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Sean: 00:04 – Hi everybody and welcome to another edition of Two-Brain Radio with Sean Woodland. On today’s episode, I speak with eight-time individual CrossFit Games athlete Stacie Tovar and her husband Dustin. First, are you a stressed business owner who’s working too much and still struggling to make a profit? You want to grow your venture and reach the next level? Two-Brain Business is here to help with a free 60-minute call. It’s not a sales pitch, it’s just an opportunity for you to get real actionable advice from an expert who’s built a successful business. For one-on-one guidance on how to take your business to the next level, you can book a Free Help call today at twobrainbusiness.com. Stacie Tovar first competed at the CrossFit Games in 2009 in Aromas. Her final year was in 2017 in Madison, Wisconsin. She and her husband, Dustin, own CrossFit Omaha in Nebraska, a gym that has been around for nearly 12 years, and they recently became parents with the birth of their first son, Gavin. We talked about Stacie’s career as a CrossFit competitor and how they have built their affiliate into one of the best gyms in Omaha. Thanks for listening, everyone.
Sean: 01:17 – Stacie and Dustin Tovar, thank you so much for joining me. How are the two of you doing?
Stacie: 01:21 – Thanks for having us. We’re doing really, really good. Just getting used to have a new little guy with us all the time and adjusting to life without a little bit of sleep and running the business, you know, taking care of business.
Sean: 01:33 – So first question, how is life as parents?
Stacie: 01:42 – It’s awesome. It’s stressful. It’s a lot of work. But at the same time when you look at him, when I look at Gavin, you know, just see a smile or snuggle. It’s really awesome. One of the coolest things I’ve ever probably done.
Sean: 02:01 – Well, congratulations to both of you.
Dustin: 02:01 – It’s been a long time coming. We’re about to have our 11-year anniversary.
Sean: 02:09 – Wow. Well, congratulations. That’s awesome man. Good for you guys. Well, OK, Stacie, first off, what was it like growing up on a farm in Nebraska?
Stacie: 02:22 – Oh man, it was the best. I love going back to the farm. We try and get back as often as we can, which isn’t as much as we’d like, but you know man, like people make fun of me. We had, and you’re gonna laugh, but literally one of the antennaes that you had to like move and adjust in order to get a channel to come up that wasn’t—
Sean: 02:40 – I grew up with one of those.
Stacie: 02:44 – Did you really? We didn’t have cable, so Dustin, like we watched every Disney movie. I know every Disney movie by heart and Dustin like knows every other movie and every TV show. I mean, we just didn’t watch TV. We were outside all the time and just playing. And I, you know, it was awesome. I loved growing up on the farm.
Sean: 03:03 – What’s your favorite Disney movie?
Stacie: 03:06 – Oh, Beauty and the Beast, probably.
Sean: 03:09 – OK. Dustin, do you have a favorite Disney movie or are you not into that?
Dustin: 03:14 – Gosh, I would say Lion King, probably, the original was probably my favorite, I’m excited to see the new one.
Sean: 03:22 – All right. OK. Yeah.
Stacie: 03:26 – What about you?
Sean: 03:27 – If I had to choose my favorite Disney movie—now you’re putting me on the spot—it’s hard not, like I love Lion King. I like Beauty and the Beast a lot, too. And I’m trying to think what’s come out recently that I saw that I really liked.
Stacie: 03:42 – Well, there’s a new Aladdin now.
Sean: 03:45 – I liked that one. Yeah. I think there was a run in the 90s where they were really strong. Like it was like home run after home run after home run. So yeah, that was kind of my era. Growing up on that farm though, what kind of life lessons do you learn in that kind of environment?
