← Unemployable with Jeff Dudan
Unemployable with Jeff Dudan
The Man Who Built 1,300 Gyms Says You'll Choose to Live to 120 Within 5 Years with Anthony Geisler
01:21:05
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- [00:00]
A
My partner in the Ultimate Longevity Center, Gary Breca. He is the world's, you know, leading biohacker longevity expert. He has a biological age of 20, currently at 55 years old. Right. He believes that if you are alive in the next five years, you will choose to live till 120. Or not. Well, guess what? If you're not lifting weights at 50, you're not grabbing the laundry soap at 80. When was the last time you were sprinting? Right. When's the last time you sprint? Not, like, feel like, oh, I ran the other day. No, like, like sprint, like someone's chasing you sprint. Right. And the answer is just, people don't do it.
- [00:38]
B
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Unemployable Podcast. I'm Jeff Duden. If you grew up as a scrappy Southern California kid who learned the value of hard work early, if you joined LA Boxing, saw the potential, acquired the brand to expand via franchising to 200 locations, and ultimately sold it to the UFC. If you ran the same play again, acquiring club Pilates with 12 locations, and grew it to over 1300 locations as the flagship brand for the publicly traded Exponential Fitness. And now you are having it your way with sequel brands. Your name can only be Anthony Geisler. Welcome.
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A
Hey, thank you.
- [01:21]
B
That sound all right?
- [01:22]
A
Sounds all right. Appreciate you having me, Jeff.
- [01:24]
B
Yeah, absolutely. All right, opening question. Do you believe people are actually getting healthier and changing their wellness and fitness behaviors, or if all else fails, revert to the drugs? What do you think?
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A
Look, I think both is what's actually happening. What do I want to happen? I want people to follow kind of the consistency of the blue zones, right? And these people that. That haven't heard, blue zones are parts of the world where people are living better, longer, healthier lives. Right. Not just duration of life, but quality of life as well in that duration. And when we look across the blue zones, you know, it is not the diet necessarily, because a lot of people get stuck on that, whether it's keto or pescatarian or vegetarian or whatever it might be, because we're finding different diets in different blue zones. But what we're finding is a consistency, is that it is a whole food diet, right? That it is real food. It is not processed foods and sugars. And the things that we see, we see that in the United States a lot more than we see it in other parts of the world, right? And so, you know, that is a key to one of the blue zones, a whole food diet. The other keys are sleep, movement, right? So working out, as you put it, and then community and relationships, right? And that involves, you know, your friends, your family, the community you're in, being up to something in life and work, those kind of things. So, you know, if you, if you look at that, that that's what people are starting to model after. I've never seen a time in history where there is, you know, the starvation of people looking for information in longevity and in getting healthier and feeling better and sleeping better. And there's never been a time that I can think of where, you know, we have the technology of that, if you will, evolving at such a rapid pace. Right? And I think, you know, you kind of saw the suppression of people during COVID indoors and, you know, fitness being illegal to six years ago right now when Covid started. So very timely discussion. It's crazy. It's been six years of people coming out of that and wanting to be active and wanting to be healthy, wanting to be outdoors, getting more movement, getting better diet. You have seen these, like you said, drugs with GLP1s primarily, right. Coming out, which is helping people. The reality is, from a GLP1 perspective, you know, in my opinion, it's. It's the same as duct tape, right? It's calorie deficit, but duct tape on your mouth, right? That's what it is. It's always been eat less and move more. Right? And it has always been eat a better diet, right? Eat a whole food diet. So, you know, in my opinion, is there a place for medication in the world? Yes, absolutely. But after we've tried whole food diet, we've looked at our genetic methylation test to figure out how our body works. We've run blood tests to see what, where we're deficient. And we're not just supplementing for supplement's sake, but we're supplementing for where we're insufficient. That's what the supplementation is supposed to be for. It's not that you eat ice cream and then you swallow a vitamin C pill to keep you from being sick. Like, it's, I tell people all the time, it's like people beat their head against the wall and then they're all talking about what helmet they should get, the color of paint on the helmet and how they're going to, you know, decorate their helmet. It's like, just stop beating your head against the wall. We don't have to have the conversation of, of what helmet and where. So, you know, I think we're, I think we're seeing both. You know, the only Upside that I can think of from a GLP one perspective is if the people aren't going to do the work, right, they take the GLP one, it does the work for them. And now they're in a place where they're like, okay, I got through that, I'm done with that. I'm in a place where I want to eat a whole food diet. I want to get movement, I want to get sunlight, I want to get grounding, I want to be active. Right. I want to, you know, build my community, my relationships. It's the only time that I think of, like, there are some people that need that jump start that then hopefully evolves into that. But I don't want to see people not sleeping, eating garbage, not running their protocols and then taking a GLP one while they eat ice cream. Right. That, that's, that's definitely not the intent. Yeah.
