very in the nitty gritty of corporate finance.
And I would sit at my job all day just thinking to myself how Chaz I how did I get to this point? And all the guys that work how do I get out? You know, I I realized that we were basically glorified weather people And the the people who were actually making the money were the the company's CEOs. And, right, so we were raising money, IPO and companies. And there was these companies, those executives were the ones who were actually getting paid out.
And we were only getting slivers of it for working so much. And so, you know, I I was tired of playing Fantasy Football. I wanted to play my own team, manage my own team, And the one thing that has been kinda constant through my my life, to my earlier point, was the gym.
And so I, you know, I I teamed up with 2 business my 2 business partners, actually coaches at a previous gym that I was at before, and we had always jokingly talked spoken about starting a business, but it wasn't until I was making enough money working in investment banking to actually make it come to fruition.
Well, as equity research analysts, they used to model out companies like Coca Cola, Pepsi, these big multi $1,000,000 multibillion dollar companies, always thought to myself, if I could if I could find do write a financial model for a big corporation like Pepsi or Coca Cola, I could do it for a small business. And so I did just that. I built out financial models and ended up making sense, the math, math, and, you know, the rest of this history. I love that, dude.
Not that not that my respect for you wouldn't have been extremely high. It already is just based on your history and story and success. But now now I just see this conversation in a completely new light because there's There's a lot of people that do well in fitness who don't do well in business, and there's a lot of contractors who do well as a contractor, but they don't do well in business. And as you mentioned earlier, it's the game of business that lasts forever and ever.
It's not working on the job site or working in the gym or you know, working at an edible arrangements franchise, which was my first business. And so it's like, okay. Now we're gonna have a conversation of how to how to run a business. You know, financial models and how do we pull and and tug on levers, which I just think is just, just a such a greater opportunity for whoever's listening. Inside of that, you just set up the stage for us beautifully.
There's obviously been an on ramp to Chaz, but what's been, I mean, from 0 to here where you're like, you know, you're in essence, you're exploding right now. Like, I'll just toot your horn for you. You're exploding right now. And so what's what's been the one catalyst? I know there's been several, but what's been the one thing inside that model that you've built. That's just it just triggered the rest of the fire.
Yeah. I think, you know, when it comes down to business, I kinda segment it into three pieces. There's acquisition, there's fulfillment, and there's retention. And for us, I think for a lot of for a long time, we were at we were focused so much on the service providing a great service and fulfilling that. And we're very good on retention, but we did not have an acquisition engine for the business.
And so this past year, we really started investing a lot more money in resources into acquisition, whether it's through paid ads on Instagram and Facebook. And more recently, we're starting to get more into content creation just to establish our new brand.
And so I think focusing a lot on acquisition and being able to cover the cost of customer acquisition and, you know, start building out that recurring revenue stream for from, you know, memberships on on an ongoing basis, kinda really was the unlock for us, but you have to spend money to make money.
And I think for a long time, especially early in the business, I was so focused on paying myself just to get scraps out of the business, and I always thought that I was picking the fruit a little too early. And it wasn't until I realized, wait. I can't pick the fruit too early. I need to let it grow. And I also need to spend more money to grow the business so that the fruit could be bigger in the future, and that's when things start to kinda click for me. Wolfe. Chaz was such a succinct answer.
I appreciate the high quality answer there. There's several pieces that we need to, like, dissect. Okay? So first off, acquisition, fulfillment, and retention you gave a really good idea of fulfillment being, you know, do the thing that you say you're gonna do for your client. Retention is do it so well that they keep doing it with you. Sure. Which are kinda both back end operations. Okay. Fine. So acquisitions on the front end, we're talking sales and marketing. Yes, sir.
You said you you spent a lot of time in that answer talking about marketing and whether paid ads or just lead generation through content or, you know, sticking your ankle out on the street. I mean, you got plenty of people that caught, you know, point is is that you need leads, but, secondarily, right behind that, you have to have a sales process that can usher those leads into some sort of an offer.