Stacie: 04:02 – Hard work. You don’t really get to complain much, you just kinda put your nose to the dirt and you just do it and you do it until it gets done. I mean, we would not eat dinner, I remember—well they call it supper on farms—I mean my mom and Dad, dad was in the field, mom was an insurance agent, she still is. And there were days where we had to cook dinner and I think that’s where I get a little bit of my nutrition talent and I’m not much of a cook, but I am pretty good in the kitchen. We would make dinner and we wouldn’t eat until sometimes nine o’clock at night, 10 o’clock and we better had our homework done, you know, and we just made it work. And I really think that I, not only sports, you know, allowed me to become an athlete, but just throwing pigs around, hauling five-gallon buckets of seed, detasseling, walking beans. I mean we would get paid 50 cents I think to walk like three rows of beans. Do you know how long and hard that is? If you didn’t have a hoe, it’s like OK, no, wear gloves and pull the weeds, for 50 cents! And it went up to—where are we putting our money towards? And Mom and dad would be like, wherever you want, some of us put it in the savings account. Some of us said we want to go to Six Flags theme park and they took us and we worked for it. So you just learn a lot of those life lessons that carry forward throughout all of your life, really.
Sean: 05:37 – My mom grew up in Burlington, Iowa, and she would always tell me about detasseling and how miserable that was. How every kid in the neighborhood would have to do that. So I admire you for getting through that task.
Stacie: 05:46 – My nephew is 13 which is the age you can start and you know this heat wave’s going through like all the Midwest right now. He literally detasseled yesterday and I you have to wear, I mean I would wear a handkerchief over my face because the tassels would sometimes cause you allergies and like there’s bugs and things flying everywhere. Flannel shirts and jeans and boots because sometimes pivots would go through the field. I mean, and you’re in a field with no breeze. I mean it’s a death trap, and these kids, they’re still detasseling! Isn’t that terrible? I mean, people today would be like, you’re gonna kill these kids! It’s hard work, man. That’s what you just do.
Sean: 06:31 – I always say it’s amazing that the human race survived with all the things that we can’t do today. It’s good, back-breaking Labor, man. It teaches you a lesson. When did you figure out that you were really competitive?
Stacie: 06:45 – It has always been in my family. We would play games. We live in the middle of nowhere. So in the wintertime you don’t really get out much. You really rely on family. And we would play card games, we would play board games. We still do. And I learned really early on, not only did I have an older sister, but my siblings are very competitive. Both sides of the family. So it is I think inherited and I think it’s just part of who I am.
Sean: 07:16 – You wind up getting scholarship offers for both track and volleyball out of high school. Why did you go with volleyball?
Stacie: 07:23 – I don’t know. I sometimes ask myself that. A part of me always wanted to live in Omaha. So I played club volleyball, gosh really early on, like as early as fifth grade. And I would travel to Omaha; Humphrey’s about two hours away from Omaha, and I would come to practice every Wednesday night and then we’d have tournaments on the weekend and I’ve just always fallen in love with Omaha and I got a scholarship to play volleyball and some of the teammates I played club with, so there was a really good connection there and I felt team camaraderie and when I got a place that I already loved. I just decided to take it. But I’m very team-oriented as much as I am individual. And so I think that’s what naturally gravitated me towards CrossFit, too, was it kind of brought back that individual spirit, competitive spirit that I always had but I didn’t really get the opportunity to kind of like let shine. So kind of a blessing in disguise I guess that I chose volleyball over track, but I love them both.
Sean: 08:23 – Yeah. How did you find CrossFit?
Stacie: 08:28 – It’s Dustin, actually. Well, it kind of goes back many years ago. The former owner of CrossFit Omaha was a strength and conditioning coach at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, which was that college that I was playing volleyball at. And in the off season he had us do CrossFit-like workouts. Actually we did do some workouts from dot-com in the summer conditioning. And that’s kind of how I fell in love with it. Well first found out about it. And then Dustin actually graduated college and turns out those strength and conditioning coaches opened up CrossFit Omaha, he was their very first member and had been doing it the whole time and eventually 2008, December, 2008, I mean, they had talked about it, you know how it goes. Story has it, you know, they don’t shut up about it. I heard about it all the time and he just kept telling me like give it a try. Like you’d be so good at this. And so I went and was very humbled and was hooked ever since.
Sean: 09:31 – Dustin, what did you think when you finally got her into the gym to try this out?