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B
And look, longevity, it kind of moved. It was a little bit of the talk track as Peptides were coming out and all of these different things. But it's really become the central through line to the industry. And it appears as if with your SQL platform, it is kind of at the center of what you're trying to accomplish. I was listening to, I went to Turks for a few days recently and I was just listening to Elon Musk because I'm always interested in what he's got to say. And he was talking about longevity. And he said, look, you're right, and your left arm, they don't age at different rates. Your body starts to age, your cells start to age, all of the things start to happen. And with AGI, he says, I'm going to leave solving longevity to somebody else because I think that's a very solvable problem because I believe it's software. It's a software problem. Your brain signals to your body that you need to stop producing as much of this certain chemical. So your age, your cells start to age and, and all of the things start to happen naturally. And if you could reprogram some of those things. So basically what we've been doing with Peptides, look, I've. You look like you've aged backwards. People tell me I look, you know, 10 years younger than I did five years ago. Dan Sullivan, who runs Strategic Coach, he's 80, he looks incredible. He looks younger than he looked 10 years ago. And you know, people that are subs, that are hacking and, you know, whacking away at all of the things that cause us to age, you know, and now it's becoming so formulaic. And it's simple things that we all can do, but number one, we've got to do them. And then somebody has to make that accessible for people. Is that what you're trying to do with the SQL brands is to get around people and just give them all the options they need in one or a small number of places to really age backwards?
- [07:55]
A
Yeah, I mean, that, that really becomes the focus. Right. But like I said, the core of what we do really needs to be those basic principles. Right. We need to start with, you know, genetic methylation test to see genetically what you can process and you can't. That's a test you do once in your life, right. It's about 5, 600 bucks, sometimes cheaper. Makes all the sense in the world, right. So you can understand your body. Then you're doing a blood test with the biomarkers and getting all your biomarkers to figure out where are you. You know, my wife and I had a discussion yesterday where she said, oh, I've got this genetic thing, so I'm deficient in B12, so I'm going to start taking more B12. And I'm like, well, you haven't run your blood yet to see if you are deficient in B12, right? And so why would you just start taking B12, you know, and so you see a lot of this, you know, people with whatever they saw in the latest thing on Instagram or on TikTok, and it's like, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to ingest this now. And they may not actually need it. Right. I get, you know, people, I'm not on any peptides, I'm not on any testosterone. I'm not on any of that stuff. And not because I have something against it, but my Testosterone sits between 8 and 900 naturally because I'm getting a whole food diet and movement and sunlight and grounding and all those things and plenty of hydration that allows my body, that signal you're talking about allows my body to, to produce what it needs to produce. Right. And I don't need to be at a 1200 or something, right. Eight to 900 is, is great at 50 years old. So it's totally fine over time. If my body, and I'm doing all the right things and my body is signaling down to 500, 400, 300, 200. Right. And I'm doing all the right things, then yes, I would look for, you know, a peptide or I would look for, you know, a TRT supplement. Right. Something there to, to do that. You know, my partner in the Ultimate Longevity Center, Gary Breca, his belief, you know, and he is the world's, you know, leading biohacker, longevity expert. So he, he has a biological age of 20, currently at 55 years old. Right. So it's something we can, we can kind of look at. He's definitely an expert in the field. He believes that if you are alive in the next five years, you will choose to live till 120 or not. Right. With quality of life. Right. And if you look at what you talked about, kind of the evolution of the knowledge, like I started with the tech base, if you want to call it that, Right. It is a. It is a software programming, you know, issue. That's what Elon Musk is. Is right about. Right. But the brain is also being reprogrammed by sedentary people that are eating like garbage, that therefore don't sleep very well. And then they isolate. Right. So one of the four. All of the four. And so, you know, what we work with here at SQL is, yes, we have Ultimate Longevity center that does all of that. Right. As a business for everyone. But a part of the protocols are going to be, you know, being in a sauna, right. If you look at all the data that's coming out on sauna, and I love when all the experts start to agree on the data because at least you feel like you're not picking one side or another side. And you look at this 50% cut in all morbidities from the use of the sauna, you know, 20 minutes a few days a week, right? And so, like, why wouldn't you do that? Right? So, you know, we have a sauna brand, right. As you very well know. And so it makes sense that as a part of the protocol, people should be using sauna, people should be using red light, right? There's movement at Pilates, there's flexibility at iflex. You know, if you can't do an hour workout, right, you're losing muscle mass. We know that that's a thing, right. That people are starting to begin, you know, at age 35, 40, to begin to lose muscle mass. And this muscle mass is what keeps your body spinning, Right. Everybody thinks that, you know, getting muscles from the 70s like Arnold Schwarzenegger was an aesthetic thing. It's not an aesthetic thing. It's a longevity thing. It's a quality of life thing. It's a absolutely 80 years old. Can I grab the laundry soap to put it in the washer? Well, guess what? If you're not lifting weights, at 50, you're not grabbing the laundry soap at 80. And so that's what it, that's what it's really about. And so with our Body20 brand, our electric muscle stimulation, it allows people to go get that muscle stimulation in 20 minutes for the people that don't want to do it for 60 minutes or longer. So, you know, we're definitely building these brands around, you know, core modalities that, you know will extend life, but have that thought of community and relationships because that's what we get in boutique fitness, right? Building muscle mass and then not supplementing for supplement's sake, but supplementing with sauna and, you know, actual supplements and things. Because this is what our body needs. And we know that from blood testing or genetic testing or things of that nature.