So tell us about that for a quick second because you you said you've leaned in hard now to investing and lead gen. What happens after that for you, or what have you learned through that process? Yeah. So, really, what we do now is kinda a more client finance acquisition. So we have a high ticket upfront offer. So we'll spend money to acquire leads I do the entire sales process, so I'll I'll kinda qualify the leads. I get on a jump on a call with them and then kinda follow them over to the coach.
So my coaches don't do any of the selling process. Right? The real focus for me is to get clients acquired at a price such that the cash fee collect up front is multiples of that. So that way, the the client that we acquire is paying for the future acquisition of a new client. Right?
So if you're getting a position where you're doing that, basically, the flight will continue to roll so that you know, a portion not everyone's obviously gonna convert into a recurring membership, but a portion of them will, and that'll kinda build up the back end revenue over time. But then you always have this funnel that's going forward. So you're never using new money to acquire new clients. You're using the money the the newly acquired client to acquire a new client in the future.
That's really helped us a bit. I love everything that you've said here. Now we're totally over here in Mozy nation, breaking stuff down.
Yeah. I I wanna break it down a little further because what you're talking about CAC, client acquisition cost or cost of client acquisition is really, really big, and it applies to every industry, not just fitness, In essence, what you're saying is that you have to spend money to get a lead and then to make a sale, but that collection has to be enough to then fuel the next not just the next client, aka paying for leads or lead generation, but, like, several of them. Correct?
Give us a just a little bit more detail there. Or if you can, Give us some give us some numbers. Chaz way we kinda wrap this this concept around some of the things that you're you're you're looking at every day on your screen. Yeah. So just for simple metrics, like, usually cost me about $300 to acquire a client. And so the upfront offer for the average client would be $900 for a 6 week trial. We also have more premium packages that kinda think of icing on the cake.
But in that situation, if it costs us $300 to acquire a client and we're collecting $900 in cash up front, I'm making 3 to one of my money immediately. And then if that client converts into a recurring membership down the line, that's just icing on the cake. We could just stack it up forever.
So now, obviously, not every 6 week trial client converts In general, I'd say probably 75% of our 6 week trials couldn't hurt into recurring membership, so people fall off, but it's not really a big deal because One of the one of the four clients you didn't convert to a recurring membership, I could just take that $900 to acquire a new lead in the future and get another customer. Yeah. Yep. Alright. I'm gonna give one little synopsis here.
Tell me what you think about this because it this for the audience, like, yeah, I hope you're paying attention. This is really, really, really powerful. Like, this is what will turn the heat up in your business period. And so that that $300 broken down even further is You know, he spent, let's say, a $1000 on ad somewhere. It generated x amount of leads. Those x amount of leads turned into x or y amount of phone calls. The live amount of phone calls turned into that $1900 sale.
And from that $900 sale, it still cost him $300 to get that client. And so now he has wiggle room here to go run his business. And if you happen to be listening to this and you're one of this dude's clients, first off, congratulations because you're probably gonna get ripped and shredded Number 2 is this is how a business works. This is how business works is that they provide value and so much so to where they can make a profit. This is how your business should be happening as well.
This is really for the audience because there's so many people out there trying to get to that 7 figure mark, even multiple seven figures, and they're just not charging enough because they they don't, like, oh, $900. It only cost me 300. Maybe I'll only charge. It's like, no. No. No. Like, you you have to operate like that because then you gotta some of that money and put it right back into the next one because you do have a fall off ratio. You can only help a certain amount of people.
You you're limited on the back end. There's all kinds of factors that go into what that profit looks like, what are your thoughts on on all that? Yeah. I mean, I would say, especially for us, you know, we recently re re rebranded the business to physical culture. And one of the big things was raising our prices pretty significantly. And, you know, we wanna serve everyone we can. You can give free content out, you know, over social media. You can come out with free courses.
You could there are plenty of ways to help people out And whenever I encounter a lead who doesn't have enough money to work with us, I always tell him YouTube is free. There's plenty of information out there. You're paying us. That's right. Not for the knowledge. You're paying us for the execution. Right?
Yeah. You could find anything you want about health and fitness online for free, but you're really paying for a coach through the accountability, and that's where you're spending the money on the coaching, not necessarily access to the gym. And so I have actually found that when you raise the prices, you get a better client. They're more bought in. They care more about what you're doing. They value it more.