Dustin: 09:37 – What the hell took you so long? No, she was looking for something to do, she was jogging every day.
Stacie: 09:43 – I would do some sprint intervals.
Dustin: 09:48 – And yeah, was fine. She was getting bored.
Stacie: 09:52 – I was complaining about my knees hurting all the time. And he was like “I’m tired of hearing you complain, come and join CrossFit.”
Sean: 10:01 – What was your first workout?
Stacie: 10:04 – I don’t remember all of it, which saddens me, but I do remember I had to scale the deadlift weight. I couldn’t do a box jump and that’s what really irritated me is I was a volleyball player. I can jump through the gym and I couldn’t do a 20-inch box jump because my legs were so tired from deadlifts. And I think there was a lunge involved. And I used a ball, slam ball, so I don’t really remember all of the details. But that was it. And it was like, once I had to step up on that box, I was like, you’ve gotta be freaking kidding me. Like, oh my God, I’m so out of shape. We have to do something about this.
Sean: 10:40 – Why did you decide to stick with it after kind of running into some adversity there?
Stacie: 10:45 – There’s always something to accomplish and achieve and strive for. I loved that challenge. I looked forward to having, you know, not the same routine every single day, but something different and I’m still getting stronger. So who doesn’t love to see numbers improve and you know, you just continue to see yourself get more fit. That was exciting. And it’s appealing and it keeps me coming back.
Sean: 11:15 – So after just a year of CrossFit, you wind up at the Games. How did you get so good so quickly?
Stacie: 11:24 – Well, it was less than a year. It was about six months.
Sean: 11:27 – Wow, all right.
Stacie: 11:29 – I don’t know. I think part of it was back then, Sectionals were programmed by whoever was putting on the competition and maybe Skip Miller was the one that programmed, maybe he, you know, everything fell into my strength category, I don’t know,
Dustin: 11:44 – Oh, come on, give yourself a little credit.
Stacie: 11:44 – I actually snuck in, I actually took fifth, but the top three women were all from Skip Miller’s gym, of course, Front Range CrossFit, naturally. And they all decided to go team. So that’s how I actually snuck onto the third place spot and got to the Games. But yeah, I mean I think that you kind of see a trend, especially these days, you know, it’s very rare, far and few between that an athlete that gets to the CrossFit Games wasn’t a college athlete. And I think that’s just because you’re well rounded and to be good at the sport you have to be well rounded. So that was a strength of mine.
Sean: 12:26 – That year, 2009, is still viewed as one of the toughest Games ever. What stands out to you about that competition?
Stacie: 12:34 – Two things. I actually sprinted up—Amanda is one of my favorite workouts, and the hill sprint. We just had to like run up that stupid hill, that was it, and I remember sprinting past Amanda and that was a really vivid memory I have of her. And then you got to the top of that hill and like literally a gator called you down. Like it was all out max effort. I’ve never felt my leg—I mean I have before, but that was really awful. And then the run, I remember it was so dusty and dirty, it was so hot. Nobody knew the trail. It felt like eternity kind of like Camp Pendleton. You just kept running asking like when’s the next checkpoint? And they would be like, you’re halfway, almost there. Almost there. And almost there was like 30 minutes later, and you’re just wondering when is this ever going to end? But I will never forget. You had to basically bear crawl up this hill and somebody was at the top and there was dust. Like I saw heaven. Dust is just flying from the in front of you. And he’s like, touch the barbed-wire fence, you have to touch—the barbed wire fence? In order to turn around? What is this? And I mean, sure as shit. We all touched the barbed-wire fence cause the guy told us to. But it was awful. It was just awful.
Dustin: 14:06 – It was what, six events in the first day?
Stacie: 14:06 – Six events, not one vendor, no water.
Dustin: 14:06 – I remember eating one time—we were in over our heads, basically.
Sean: 14:14 – No, I love that story about touch the barbed-wire fence.
Stacie: 14:18 – Touched the barbed-wire fence and I kept coming back. I mean, what the hell?
Sean: 14:21 – Yeah. So along those lines, how did you stay so competitive for such a long period of time?