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B
Yeah, think about the muscle mass thing. So I, I was on some concierge medicine and there was a statistic that they had that if your grip strength falls below a certain, you know, like a, a, you're going to die within five years when your grip strength falls below a certain strength. Also the, the study's now about muscle mass in your lower legs. So if you think about it, when you see elderly people and they got skinny legs and they've, they've lost their rear ends and they're kind of just hobbling around. So is it cause or effect? Is it that they're more likely to fall? Is it that they, they, they're. Because they don't have musculature in their lower legs, they're not pumping the blood up as much. So it affects their circulation. I don't know if it's a cause or effect, but it's a fact. So, you know, I mean, when I learned that
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A
machinery now doing that, right? So now in body, what just used to just have body fat scanners, you know, now you can, you can get your weight, you get your body fat, you can get your skeletal muscle mass, right? So we have those machines in there. We also have strength machines that you all see right to that point. But inbody is now making a machine that you stand on. If you've seen it, you stand on it and the bottom of it moves. And so it actually gives you your percentage, like likelihood that you're going to be imbalanced and fall. So for the first time ever, we're able to measure imbalance, right, and measure body fat and measure scale weight. People are attached to bmi, which I don't think is super useful. They're attached to scale weight, which, you know, I can go up £12 and come down £12. Right. So scale weight doesn't necessarily mean as much as looking at, you know, visceral fat and looking at skeletal muscle mass. And to your point, right, if you're getting older and you have lower body weakness, right, Are you falling over? Right. And can you, can your bottom half handle your top half? You know, and so, you know, we're, we're focused on all those things at Ultimate Longevity center and then across, you know, across the brands at SQL as well.
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B
Yeah. Andy, I've got a question, and I'm interested if you have an opinion on this, but I've come to a certain belief about ambition. And that belief is that it's our obligation as leaders to be more ambitious every year than we were the last year. Because when you're really ambitious, it forces you to develop capabilities that you have and to really accentuate those things, and it also identifies capabilities that you don't have, that you might need. And now you're in a question of, do I buy those capabilities from somebody else? Do I build them within myself? But at the end of the day, you know, speaking a huge, bold, powerful, big future into existence is where it all starts. That's where leaders are made. I think it's the number one obligation of a leader is to set that out there. And you've done that in your career. I think early on in your career you had like a tech startup or something like that, and you sold that. You started working jobs like we all did, hustling, working with your mom, working at McDonald's, you know, all the things. And then you had a business startup and you were successful in selling that business, probably a smaller business, something like that, early in the days of web development. And then you went into LA boxing. That was a. That was a wild success. Don't know how it actually ended up. But, you know, you got to work with Dana, Dana White and the Fertitta brothers, and, you know, so now, now you're in a room with bigger people and next thing you know, club Pilates. And then you play that not only to a national brand, but to a publicly traded company. And now you're doing it again. What advice would you have or what experience would you share about people that are wanting to build your franchisees, who are wanting to build an empire within SQL? What advice would you share about the role of ambition in a leader's life?