They're more likely to stay for a longer period of time, and they by extension, they also know other wealthy people. And so it's just a self fulfilling prophecy, and it does help business quite a bit. But the reality is you just can't help everyone, unfortunately. Yeah. Well, I love the the little tag in there that you placed that when we spend money and not just any amount of money, enough to where it makes us hurt a little bit.
When we're just like, ah, then then typically we pay attention to that because it hurts. And if you don't, then maybe you need to spend more. I don't know what what your problem is, but the at least when I spend money, typically, it's like, okay. Now I'm gonna pay attention to this. I'm invested, literally, not only with my money, but now my attention. And that's typically when you get results. Right? 100%. Yeah. It's funny.
Every time we used to run a free offer in the past, people wouldn't show up to the gym. And I actually have done posts before on social media where I have called people out. I was like, well, if I gave you a month of our membership for free, I guarantee you wouldn't show up to the gym. Because there's no skin in the game. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same thing for Gavin and the Kings. We have we started off with just a single premium level peer to peer mastermind.
We've since opened up some, like, entry level, you know, access points for smaller business owners trying to just get around successful people, which I think is but I'll tell you, we don't have any problems with premium level clients. No. Whether whether they were financially ready or or they they were, like, this is a little bit of a stretch, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Right?
Sure. That mindset will pull you forward in your business, whether you're getting fitness, coaching, whether you're joining a peer group, or whether you're investing in your family. I've noticed the same thing about my family. I can I can do a date night? Or if I, like, really do a date night, I'm like, in, you write the note You you don't just order the flowers. You go pick them up, and you make sure that they're perfect. And you deliver them hand right from you to her.
Like, there's just so much more intention when you're invested. Right? 100%. Absolutely. Alright. Well, so let's let's move on here. You've given us kinda like the key of of what it looked like to turn the heat up. I'm sure you stumbled on a bunch of stuff. Give us the one thing that comes to your mind where you're like, dude, if I could not have done this, but I'm sure you learned a bit Give it give it to us. What was it? Yeah. So kind of on the on the conversation about marketing.
So we picked the fruit too early, probably around 2021, coming out of the pandemic, coming out of COVID, You have to put it in perspective. I used to work for Wall Street making quite a bit of money, and so there's a lifestyle you need to also maintain a little bit as well. Now I'm also been very I'm a very frugal person, but you also wanna get paid for the effort you're putting into the business.
And so I found myself picking the fruit too early from the business, and taking the gas off of acquisition. Right? And I thought that we could kinda continue to flip the business and we would keep growing. There was a obvious drop in growth for the business in 2021.
Now, obviously, there are other things going on with inflation and cost of living increasing, especially in New York City, but I do take responsibility, and I realized that, yeah, I I pulled I stepped off the gas in terms of marketing spend, especially in the early years of a business. You can't do that. Right? I would even argue in the 1st 5 years of your business. You probably shouldn't be paying yourself too much. You need to keep reinvesting money into the business.
So, obviously, we've kinda we've course course redirected at this point, but I would say that's a big issue that I I see a lot of entrepreneurs make, and we made it too. So everyone's human. Yeah. We are. You're right. And I think that the cool part inside of Chaz, you said that you're frugal. How is it that someone who's frugal got trapped in picking too early? Because Those are kinda 2 different principles. One is leaving it on the tree. The other one is I took it, but now I'm careful with it.
Right? Give us give us kinda like how that works because you're still a frugal person even though now you're reinvesting. Sure. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's all relative. Right? $5000 when you're making 200 k is different than $5000 when you're making 60 k. Right? So I think it especially if you're coming from a a previous situation where you're working corporate job making a lot of money and then transitioning to being an entrepreneur. That's a big culture shock.
It's a big ego hit that a lot of people just can't stomach. Right? And because you're also going to that understanding that it could fail, and you also don't have a timeline on when you're gonna get back to that previous salary. So kinda have to throw all these timelines out of your head and just kinda stick to the process, keep growing the business, and your time will come when it when it comes. But You you can't pick the fruit too early.