Stacie: 14:28 – Well Sean, you gotta remember, when I started, I was just doing one workout a day with the CrossFit Omaha community. I kind of eased into this whole, I guess professional, and you can call it a professional sport. I got to over several years, over nine years, kind of gradually increased my training hours, the volume. So I feel like I’m blessed and lucky because I never really got injured. I kind of had this linear progression of strength and just kind of slowly but surely increased in speed and power and ability, all these things that you need to be a well-rounded CrossFit athlete. It just didn’t happen overnight. Like some of these athletes that are aspiring to be a CrossFit Games athlete, I mean they’re looking at upwards of six hours of training volume. And if you’re not used to that, you can put yourself at risk of injury, of course, like any sport. But it’s just that much harder. And so I, you know, naturally as the sport progressed, I improved my fitness, too. And I think, you know, that just kept me coming back for more.
Sean: 15:49 – This is my unofficial research, but I think you are just one of three women to compete at all three Games venues as an individual. I think Becca Voigt and Annie Thorisdottir are the other two.
Stacie: 16:02 – Yeah, I think so. I don’t think Camille was around until 2010.
Sean: 16:05 – No, she started in 2010. So you’re in a group with Becca Voigt and Annie Thorisdottir. What’s it like to be mentioned along those two?
Stacie: 16:15 – I look up to those two so much. I’ve always looked up to Annie even though she’s like 10 years younger than me or whatever. She’s so beautiful in and out and just so graceful with the way she moves and proceeds and her strategies and her team. She’s just got an awesome team. It’s no surprise, she’s going to keep going forever. I mean, I feel like. And Becca is no doubt, she’s the most well-rounded athlete ever and she keeps improving. And she was a training partner of mine. I know Annie on a level, but not as deep as Becca, Becca was a training partner of mine when I was training with Squat Mafia and we would travel to Atlanta. We stayed in hotels together and she is a hard worker. Her mentality is so strong, she does not take no for an answer. She was always like, what are we doing? What’s next? Or let’s stay and do like five minutes of this so we can just, you know, get better tomorrow and this will help us, you know, next time. And she’s always just like never enough. And so it’s no surprise that she’s still sticking around. But there’s two great, great girls, awesome athletes. Even better friends.
Sean: 17:32 – Which is your favorite location?
Stacie: 17:37 – I would say California for sure.
Sean: 17:41 – Why is that?
Stacie: 17:44 – There was just something about it. It was big. It was so cool being underneath the lights. I mean I will never ever forget walking through that tunnel and being underneath those lights. I don’t know.
Dustin: 18:01 – There’s something about California, something we looked forward to every year, going out.
Stacie: 18:02 – Good vibes.
Sean: 18:08 – Yeah. That tennis stadium atmosphere—I mean I love the coliseum in Madison, but that tennis stadium was something special, especially at night.
Stacie: 18:16 – For sure.
Sean: 18:18 – Your last appearance at the Games was in 2017 and you had this great moment, you get the send-off from the crowd. You leave your shoes on the floor. What was that moment like for you?
Stacie: 18:28 – Yeah, I remember it like it was yesterday. Special, memorable. It was hard cause I knew that the moment I put those shoes down, it was the end. Super cool.
Sean: 18:48 – How did you know that it was time for you to step away?
Stacie: 18:54 – Oh, I knew that I needed to start a family. I could tell the sport was shifting. I just had a feeling something was up. I don’t know what it was and I’ve always had really good intuition, but I just felt it was time. And I don’t know if it was the change in the venue. I don’t know what I was really feeling. But my intuition was kind of spot on. And I figured, you know what, had I qualified in 2014, it would’ve been 10 years, and I just really felt like at my age, I was kinda having more dings and nicks, pains, little illnesses and injuries I couldn’t quite conquer and you know, take one step forward, two step back kind of thing. And I tried decreasing my volume, I tried changing my nutrition and I tried, you know, taking less hours at the gym, coaching fewer, you know, hired a third-time employee to kind of fill my role at the gym. And when it wasn’t changing, I just was like, OK, it’s time, time I step away. And age just, you know, age plays against you, unfortunately.