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A
Yeah, look, I think ambition is great, right? The drive that it is is to continue to get up and continue to push forward in the Face of adversity. Right. You know, it's. It's no secret that, you know, I don't think going public was, you know, the most exciting thing for a fitness company during the Delta variant. And Covid wasn't the most exciting thing. You know, we. We literally, you know, we're going public six years ago right now in March, and instead of going public, you know, the company got shut down because it was illegal to operate gyms in the United States. It sounds weird to say that, but that's what it was. And so it was. It was a business that was closed during COVID that didn't receive the government bailout that automotive did or banks did or restaurants entertainment did. They left fitness kind of out of that mix. And. And then we ended up taking the company public about a year and a half later at a much smaller market cap because people weren't super excited about investing in a business that was just illegal. And then, you know, we literally went public the week they announced the Delta variant. And those are words that we all forget. But back then, you know, five, six years ago, those were in our vocabulary. And so, you know, the idea is you just have to continue to push forward. And for some, from the franchisee perspective, I have franchisees that, you know, Club pilates that built 200 stores or built 100 stores. You know, one of them is exiting right now with 60 million in EBITDA, and I'll probably go out at 8 or 9, 10 times, right. They'll make a ton of money. I saw one of the franchisees this week that I think has the second biggest portfolio, you know, at my last company, and they'll probably exit for 2 or 300 million. Right. And these are people that started that particular group. She was a Pilates instructor. And when I bought Club Pilates, she had three stores that were months behind in rent, and she was closing down. And I said, nope, let's go meet with the landlords. Let's let them know what we're up to. That, you know, we're going to start really working hard at this business. We have new leadership and. And they should kind of partner with us, right, to help us on the rent side, and we'll pay them back over time, but we need some Runway. And that was what we did with those three clubs. And then, you know, she continued that march and brought in other partners and brought in capital and did those kind of things. And so, you know, I just saw them, you know, a few days ago, and they did an amazing job at building it and for some franchisees, they open one and they love the fact that they're making X amount of dollars, right? 100 grand, 200 grand, 300 grand, whatever it is, in their location. And, you know, they're happy with that and they love what they do, and they love the community that they've built, and that's fulfilling for them. Right. So I think ambition and goals and drive and all those things come in different shapes and sizes for, for different people. You know, we're back to building SQL again because it's a group of people that really love to work together, really love to support the franchisees. And, you know, when you go public, you know, I sold the company I sold exponential in 2017. So people don't, you know, don't realize right from the outside, it was like, Anthony owns it. Anthony's making all the decisions. The reality was I was a minority shareholder and an employee from 2017 forward. And so, you know, you work through that. But we, we enjoyed working together. Some people have been here, you know, 15 years. And so, you know, when we had an opportunity to, you know, go down the street, write the sequel, get brands that we wanted to get and work together again autonomously, where, you know, we got to employ the people we want and find the franchisees that we want make the decisions, you know, we, we jumped at that opportunity.
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B
What are some of the things you've done to create the loyalty that you obviously have with team members following you from venture to venture and believing that together you will win?
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A
Yeah, I think it's like any team, like any sports team. Um, you know, I made a comment the other day and I said, you know, you don't, you know, Tom Brady left the Patriots after winning multiple Super Bowls and then went to a little known team, very well known team. Right. You know, down in Florida, and then wins more Super Bowls. Right. He doesn't have to go back to the Patriots to figure out that he was the difference or the team was the difference. Right. And our team really believes it's not about the arena or the jerseys, it's about the people. And you have really good people that know what they're doing, but they also know how to work together. And I think that's what's important, too. A lot of times you can put a team together and, you know, that team doesn't necessarily know how to work together, even though they're all really good at what they do. And you see that in sports all the time, where they go and hire kind of the best of the best to put everybody together, but then if they don't gel and work together, they're not the best of the best. And so I think you're dealing with a team that, you know, we've all grown up together. We've been through a lot together, and so we. We love to continue to work together to support the franchisees and do, you know, do the absolute best we can for them, right? And, you know, as, you know from your, you know, your experience in the world of business and of course, in franchising, like, not every franchisee follows the program, right? And not every franchisee turns out to be successful. You know, like in war, as we're seeing today, not everybody comes home, right? But the goal always should be that everyone comes home, right? The goal always should be that we're doing everything we can to support that franchisee. But I think, you know, the one thing people forget is these franchisees are humans, right? These are. They're not robots. They are people. And they have divorce and they have loss of life in their lives, and they move, and they have different priorities that are different three years later, four years later. A lot of people went through Covid, and it was just. Just hard for them to deal with the adversity, right? You got kids at home. You got husbands and wives that both lose jobs or people that pass away and they're trying to move to take care of loved ones or parents or whatever it might be. So just a lot of adversity through that. But the team is. Team is great. They've been through a lot. We've all grown up together. I mean, we started with, you know, no spouses, no kids to now with multiple kids. Not multiple spouses, but multiple kids and. And spouses that, you know, we all have now. And we're just still excited about doing the right thing, trying to find the best franchisees we can. And we don't get it right all the time, right? You. You run franchisees through the best filtering system you possibly can and do the best you can, but it doesn't always work out. And like I said, sometimes their. Their priorities and things change as well. So you do the best you can to, you know, to bring everybody along on the journey with you. But the. The ultimate goal always is to, you know, get a good franchisee out in the market, get them open and get them profitable, and support them in a way that. That they can continue to, you know, know, feed themselves.
