“You own a gym—you must work out all the time!”
“You’re an entrepreneur—you can work whenever you want!”
I’m sure you’ve heard both of these lines from family or friends. You and I know the real story: We skip workouts because we’re so busy with gym tasks, and we have the worst boss in the universe (ourself).
When you’re in Founder Phase, the first stage of entrepreneurship, you’re going to work hard, and you’re going to work long hours. That’s a given. It’s unavoidable.
When you’re in Farmer Phase, you’re going to be stressed and distracted by staffing and money issues. That’s also unavoidable, too.
But entrepreneurs have poor lifestyles for different reasons. Read on. I’ll tell you why gym owners are overworked, stressed out and often ready to close or sell.
Seven Stumbling Blocks
1. You’re a martyr. You confuse gym ownership with a noble purpose and profitability with greed. Yes, your gym performs a valuable service. Yes, you like your job. No, you shouldn’t feel guilty about making money and doing something you love. You didn’t take a vow of poverty when you opened your gym, and neither did your kids.
2. You think nobody can do it as well as you can. True, nobody can do everything you can do. But someone can do one thing you do better than you can. For example, some people love to clean, and they’re better at it than you are. Someone else loves Instagram, and they’re better at it than you are. You probably need several people to take roles off your plate, but you can’t take time off because you’re looking for a unicorn to replace you—and they don’t exist.
3. You’re so stressed that you can’t think about anything else. Even when you’re at home, all you can think about is work. This is because your brain literally rewires itself to optimize for “fight or flight,” and you start looking for fights and threats. Sometimes you even break things in your business just so you can fix them and feel important and needed.
4. You don’t have a model to follow, so you’re blindly just kinda hoping that more members will solve your problem.
5. You’re scared, and that makes you jealous and suspicious about competition. And nobody wants to be around a scared, jealous cynic.
6. You think money will solve all of your problems. Money is good at solving money problems, it’s true—but not all of your problems are money problems.
7. You think money is evil. Hey, we were all brought up to think that. It’s not your fault. But you need to understand that money is a tool. It’s a tool that helps you keep your gym open. And it’s a tool your clients can trade for accountability and coaching that will give them a better lives.
Sure, there are more reasons entrepreneurs don’t live well. But what do the ones listed above have in common? They’re in your head.
You build the life you imagine. Forget “manifest destiny” and all that woo-woo stuff. If you want to have a better lifestyle, you need to make a better lifestyle your goal. You need to paint a clear picture of what you want in your head and then find someone who can walk you through the steps to get there.
If that’s you and you’re ready to get out of your head and into the next phase of your life, book a call with my team.
The next phase is better—I promise.