Sean: 20:15 – Can’t beat it.
Stacie: 20:15 – No, no. And I surely felt it. That’s why it’s amazing that some of these athletes are in their upper thirties are still competing as individuals. Amazing. And so I just felt it was time.
Sean: 20:27 – When people look back on your career as an athlete, what are the things that you want them to remember you for?
Stacie: 20:35 – What you see is what you get. I wear my heart on my sleeve. Passionate. I’m grateful. I had a ton fun. A girl that inspires other people and takes one workout at a time and waves at the crowd. Leaves it all out there every single time.
Sean: 21:08 – For sure. Well, we’re going to miss watching you compete. And we appreciate everything you did for the community, that’s for sure. I know that the Games fans always enjoyed watching you out there on the floor. Let’s talk about your affiliate. Why did you and Dustin decide to become affiliate owners?
Stacie: 21:27 – Well, the opportunity—so like I said, Dustin was the first member at CrossFit Omaha. I’ve been a part of it since 2008. Kind of been our second home, a home away from home, it’s been a big part of our life. And when the previous owner approached us, you know, he just has a lot going on, got a family, traveled a lot, working for HQ. He was on the road and we kind of felt honored. We kind of felt like this is something that was a slow transition in the works and maybe would have happened had he not approached us anyway. So we kind of felt like, man, this is the way for us to give back to the community. Stay a part of something that’s been a part of our lives for so many years and make it better. And so we jumped on it. And we make a pretty good team. Dustin really does a lot of the business part of things. And you know, my background, exercise science, I know a lot of the science, I know a lot of the coaching, been a coach for many years, having been an athlete in the competitive world and just someone who is part of the community, someone who just goes to normal class, kind of know a little bit about programming and how classes should be run. And yeah, it’s been a wild ride. Almost four years.
Sean: 22:58 – Sometimes husbands and wives do not work well together. How do you guys make that work?
Stacie: 23:06 – Well, that statement is true.
Dustin: 23:09 – If you can answer that then you could probably sell a lot of books, and that’s the thing, you know, we’re constantly searching for information and trying to get better. I read business books, you know, we reach out to mentors, but there’s really nobody, I mean there’s not a lot of people that run a business with their spouse and that’s probably the hardest thing for us is finding that balance, work-life balance, as she breastfeeds right here. You know, knowing when we should stop talking shop and we should be home. That is the toughest part. So for for you to bring that up, you know, I wish we could say we have the answers, but we’re always trying to improve in that regard and it’s definitely not easy to work and run a business with your spouse—a couple of different businesses if you want to look at it that way.
Sean: 24:02 – Who usually wins out in the arguments?
Dustin: 24:11 – It depends on what we’re talking about, business or fitness?
Stacie: 24:11 – If it’s business, Dustin wins, if it’s fitness related I usually win.
Sean: 24:14 – There you go. See, as long as you know your lanes that that’s probably the secret to making it work. What are some things that go into running a good business that you may have overlooked when you first started?
Stacie: 24:28 – So I mean the business of fitness is many hours during the day. And so prior to owning the gym, we had all hourly coaches and we knew that in order for people to come through the door, you have to be open. And sometimes I think businesses are, oh, we’re open from five to seven, and then we leave and then we’re open again from 11 to 1 because that’s the busy lunch hour and then we leave. And we knew we just couldn’t run a business that way. And it’s open for many, many hours during the day. We can’t be there all the time. So overlooking the fact that it takes a lot of manpower and you got to invest in your employees, delegate a lot and know that it is long days, but if you have the right team and the right team in place, it’s very rewarding.
Sean: 25:37 – What do you think makes a good affiliate?