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B
What were some of the lessons learned by you and your team in taking a company public?
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A
I mean, look I think where we were naive as a team was that, you know, in the public markets, you know, what would be rewarded. Right. Is, you know, driving franchisees success. Right. And you can't, you can't drive success unless a store's open. And you can't get a store open unless you sell a franchise. Right. And so the natural progression is you have to sell a franchise, then you have to get the store open, and then you have to drive the economics of the store. And as you can see from the public filings, you know, we did that quarter over quarter. I think the number was 20 quarters in a row, some before COVID and some after Covid. Right. Obviously during COVID we weren't driving revenue north. You know, everyone was trying to survive. But before COVID we were driving those average unit volumes north, according to my finance team. And, you know, after Covid, we were, we were driving those back north. So it's one thing to sell them, one thing to open them, it's another thing to drive the revenue forward for franchisees. And I think, you know, we didn't know that when Lululemon sold less leggings that our stock would get downgraded. Right. Like, well, what does that, what does that have to do with anything? Well, the analysts believe that if women are spending less on activewear, that one or two things are happening. They don't need it because they're not going to work out as much. Right. And, or that the economy is slowing because people aren't spending as much in retail. You know, we were downgraded because a UK based athletic shoe company was not doing well. You know, so things of that nature where you're like, well, no one's canceling. I remember when they were doing something with student loan debt and those were now all going to become due. I don't remember if that was under Trump or Biden or when that timing was, but we were public and I think it was post summer, maybe September or August, somewhere around there. And all the analysts started asking and the investors start asking, well, what's going to happen now? Because, you know, people that work out in your stores have student loan debt, I'm sure. And now if it's due or they're going to have to make payments, they're going to cancel their gym membership. Therefore, we don't want to invest or we don't want to invest as much. We are part of the Russell 2000, which is like the S&P 500. Right. You don't get to choose. They just put you into the Russell 2000, which is 2000 companies. And so, you know, if you have a war in Iran, right, just like the Dow would go up or down or rates. The Dow would go up or down, your Russell 2000 goes up or down. So some days people are buying into the Russell 2000 and you're just one of 2000 people at the party. And some days are selling it.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, there were quarters that we thought we worked really hard and did really well in that quarter. And, you know, the stock went down on the earnings call and there were times that, you know, we worked really hard, but the quarter didn't work out, you know, as good as we thought it was going to work out. And the stock, I remember one time, it was the beginning of the year, at some point, stock was up like 30 or 40% in a day. So it's just, there was no rhyme or reason in a lot of things. And, you know, we, we weren't used to, you know, kind of being masters of our own destiny. Right. As it related to that. And so we just showed up every day, worked hard, supported the franchisees to the best of our ability, tried to, you know, make the unsuccessful people more successful, you know, the best that we possibly could with the time that we had and the dollars that we had and those kinds of things. And know, the quarter turned out, however the quarter turned out. Right. And then the reaction was whatever the reaction was. And, and so I think that's a lot different in the public markets than.
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B
Yeah.
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A
In the private markets. Right. Where you can, you know, you can make the decisions that, that you want to make and, you know, you don't know what the outcome is. Right. I think it's the only, the only time in life or part of the world where you're literally getting measured every second of every day. Right. You could just sit there and hit refresh, refresh, refresh. And there's always this, like, value of what it is in a private business. Like, what's SQL worth today? I have no idea. What's it going to be worth when I wake up tomorrow? I have no idea. But in a public market, you know what it's worth at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
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B
Yeah, I used to think, or when I was in fitness and in wellness, I would try to understand is that spend discretionary. And I don't think it is because the statistics would say that people are spending more money year over year in fitness, certainly more money in wellness and longevity and all of those related categories. And now what is discretionary is where they spend their money, right? So there's always new offerings, there's always new upstarts that are coming into the space. But at the end of the day, I don't care who you are as an analyst, I don't think you can dispute the fact that this is a very stable category, that people are more and more interested in how they look, how they feel, how long they might have quality of life, and that this is just a matter of being the one where people choose to spend their dollars.
