Last week, I told you why I started a gym: to create freedom for my family.
Today, I’d like to introduce you to my larger family.
Years ago, a physiotherapist told me, “If you care about your health, then you have to care about the health of the people around you. And if you care about their health, then you have to care about the city.”
I started the gym to take care of my family, and help my wife achieve her goal at the same time. But I started TwoBrain to help my larger family: other first-time entrepreneurs who had opened a gym. I knew what they were going through, and the camaraderie of the early days of CrossFit affiliation encouraged me to share all the mistakes I’d made.
You’ve probably heard the story ad nauseam: I hit bottom, found a mentor. Posted the mentor’s lessons on a blog called DontBuyAds.com every day for four years. Answered a call to mentor a couple of gym owners through a website company. Published three books about gym ownership, added a few dozen videos and articles to the CrossFit Journal, and continued to publish love letters to gym owners every day.
But the story I haven’t told is why I founded TwoBrainBusiness.com; why we keep producing free stuff every single day; and why I’m more committed than ever before.
In early 2015, while still mentoring gyms through a website company, I built a 14-hour online course around the conversations I’d been having. While every gym is different, certain work has to precede other work, and I recorded videos, wrote lessons and built templates around these foundations. I was the guy on the videos and the guy behind the lessons. I thought we could help more gym owners by selling the video course for less. And with a waiting list, selling a course as an alternative to 1:1 mentorship seemed like a great way to leverage my time.
It didn’t work.
If my goal was simply to make more money in less time, I’d say the course was a success. But my goal is to help gym owners, and an online course without 1:1 mentorship simply isn’t effective. MENTORSHIP IS THE ONLY THING THAT WORKS. It’s not the cheapest service to provide; it’s not the most scalable option to offer. If your goal is to scale without big costs or have a massive profit margin, you can get away with selling an online course. But if your goal is to make a meaningful difference in the lives of entrepreneurs and their families, you have to provide 1:1 mentorship.
My goals didn’t align with the website company’s goals anymore. And so, on February 13, 2016, TwoBrainBusiness.com opened its doors to gym owners.
Now there are over 500 in the TwoBrain Family. Every single one has a personal mentor. Every single one gets at least a full hour of 1:1 time every single month (and that’s an hour every WEEK in the Incubation phase.) Every mentor has a small caseload. Because that’s what works!
Like you, I took this leap into entrepreneurship. Like you, I made an emotional leap: I believed in the mission of getting people healthier, because I cared about them. I embraced CrossFit as the most effective tool available. But, like you, I quickly realized that a fitness tool isn’t a business plan. A business plan is a business plan, and a mentor makes it work.
We now have nearly 30 mentors at TwoBrain: all successful entrepreneurs who have been through our model, reached the Tinker Phase, and are dedicated to pulling others up behind them. This huge staff means a LOT of big ideas and new solutions to problems; these aren’t call-center employees trying to troubleshoot your website. These are high-earning, successful entrepreneurs who have been there. As my own mentors tell me all the time: it’s not the fastest way to build a business, or the cheapest. But it’s the ONLY THING THAT WORKS.
I care about the health of CrossFit. I care about the health of the fitness movement. That means I have to care about the health of those pushing the movement forward: the gym owners. You serve them; we serve you. Every hero needs a guide.
That’s why, most days, I wake up with a chip on my shoulder: because we have a long way to go, and gym owners deserve better.
Think about this: you’ve put your entire life on the sidelines to help others get healthy. You’ve asked your family to carry on without you at breakfast and bedtime; taken a vow of entrepreneurial poverty (hopefully short-term); skipped your own workouts; eaten your stress; missed your sleep; skipped meals; drank too much coffee…
…all in the name of providing excellent service. The least we can do is fill the gap between that service and your reward. No one else is willing to do it this way–the only way that works. But I am. That’s why I founded TwoBrain.
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