Stacie: 25:40 – Well, I would say leadership. It’s probably one of the—it’s super hard, something that I take pride in but constantly working—yeah, buddy. You waking up?—Constantly improving myself but with the right leaders in place, that actually have mentorship as well. You know, Dustin and I, we’re trying to be mentors, we are mentors to our coaches, but we also have mentors outside of the community that we really rely on. And it takes teamwork. It’s finding the right people. I’m a big energy, I don’t know, I just like good positive vibes. So having the right people on your team, we always say that people leave for a couple different reasons. They don’t feel appreciated.
Dustin: 26:36 – We’ve like to look at it like this. You know, you can look at employees this way, you can look at your members this way, but people usually leave an organization for one of three reasons, it’s because they don’t feel appreciated. They’re underpaid or maybe they’re not getting the value they want or they don’t feel like they’re a part of something special. So, you know, we’re always striving, whether it’s an employee or a member, we need to have those three things or they’re eventually gonna leave.
Stacie: 27:07 – And they’re brand ambassadors for you. I mean, if they don’t believe in your product then the product out on the floor isn’t going to be good and it’s all about the experience. So we, you know, we find the right people, make the best experience possible and make them feel valued and loved and, you know, always be grateful for that.
Sean: 27:30 – You mentioned your coaches. How do you train your trainers?
Stacie: 27:37 – Well, we’re lucky in the fact that I mean we’ve been open for 12 years. It’s been 12 years actually. We’re celebrating our 12-year anniversary this fall. We have coaches that have been around for longer than I have. Like I have a coach that’s been coaching for almost 11 years and so decades of experience. And so we’re really lucky that we’ve had a previous owner that came from an L staff. Now he’s a Flowmaster. So he taught us a lot while he was with us and we’ve literally carried all those tools along with us ever since he’s left. And my head coach has been around as long as the business has been around and she’s really, really good with those skills and stays up to date on her certifications and education. And the two of us make a really good team. So we have quarterly meetings with all of our staff members. We have weekly meetings with our full-time staff and every meeting we talk about what are some of the things you’re seeing on the floor? Have you seen anything new on social media that’s worth maybe exploring, how about reading this article or listening to this podcast? We’re constantly broadening our horizon and expanding our education in whatever way we can. Not just by attending seminars and certifications all the time, but just by having dialogue with what’s happening on a daily basis.
Dustin: 29:11 – Before they ever can get on the floor, they go through a pretty extensive internship process, lots of observations. And then we make it a goal to try to continue with observations, whether that’s Stacie sitting in the class every once in a while. I mean we make sure they go through a lot of training before they ever actually run a class. So, yeah. And then of course taking continuing education and that stuff, it definitely keep them sharp.
Sean: 29:42 – Some of the best athletes don’t make the best coaches because things come so naturally to them. So Stacie, how do you relate to your clients so that you know you’re coaching them as effectively as possible?
Stacie: 29:55 – So we actually have—that’s a tough one because when you’ve been around for 12 years, you’re naturally going to have competitive athletes that would make fantastic coaches. But it’s a personality trait. You got to have the right personality and understand not only people, but yeah, how do I explain movements and demonstrate movement? So a lot of times, we like to hire from within, and you just kind of know, like, this person is going to become a great coach and there are times where, you know, the internship process that normally takes a couple of months, we had a coach that took almost a year. We just knew that he had it and he just moved at a slower rate. You just have to give them the opportunity. And so we always give someone the opportunity to try, it just might not be the right fit for them, but they have to experience it. And if we don’t allow them to experience it, then you know, we’re kind of leaving them high and dry and that’s no good. But we really have streamlined processes. So every hour a class is ran consistently. We have timelines built to the minute that our coaches follow. I myself and another coach put those together. And then we kind of follow CrossFit.com’s lead in the fact that, you know, we have new members that are been there a day and we have members that have been there for 12 years and everywhere in between, I think our average age is like 43. So middle age, and so you have to program that way and you have to be smart about how you warm people up, how you cool people down, and just keep the product on the floor consistent.
Sean: 31:41 – What do you think the one attribute that a good coach has got to have?