Yeah. I I love the the analogy that you keep giving up picking the fruit too early. I think that you're right too Chaz especially if you've had previous ex experience with making large amounts of money, whether corporate job or or different scenario, whatever the whatever the deal is. When you come into that and you have to kinda give that up. At least for me, it was like well, I don't have any other options here. I should probably run as hard as I can.
Yeah. You know, I was the only probably the only difference is that I was married at that time, but it's still, like, you know, married and children, and and it's like, okay. Dude. Like, we gotta make this stuff happen, and we gotta make it happen fast. So that's my encouragement to the listener is that you're right. You shouldn't pluck it off the tree too soon. Inside of that, that should be, like, fuel. It should be like, hey, dude. Write it on the board. I made nothing today.
Good. Okay. What about tomorrow? Let's see if I can make some tomorrow. And obviously, there's some targets there that need to be identified, and what's the what's the point where I can start pluck in a little bit. And I think there's even, like, a a little bit of emotion of, like, pluck a little bit, maybe then a little bit more, then a little bit more. And, like, there's a work into that because you still gotta eat, but let right? Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolf.
I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too. So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the things.
On social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and Spotify. We would love to be able to get our content into more hands more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as possible. Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So Let's do this. Let's help each other. Let's help each other grow.
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I've become a lot more formulaic with how we pay ourselves now. Like, there are certain metrics I watch, and we look at, like, trailing 3, 3 6 month revenue, and we take a percentage of that. Just just so I know I'm always on the right path, and I'm not paying ourselves too much. And then it's also more performance based too. Right? You eat what you kill. That's the beauty in being an entrepreneur. Right? There's no floor, but there's also no ceiling either.
So your point, you just gotta run faster if you're not making enough. Yeah. And which is we have a 100% control. Yeah. I mean, you control today many phone calls you've already made. If you're in New York City, it's already 11:40. How many phone calls did you make today? Well, that was dependent by how many you wanted to make, you know, because I know you got leads. Yes, sir. So I think that the the the combination of what we're saying here for the audience is look, man, get after it.
Like, you're on a timeline of sorts. Pressurize yourself. Cool. Like, it's okay. But at the same time, at one point, sometime or another, like, that day does come where you can pay yourself and not just, like, menial. Like, it can be worth it. It should be worth it if you're doing it right. Yeah. Yeah. Which, I mean, looking back, I'd tell my younger self, like, I just I delayed a long time, man. 5 days would have been nice. I hear you.
But it's like, you know, some of that, we just become obsessed. Right? Like, I mean, okay. So talk about that from a quick angle of you, you know, being in a world. I mean, Investment Banking, you wanna talk about obsess, like, Bro, like, that that industry in itself is is, like, what a lot of people hold up as success. Right? So Chaz was it like for you taking that maybe energy from what you learned from that industry and applying it to your own business?
Was that was that kinda like running in mud for a minute there? I mean, I definitely learned a lot from my bosses in in in banking. I mean, definitely my man, reaching director who oversaw me. I learned a lot from her just the way I even do things today, whether it's managing my email or running meetings internally for the team. I do exactly what she did with us. Yes. It could be a lot, and it could be intense.
And I'm sure my team sometimes with, you know, they they're like, oh, Brian's in corporate mode right now. They thought to me I'm not a person, but I think there's a certain level of diligence and a certain energy you move with when you're in those settings because it is sink or swim. Most of those situations in Investment Banking or any corporate job that's that demanding, I would say, you really need to perform. Right? It's a it's up it's a very upper out mentality.
It's either you're moving up in the standings and you're getting promoted they're gonna kick you out somehow or force you out. So I think just having that mentality is probably good as an entrepreneur, and you realize once you're an entrepreneur, that a lot of other entrepreneurs who are competitive with you don't have that same standard. And so what I realized, especially as running a gym, is that a lot of gym owners are just Jim Bros, or they just love coaching, or they're just good athletes.
And I'm coming up from a different angle as a business guy. And when you when I have conversations with other business owners, even today or even 4 years ago when we first opened the things I was thinking about, not even having opened the business, compared to somebody who's running a gym for 10 years was completely different. We were looking at we're playing 2 different sports.