- [30:47]
A
Yeah, look, I, I've, I, I'm biased, right? Of course. But I, I've never thought it was discretionary. It's not discretionary for me in my life. You know, I have multiple gym memberships, not because I think I'm cool, but I want to rid myself of the human excuses that I don't have access, right. It's kind of like I, I want to make sure that I have access to a gym across the street from my office. So if I do have an hour to break, I have clothes in my cabinet over here, and I can change my clothes, go work out, and come back, right? If I can't get up early enough in the morning because I don't want to or I don't have a start to, right? Like, you know, I go to Lifetime Fitness, you know, locally. Here, Bahram runs a great business. And, you know, I have that membership because they're open at 4am and, you know, and for me, sometimes, you know, I have little kids and those kind of things. Sometimes I'm up at 4 or 5am and I want to be able to go work out somewhere where people are already up and awake and motivated and working out, because that helps motivate me, right? And I know somebody will be there when I show up. So it's kind of removing those excuses. You know, I will eat a whole food diet. People used to believe that buying organic or eating good food was, you know, more expensive. And I just, I don't believe that to be true. I think you can make better choices in the same price ranges, Right. And that people probably spend more on food. I think on the. I think the number was 50 billion. Cali Means had posted that $50 billion is spent on basically, call it soft drinks, right? Sugar drinks and candy in the food stamp program and the SNAP program, right? So if that's just being tracked there at 50 billion in one program, like what's being spent by everybody who's not on the program, which is the majority of the people, right? So just a Lot of money being spent in those areas that could be being spent, you know, elsewhere. So I don't think it's discretionary. I think it's becoming more and more obvious that it's not discretionary. You know, we're seeing things like alcohol sales, you know, dwindle. You know, it's a fact that people are drinking less. I don't think that's because drinking is not cool anymore, or it doesn't get people drunk the same way, or it doesn't have the same effects. I think people are choosing the understanding, almost like cigarettes, right? I think, you know, whatever it was 50 years ago, you know, people thought cigarettes, think the advertising was that they were good for you in some regard, right? And so I think people are figuring out, hey, I knew alcohol always wasn't good for me, but I maybe didn't think it was bad for me. And I maybe think there was other choices or things that I could do. And so I think we're starting to see a healthier and healthier world. I think that people, I think there are people really thought McDonald's was, was okay for you or good for you. I think people are understanding now that fast food is not good for you. Now, people may not be freaks like me where I don't want to use a plastic water bottle, or I, you know, I take my own, you know, steel cup to Starbucks and get my hot tea in the morning because I don't want the plastic lining and the paper cup, you know, things like that. You know, my partner Gary has our whole circadian rhythm lighting system. So when I'm at his house and it's nine o', clock, I think it is that all the lights start to put him to sleep and in the morning they wake him up, right? So there's really cool things that are out there. I don't think the world is there. I think guys like Gary are there. But I think guys like Gary, as they push that envelope of what that far side is, it's also picking up the bottom of, you know, where people are understanding. Okay, maybe Gary's way ahead, but maybe I should start drinking more water. Maybe I, you know, maybe I should hydrate more, even if it's from a plastic bottle, right? So I think as he, people like him progress forward, I think we're seeing this, this range shift up where people are going to start to demand,
- [35:27]
B
you
- [35:27]
A
know, those kinds of things. You know, I've been eating clean for eight, nine years now. And I can tell you, eight or nine years ago, I had to go to multiple stores to try and, you know, piecemeal together clean food for the fridge. Today I can go to any major, you know, grocery store in Albertsons or Ralph's. I don't need a Erewhon or a whole Foods or a Sprouts or whatever. And you can absolutely shop there and get a lot of really great whole food. And so I can see the evolution. I can see the world is actually shifting that way.
- [36:09]
B
You've had a knack for tweaking concepts and improving them for scale. Pilates addiction. Pilates has been. When I looked at the numbers of Pilates, I was blown away at how well Pilates concepts do. Club Pilates in particular. There have been others as well. What did you do with the model for Pilates addiction? That takes it from. Let's just say I've been a club Pilates member for five years and maybe I'm looking for something more, something different. What am I going to get with Pilates addiction?