Stacie: 31:47 – You just have to be genuine. You have to be a people person and you just gotta believe in the product. And I know that’s like three things I listed. If you have all those qualities, you know, you do it because you really do love it and you love helping people. I think that’s the bottom line. You love seeing their improvement. As much as you love seeing yours, you’ll do whatever it takes to help them reach their goals.
Sean: 32:14 – You mentioned you’ve been open for 11 years, you’re getting ready for your 12-year anniversary. Your gym has been voted best of Omaha for three straight years. What are the things that you think you do on a consistent basis that make your affiliate so successful?
Stacie: 32:28 – Well, our mission statement is to, you know, give the members the best experience possible. The moment they walk in our door, everything goes away. It’s a stress-free environment. They don’t have to worry about a thing. All the things that were on their mind at work or family life or whatever happened with a friend, that all leaves. It’s up to our coaches and it’s up to us really to give them and make it the best hour of their day. Can we really, truly live by that mission statement? And if our members don’t feel that, if they don’t feel like they’ve left, accomplished for that day or they don’t feel like they got a great workout or whatever the case, then we didn’t do our job. And so it’s really about being grate—we’re grateful for every single one of our members, every single person that comes into the door. We love on and grateful to have them. And then the last thing here is we celebrate often. We celebrate birthdays, we celebrate anniversaries, we have community events all the time, it’s about, you know, making people part of your life and really being, you know, a community of people that are like-minded, in it for health, fitness, for the love. And just having a lot of fun in the process.
Sean: 33:55 – Yeah. What’s the best piece of advice that you have for someone who is trying to build an affiliate or someone who is maybe looking to start an affiliate?
Stacie: 34:06 – It’s a lot of work. I think you have to have a brand. First of all, that’s important, because people want to be, people want to feel loved and be a part of something special. Something bigger than themselves, it’s not about you. It’s about everyone else. So you need to remember that your fitness may take the back seat, and everyone else is brought to the front. You gotta have a staff put in place. You can’t do it all. There are so many hats that Dustin and I wear. We have two full-time employees. We have 11 part-time coaches and we’re a huge team and we’re all in the process together. We’re all in the mission together. And everyone is part of the team because they want to make it about the members and that experience. And I think if you’ve got those things in place and processes, systems, all these things will follow, but you certainly can’t do it by yourself. It takes a lot of work. You got to invest in people. Invest and get help, for sure.
Sean: 35:26 – Final question. And both of you feel free to answer this, but what do the next five years look like for CrossFit Omaha?
Stacie: 35:34 – Well, Dustin might chime in on this, but we’ve outgrown our space, which is awesome. So we’re looking to build a at new location, which is just a mile down the road. Dustin and I purchased a couple of acres there and like everything, it never moves as fast as you want, but it’s slowly coming along and it’s one of the things that we had to do. It’s a huge investment for us, Sean. But we knew that if we didn’t do this, our business was going to kind of stay right where it’s been at. We’ve grown about 50 members every year and we’ve capped. We’ve kind of been staying consistent right now. Not sure like if it’s just the changes within the CrossFit world, lack of media attention, all these things or what the deal is, or maybe it’s just because we’ve totally ran out of space. But in order for us to grow, we had to move. And so we’re invested in a new building and a new location. And so the goal is to continue to grow in membership every year after that, continue to grow our team, continue to change lives.
Sean: 36:47 – Well, listen guys, I really appreciate the time. Best of luck with the new location and your business and best of luck in your new journey as parents.
Stacie: 36:59 – Thank you.
Sean: 37:02 – Big thanks to Stacie and Dustin Tovar for taking time out of their busy schedules to talk with me. If you want to follow them on social media, they’re both on Instagram and you can find Stacie @stacietovar, that’s Stacie with an i e, one word, Stacie Tovar. And you can find Dustin @dustintovar. “Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief” by Chris Cooper is the blueprint you need to start or grow your business, but don’t take our word for it. Reader Mary Boymillah says, quote, “If you’re thinking about being an entrepreneur, are an entrepreneur or know an entrepreneur, wait no longer and dive right in,” end quote. Get your copy of “Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief” on Amazon today. Thanks for listening everybody. We’ll see you next time.
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