And over time, you start to lap them and you realize, well, it's because I had this huge, you know, this pedigree from coming from an Ivy League School and, you know, having an engineering background, and I'm very good with numbers and things like that. And it really does add up. It's these are very useful skills that you should have. It's not just about writing the best workouts. It's about running a business. Yeah. I love it, man.
Okay. Well, let's talk about along the way, we're gonna keep this obsession kinda lame. I know that you've given up things. I'm sure friendships. I'm sure relationships. Talk about what the obsession in a good way. Like, I don't mean, like, you have to be obsessed, and you have to give up everything to have a successful business. Although, I think that there's play for that. I think I gave up a ton of stuff. I've never really talked about that. Maybe we should do a show on that.
So my question to you, Brian, here is, along the way, I know you've given up some stuff. Give some examples of what those things were, but then also maybe, like, how that benefited you as a holistic person, not just necessarily giving up these things so I can be rich. You know what I mean?
Yeah. Absolutely. So I I think when you become an entrepreneur, there's a lot of sacrifice that you have to accept initially from the jump Whether it's making less money, whether it's having less time to spend with friends, less vacations, you can't buy nice clothes, things like Chaz, it can it can really beat down your ego though over time. Right? You know, I've had to give up a relationship, but I was engaged previously.
And, you know, our lives were just going in different directions and you know, she did kinda see through the whole banking journey and restarting the business and everything, but after a while, it is really tough to progress in life if you were the one that's holding back the membership because you're you're not making enough money or you're not at the point that you wanna be at.
And so I do think there's a lot of struggles and tri trials and tribulations you need to overcome as an entrepreneur, But, again, it also does give you another opportunity to refocus and kind of rebuild the foundation and kinda make sure that you're you're getting all your bases covered. For me, health is a huge thing for me. I always make sure I take care of my body. I always make sure I take care of my mind.
That's 1st and foremost because I can't perform if I'm tired or if I'm sick or if I'm not feeling confident. And so thankfully, my business is in alignment with that. So it makes my life very easy to, you know, go to the gym and take care of myself and eat Wolfe. And, there's a lot of alignment there, which is really positive. Yeah. I I'm glad you spun it in this direction because that's that's what I was hoping that you would do.
Really, the obsession of getting rid of the negative things, but it also allows us to then obsess further about the other things outside of the business that also then either help the business or just help us as an individual become our best version. So I I appreciate you going there. I'll your optimism towards how easy it is for you, I think, is actually you because how easy how how many times have we heard the guy that, you know, who's a who's a gym owner or who's a a painter.
And he's like, yeah, I haven't painted my house. I know that I need to paint my house, but I don't paint my house because I paint all day long, and I don't wanna come home and paint my house. Right? Like, You could totally say that about mind work and body work, so you don't. So is that is that just because it's so important to you or how are you incorporating those other things?
I know that you own the freaking gym, but you still gotta choose to go there as a person working out, not the owner looking around and doing owner things. Talk to us. Yeah. That's a great question. I mean, I I I like to be a good example for other clients I work with. And so actually even tell my team all the time I want you guys to work out in front of the clients because they need to see what it looks like also. And so I'm busy.
I have a lot of clients who are professionals, also entrepreneurs. They're busy too. And if I could do it, they could do it. And then conversely, if they could do it, I can definitely do it. Right? If they're working 12, 14 hours a day and then showing up to the gym to get after it, I really have no excuse either. Or if I have a mother of 2 or 3, she's running around all the over the place, and she also has a career and she's still making time to come into the gym. I have no excuse either.
So I think it's it's a very reflective thing that goes on in the gym. And I think it's it's very inspiring. We all inspire each other, and I I try to do that on the gym floor with people as well. I wanna be a good example. Yeah. And so practically inside of, okay. Yeah. You're gonna schedule time to go to the gym, let's use mind work at or or just learning as as something different, because maybe you don't go to the actual gym for Chaz.
You're not being, like, a physical representation of what it is, to be an example, you're just in your office or you're just in your in your room. Doing the things that you know you need to do to end to be obsessed with, the things I'm teaching you guys to do. It's the same stuff, though, but but you're still choosing to do it. Talk to us about that. How do you how do you find time for that? How do you practically do that? When? How? Who? You know, all that stuff?