- [36:47]
A
Look, I think the customer, I think the center customer could be the same. But I think Club Pilates over time has evolved into a original, call it Pilates workout, right? Something that's closer to a Joseph Pilates type workout that has intensity without a doubt, but has less intensity over time, right? Where people get used to it, right? They're on their 500th class, 400th class, whatever it might be. And there's not like another gear to shift into, right? And then I think we used to see, called the younger generation that viewed that. You know, my mom does pilates, right? And my mom does Pilates at Club Pilates, right? Because that is the mass locator, right? There's a lot of people doing the same, call it type of Pilates workout that Club Pilates does, but with 13, 1400 locations right there, that's the easiest place to get to because they're everywhere, right? And so you kind of see people drift toward that and over time. What we're also seeing when I was running club Pilates is that there was a shift in the demand for the intensity of it, right? If you think of what cycling was, and they called it spinning right? Back then, as you see these kind of trends, right? The spinning before was something different before Soul Cycle than it was after Soul Cycle, right? And Soul Cycle really ushered in the higher intensity, dark room, louder music, right? Type of an experience. Peloton did a very good job. The at home workout's been around forever. Peloton did a good job of creating community, right? And experience virtually is what they did well, like a bike is a bike, right? And pedaling is pedaling. You're not teaching somebody how to pedal or ride a bike. Right. But it's the experience and the intensity that kind of delivers that, that execution. And so, you know, what we've identified outside of the construction type piece, right. At Club Pilates, we had things that attached to the walls. So franchisees had to spend more money to do build outs and reinforce walls. In this, all the equipment doesn't touch the wall, it sits down the center. So, you know, less construction. We had to insulate the walls for noise. And now the boards, the wood that we put up on the walls has noise canceling soundboard in it. Right. So we could just attach it to the walls and go forward. And we don't have equipment that has to then, you know, attach to the walls so we don't have to reinforce the walls. You know, we didn't own the equipment in that business, so we were going to a third party vendor trying to get them to keep up, to keep the equipment for the franchisee. Right. We couldn't get add things to the equipment that we wanted to add over time. And Plotty's addiction. We own the machine, we manufacture the machine. So as we want to adjust or change the machine, we can do those kinds of things and we can deliver the machine to the franchisees in a way that makes sense. Right. Because we, we have it. And so, you know, it's a metal machine. We dipped it in gold, if you will. So I want to call it gold plated. Like it's a, you know, $20,000 piece of jewelry. Right. But you know, we've dipped these in gold. They're an awesome machine. People don't have to get on and off the machine to add stuff to it. It's like a transformer. So it has all the equipment in it. So this pulls out, this pulls out, this goes away, this goes away. But you're not adding pieces. And you know, club Plotties, you had to go from this to the wall to the chair, to back around. No Bosu ball, the trx. You know, now people are involved, right. A club Plotties is bright and open. You know, from the front you can see it. Ours is a dark theater, if you will, with LED lighting and mirrors. And just the aesthetic is really cool in this black and shiny gold. And so we call it, you know, the gold standard applies. Right. But very kind of euro looking minimalist, very clean, very comfortable, but with that edge of tech and modern that's there and that's, you know, why we've sold 300 of these. Right. We came out and we said, well, we like the design. We think it's going to be great. And we built one in West Hollywood and we had franchisees, you know, potential franchisees come out. And we didn't know if they were going to like it. Of course we do, because we built it. But it really started to resonate. The workout started to resonate with people that were coming. And they tried Club Plotties or they tried, you know, Legree Method or they tried something else. And they really liked our, you know, kind of modern, updated look, inversion and workout, the intensity level of our classes. And so that resonated the tune so far of, you know, 300 locations of people wanting to go open this. Then, as you know, the next step is, well, that's great. You know, people want to open them. So that's resonating. But are people going to pay for it? Right, right. And they gotta pay for it at scale and in different parts of the country and, and things. And that's, that's where we are today in the life cycle of the business. You know, we've put clubs into, you know, into pre sales. We've had clubs open. And the clubs are doing very well. You know, they're, they're heading to and doing, you know, the numbers that we saw at Club Pilates. Right. And so, so we're excited about that, that even at, you know, small sample set, smaller scale at this point. Then of course, a Club Pilates with, with so many open units, it's starting to resonate early days kind of all the way through. And so, you know, and we have the Club Plottees team here. You know, Sarah, who, who ran it, myself, who ran it, you know, those people are here on staff. You know, Rudy, who ran all the retail for it, Avi, who did the construction, you know, all these different people that we had. So we know we've got the team to, you know, to scale it over time. And so far we're seeing that, you know, that that's working and, you know, we'll continue the march and see how the future goes.
- [43:27]
B
So it's still instructor led. And how many machines?
- [43:33]
A
12 machines and then one in the private room. And so same, same type of size and scale that we had at Club Pilates. Still, you know, retail up front, still a private room, still a single bathroom because we don't have to attach things to walls. We get better looks at real estate because it can be a little bit more Narrow, because we're just putting machines down the center. We don't have to put the machines on the left and right of the wall and then have a walkway down the middle. We can virtually put the machines just down the middle. Yeah, and we can. I heard you did something horizontally stacked.
