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If you’ve been reading these essays for awhile, you’ll know I was raised a farmer. I grew up in pasture and orchard, a 300-acre hobby (that means lots of work for a net loss of capital) for my parents, who were teachers then. We did a little bit of a lot of things, and one of those was harvesting grain. Our “grain bins” weren’t huge – just giant wooden boxes, really. But our neighbors had tall silos to feed their cattle through the Ontario winters. If you’ve never seen a silo, it’s narrow and deep with a dome on top. A silo can hold a lot of grain–but only a single type. They make loading and feeding easy, but they’re not robust; if you’re feeding two different types of grain to your animals, you need two silos. These days, I cultivate knowledge. The TwoBrain mentorship program draws deep from my own experience, mistakes and knowledge. But as our farm grows, I’m increasingly wary of the “silo effect”: depth of information without enough breadth. As CrossFit coaches, we know diversity is good for our clients. As a business coach, it’s my job to draw knowledge from varied sources and filter it into useful advice. This advice changes over time, because when gym owners become entrenched in one “method” or “philosophy,” it hurts them. Knowledge becomes rhetoric, then religion, and no one grows anymore. When I recorded Two-Brain Business on audiobook (you can download it here) I left out some of the essays from the print edition. Written in 2012, those lessons are simply no longer relevant. “Two-Brain Business” is the best-selling fitness business book of all time, but I’ll soon pull it from the shelves, because everyone should be reading the 2.0 version instead. (Or maybe not. The stories are still some of my favorites.) Yesterday, Jay and I were talking about the future of the TwoBrain program. He mentioned tomorrow’s ...

If you own a gym, you’re going to have to make hard choices. I’ve missed sleep, meals, training and sanity over the last 11 years, but no longer. Here’s how I deal with the “hard stuff”: Isolate the real problem. Try to remove emotion from the picture. For example: “I have a coach. She’s a close friend, and she’s been helping me out for five years. Lately she seems bored in class, and the members are starting to notice. She’s such a great person, and I don’t want to hurt her feelings. What do I do?” Cut out the irrelevant parts of the problem. Your friendship, her history, her feelings…these are all important, but NOT to her performance as a coach. Be a great friend and a great boss, but don’t confuse the two. If she’s an employee, she has to live up to her contract (which you have…right?) Realize it’s a cycle. I don’t believe in metaphysics, Karma or Santa, but I’ve noticed a cyclical pattern to almost all parts of my business. If revenue is the highest its ever been, it will soon go down; if it’s at a low point, it will soon rise. I never let myself get too high OR too low, because my situation will always change. So I make decisions that will keep those cycles trending upward over the long-term, instead of worrying about the micro-shifts. Ask yourself, “What’s best for my BEST clients?” In the words of Sherman Merricks, “I don’t need their $85 clients.” Don’t try to attract everyone, and if you face a tough decision that might alienate some of your fringe clients but improve things for your best clients, the choice is easy. Your duty as a gym owner is to your clients. If they’re negatively affected by a bad coach, it’s more than a good idea to remove the coach: it’s your JOB. Ask yourself, “Will this problem ...

I admit it: I dwell on stuff. I spend too much time counting the sins of others instead of counting my own blessings. I get angry about the wrong stuff sometimes, but I record every lesson and ask, “What can I do to stop this from happening again?” This has turned into three books already. If you’re angry about a coach leaving; pissed at “the competition”; or just plain tired and fed up with the business, think about these things. Even better: read, then mop the floor while you think. Stop being “not them.” You dislike the competition, so you make sure everyone knows how different you are. “We’re like CrossFit, but focused on functional movement” ensures the topic is about CrossFit. “We don’t push you to compete like those jerks over there” makes me think about “those jerks over there.” If you’re writing about a topic because someone ELSE did, or trying to “clear up misconceptions” spread by your competition…stop. Stop thinking about them. They’re not thinking about you (if they are, you’re already winning.)       2. Use it. Sometimes I DO wake up fightin’ mad. When I get a call from a gym owner saying, “These guys are stealing your stuff, bloke!” I don’t take it as a compliment. I use it to find a vein. When my stuff is copied, I write new stuff. When another gym says mine is “too competitive,” I write a lot of happy blog posts. When my neighbor complains about the noise, I deal with it and then write about it to help others.      3.  Get perspective. When your competition undercuts your prices, or an exiting coach bashes you on social media, ask yourself: “Will I even remember this a year from now?” If the answer is no, it’s easy to flush the stressor. But when the answer is “yes,” ask yourself: could something worse be happening? A ...