Yeah. So the first the first part of my day in the morning is in my home office. So this is usually a time for deep work. I'm usually doing some more back end operational things. Then kind of midday around 2, 3 PM. I will head into the gym, and so I'll close the gym also with this with the with the coaches. And so that's where I'm gonna work out with the clients. That's when I kinda touch base with people. Hey. How's everything going? Just kinda develop those relationships with people.
And then usually in between that, when I'm driving in my commute, I'm trying to listen to some type of podcast or even just talk to myself, having conversations with yourself, I think, is really important.
Sometimes I think we over we over consume content, and we don't reflect on it enough So I really try to make it a point to have conversations with myself throughout the day about what I'm looking at, what I'm digesting, what I wanna focus on, And then at nighttime, that's usually time for me to rest. But, of course, you know how it is. You have things on your mind. If you wanna kind of explore certain ideas when it's really quiet, that's probably the best time to do it.
Take your dog for a walk, go for, an extra long Wolfe, and kinda just be with your thoughts by yourself at night, really goes a long way to to kinda creating some mental piece there. Yeah. I love that, man. I think you gave just a really great example. What there's there's a leading question here around you not coming into the office or the gym, onto 2 or 3 PM.
How does your team, or what have you done to communicate with your team, that that's the expectation that they're not gonna see you until then? And that in essence, you're doing other things, deep work on yourself, operationally in the business. In essence, you're in a Wolfe. You're being quiet. You probably have some sort of you know, sound headphones on and you're not being bothered by anybody and you're doing deep work. How is the business still running without you during that time?
Yeah. So, thankfully, I have a supportive team. It's me and my business partner, and we have 4 full time coaches. So it's really six of us who run the business. I really handle all the operational side of the business, the marketing, the sales, all the back end finances, everything, they focus on coaching. Right? They don't have to think about anything else. They'll help out with content, obviously.
But there is a really there is a real separation of church and state in terms of who's running the business and who who's working on the business versus who's working in the business. And so I think, you know, I I try a lead by example. They know I work harder than all of them combined. So I don't think there's ever a question that I'm not working. And I I'm just sitting at home know, watching movies or or, yeah, there's there's no shot that's happening.
And and they know it because when I'm, you know, I'll call them in the morning. Hey. I got your client for you. Hey. Let's schedule this. Hey. I have somebody who's inquiring about this. So they know things are always happening even on weekends. I'm hitting them up. So I think there's a mutual respect and understanding, and Listen, my philosophy with work is I understand Chaz a business owner, you're never gonna care about the business more than I do as an employee.
And so I just kinda deal with that. And, you know, thankfully, the gym is such an interesting business where it is a passion for people. All my coaches are passionate about this, and I always make sure to remind them that they actually live out their passion Whereas most people just work a job they hate, and so they should be thankful and grateful for this opportunity. We all should collectively, and that by itself should make you wanna work hard and get after it.
So think everyone's on the same page, and we never have any issues like that. That's good, man. I appreciate the the honesty there. I assume that that there's some systems and some communication that you've put in place, like you said, that they know what you're working on. The the last piece that you mentioned there Chaz far as you know, just collectively being grateful. I think that entrepreneurs should think in that same vein. Like, man, I I literally got to Wolfe.
I I got to go wake up today, and and choose, like, to be on a podcast with Brian, like, wow. Or or whatever business that that you're in or whatever meeting that I'm having this week, whatever business that I'm that I'm addressing at that moment. And it's like, this was this was on me. I got to do that. I chose to set up this meeting. I'm I'm freaking leading this meeting. This is incredible. Or do I just go have a job that I hate. Right?
And and and maybe someone's listening today, and then they have a job. They're not an entrepreneur yet, which is fine. But even inside of that place, to be able to have that type of energy of creation and really enjoying, like you said, like you're for your coaches. Maybe they're not an owner, but to have a gratefulness around, like, oh, this is this is what I get to do every day. Like, it's pretty incredible and a pretty small percentage of people who actually get to do that. Right?
Yeah. I mean, I would say most people, especially my peers that I went to school with, all very successful people, I'd say 99% of them probably don't do what they love for a living. And that's really sad. These are very capable, intelligent people, very hardworking, but there probably is a part of them that is, unfulfilled. Right?
And so for me, I really try to I really made it a point when I quit the job, when I quit the banking job, that I was never gonna work for someone ever again in my life. I I made that oath to myself, And, you know, I think it's incredibly important to the extent it's possible to live in alignment with your passion and soul and try to make a living out of it because life is a long life is a long, long game.
And if you're gonna be working doing something you don't enjoy for 20, 30, 40, 50 years, I mean, it's gonna eat it to you at some point. Right? So You might as well start young. Yeah. I love that, man. Kinda end up here with some some information along the way. Obviously, you've you've already quoted several resources even in this show, but is there is there a book? Is there a podcast?
Is there someone that you're following that you get just a lot of great stuff from that you can recommend to the audience? Yeah. I mean, I think the the number one book I'd recommend to people is the Almanac of Naval Ravicott. I don't know if you're familiar with that. I'm not. Please take at at least a minute and tell us what this is. Sure. So it's a it's actually based off a tweet storm. So Naval is the founder of a venture capital firm.
And he wrote he wrote this tweet storm a couple years back about how to get rich quick or how to get rich, basically, how to get rich quick, but it's really more of a It's really more of an extension on business philosophy, life, and it's just a lot of really great frameworks for people to kinda think from. The the concept is basically how do you get rich without getting lucky? That's what he's trying to solve for. And he's explained that building wealth is not just a luck thing.
It's a skill that you have to build and cultivate, and it has some of it has nothing to do with business. Some of it has nothing to do with numbers. A lot of it is internal work, which I'm pretty sure you're familiar with. And so very, very insightful. I actually give this book to my cousins. I give it to anyone. I anyone who's like a budding entrepreneur, always give it to them because there's just a lot of good frameworks there that are helpful for people to learn from.
You know, you can always read some books on nitty gritty finances and stuff like Chaz, but I'd say in the beginning for people, it's really good to have a good foundation of good frameworks. And if you know how to think, you know, how to problem solve, and you know what wealth x g looks like, you can eventually kinda reverse engineer your your way into it. Oh, yeah. I love that.
It it hasn't it's been a while since someone has recommended a book that, a, I've not heard anything about and and not read, you know, ten times myself. And so, thank you for that. Absolutely. I'll put it in the show notes, but I'll be getting that book as well. Last last couple pieces here, I wanna I wanna kinda give an opportunity here for for the audience to connect with you and for you to be able to help them if you can remotely.
I know that you said you have a gym, and I wanna ask you a couple questions about, you know, do you work with clients remotely? If you've got, an audience member who right now is you know, crushing it in their business, but they need to level up their health game. Can they work with you? Yeah. Absolutely. So we work with clients on-site and also remotely. I clients who are out of the country all the time, but we travel quite a bit for work. It is obviously very nice to have the clients on-site.
I would say for the clients who work remote, there is a level of independence that's expected out of you. You probably should be of a higher training age. I wouldn't say you should start remote, but you can eventually transition to remote trying to teach people how to fish. Right? I wanna teach you how to train on your own, how to eat properly, how to establish good healthy habits.
And so over time, working with our coaches, you should be able to work out on your own and probably not even need us in the future also. Yeah. Love that. Cool. I got one last question here for you. And I wanna know if this is interesting always when I get to ask a young guy this question, but if you could roll back the clock, yeah, to your younger Wolfe, and I do mean this, even though you're young. What would you whisper to your younger self in that moment?
I'll give you a practical answer, and I yeah. I'll give you a and I'll give you some philosophical answer. I was gonna say buy some Bitcoin, buy some more right? I would say, I mean, I I think I followed most of the the things I told myself already. That's a good question. Wolfe, I'll give you some perspective. I I started the gym when I was twenty six. I'm thirty one years old right now.
I knew that I wanted to start the business young, because the later in life you start a business, you have family, kids, obligations, lifestyle creep, house, Right? So I felt that starting a business young gave me this space and air cover to really go all in without any distractions and just sacrifice a good chunk of my twenties, probably some of my thirties so that could build a good foundation. And so I'd probably whisper that again, start earlier, probably.
Start thinking about something when you're 21. Right? And it's funny enough. I actually I took a business school course at Columbia when I was 21 with one of my good friends, and we actually created a gym. We had to create a we had to create a business for the for the the final project of the class. And, you know, at the time, it was a joke. You know, we're we wanted to start a gym and everything that, but it actually came into fruition 5, 6 years later.
So, you know, it's funny how life works, but I would just say start earlier. Never it's never it's never too early to start. If anything, you're gonna learn a lot more running a business Chaz you will ever learn from business school. And I know that for a fact. What do you think? Now I'm now I'm side barring on my own show here because I already told you last question, but I'm gonna ask you another one.
Do you think that it was that moment at at Columbia when you made that business plan with your with your classmate? Was that the seed? In the subconscious, or was there a different seed previous to Chaz? Of you and a gym and entrepreneurship and that was just a little spark of this previously made seed. I think it's a compounded effect of a lot of things. I think Building the gym in the in the in college was an interesting thought experiment.
It wasn't until I'd actually graduated that one of my training partners actually opened up a CrossFit gym in Brooklyn. And I actually got to see I actually got to help him build it out from, like, day 1. So, like, we're, like, doing construction and stuff. Twenty one years old. I just wanted to work out and hang out.
I just recently graduated And, you know, I got to see him grow the business for the 1st, maybe 2 or 3, 4 years, and I got a inside look underneath the hood of what it actually takes And I sat there to myself, and I was like, this is totally doable. And then once once I worked in banking and I started learning the financial modeling skills and you know, you start to accumulate all these skills over time.
I think I arrived to the point when I was 26 where I was like, I have every single skill I need. To execute on this, now is the right time. But, you know, I I think seeing it in person, seeing actually somebody who's running their own business from scratch is a real eye opening experience, and you realize not as crazy as you think. It is daunting for sure. Absolutely. And there's there's a lot of pitfalls definitely, but it's doable for sure if you if you work hard enough.
Dude, you just you just fulfilled exactly why the show exists, and it's because you got courage in that moment. This whole show exists for you and me right now to be able to transfer courage to the listeners and then listening to your story, they go, oh, well, if that guy can do it, then I can do it. That's exactly what happened to you in that moment. You were in the midst of it. You saw it happening and you're like, well, my buddy's no different than me. I'm as smart. I have the same skill.
He just is doing it. 100%. And sometimes you just get sometimes you just gotta see it. And I would even say sometimes apprenticeship is probably more important than education in terms of school. Like, oh, absolutely. Yeah. Because in the midst of that, yeah, you're watching him, but you're learning all the things, like you said, which then the courage turns into and the confidence turns into action. And and then there you go down the story. Okay. So how can the listener find you?
Number 1, if they're across the country and they wanna reach out to one of the best trainers in the country and have you or your coaches help them. How can they find you? Or if they're in Brooklyn or New York City, where are you located? Yeah. So we're in Brooklyn, New York. So we're in the Goanas area. So between Park Slope and Carol Gardens, you can go visit our website physical culture dot co you can also look at our Instagram, physical culture, NYC.
And then my personal Instagram is Brian and Velez. I'm pretty active there, so you can always reach out to me directly if you want also. Love it, man. We'll put all that in the show notes as well. I hope that a bunch of really, really high performing people reach out to you because they gotta stay high performing with their mind and their body. As as many of us and gather in the Kings think about and and do regularly as is.
And so we're gonna be having some future conversations, you and me, on the same topic as well. So I'm Super happy to meet you. Thank you for being here. Blessings to you and your team and all the people that you're touching, not only New York City, but across the country with fitness. Thank you so much for being here, Thanks for having me Chaz and enjoy the holidays. Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today.
I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away. More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by your self doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself.
What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses in multiple different industries and now interviewing over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is that It's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done.
We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities. And here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So if that relates and and resonates with you, and you know that you need people around you, sharp, qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gatheringthekings.com.
Want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.