- [44:08]
B
So, yeah, I heard you did something else. Really, really smart, too. Anytime you're doing fitness sound, you got to deal with sound, right? Because you're. You're shaking the restaurant next door, and the cups are vibrating on the tables right as the music's going. But I think you guys did something with sound panels where you. It was a modular sound panel. So instead of having to go into the walls, do the soundproofing, you just created the sound barrier on behind the wood. You installed it as a modular. You move the machines to the middle of the room, and now here you go. And because there's a relationship between item seven, right? What is it for those that aren't? What does it cost to build out? What does it cost to get in business versus what can you make? And, you know, your goal is you want to reduce the item 7 as much as possible, and you want to Increase the item 19 as much as possible. You want to decrease the payback time for somebody that they can get. Get their initial investment back and then be on to making money. And. And all of these things that you talk about seem very smart.
- [45:11]
A
Yeah, I mean, look, we. We know. And, you know, from the franchise business, you know, we use franchise sales brokers to, you know, sell these franchises. And so, you know, we. We don't make a lot of money on franchise sales, and we don't make a lot of money on selling the equipment. You know, we're in the royalty business, and we don't have, nor have we had, you know, a minimum royalty. Some people have, some franchisors have, you know, fifteen hundred dollars a month minimum, or, you know, 8% of revenue, whichever's more or something like that. We've always been $1, you know, 8 cents of $1 with franchisees. And so if they're not driving revenue, that they're excited about us getting 8% of that, we're not excited about. And so, you know, it. It definitely makes it aligning, you know, to get there. Like I said, you have to sell them, to open them, to go drive the revenue. But we're aligned in that, you know, we need to make the store work. You know, there can be situations where franchisees making $10,000 and, you know, in revenue and we're making $800. And, you know, relative to that, you know, when we're bringing in $800 and providing support, we're not making money. And if they're bringing in $10,000 and they're paying rent and labor, they're not making money. Right. And so, so it makes it pretty aligning and that, that's where we're focused is on, like you said, on driving that item 19 north. Right. And item 19s can range from, you know, from what people put in them, if it's just revenue or if it's full panels or what it might be. But, you know, but for us, regardless of item 19, we're trying to drive what we call AUV average unit volume, which is just a fancy name for, you know, all of the revenue divided by the amount of stores that are open. And, you know, you want to try and track that the average student in a class is getting smarter, right. There could be the smart guys getting dumber and the, you know, the dumber getting smarter. You know, there's, there's going to be those far left and far right sides of, of the case always. And that may adjust day by day, week by week, month by month, and different by brand. But that overall, you know, the measuring stick of the average revenue going north is good. And I believe at Club Pilates, when I was there, the finance team used to say that, you know, Pilates was comping at, you know, 20% or high teens and those kinds of things, which meant that the franchisee at that brand was seeing that kind of growth year over year in revenue. Now there could be costs against that too. So it's not necessarily all take home. Right. It's a revenue number. But you're also trying to drive revenue for the franchisee. That, that has margin in it. Nobody wants to go drive, you know, revenue without, without dollars afterward.
- [48:25]
B
Yeah, there's no outcome without income, man. Like if you, there's no bottom line without a top line. So you might as well start there and then figure the rest of it out. We've seen in franchising celebrities, high profile people, Drew Brees, Shaq, like lots and lots and lots of success stories. Not only participating at the franchisor level, like five guys, but also participating at the franchisee level. You've got Gary Breca, you've got Tony Robbins around the business right now. Other than their massive audiences, all of the positivity that comes with their expertise, what do you, what do you get from people like that? What are the franchise owners? What's the lift for the franchise owners. When you get people like, man, I'm a huge fan of Tony Robbins, I'm a huge fan of Gary Breca. Like, what, what, what's in it for you and the brand other than obviously, you know, there are 225 million downloads a month and all of the, all of the promotion and visibility that you get.
- [49:23]
A
Yeah, I think those are. Those are two different guys and obviously two different camps. Right. As it relates to Ultimate Longevity center and sequel. You know, when it comes to Gary Brca, I mean, Gary Brca owns a piece of the business. It's not just an a name, image, likeness situation. And I don't know, you know, the ins and outs of Ruby is in Shaq and all these other people and kind of what their agreements are. But, you know, I can tell you that, you know, Gary's a shareholder, a meaningful shareholder in the business. So it is Gary's, kind of call it lifelong dream, if you will, to help the masses and do it in a brick and mortar setting. He had his own brick and mortar stores before when he left the, you know, the insurance actuary world to actually be able to help people on the ground. And that has always been, you know, his mission from 10 years ago. And so he's absolutely committed to that today. He's, you know, a part of our discovery day down the hall right now, today. And so he does get 225 million views on his platforms every month. He crossed that. And it's. So when you look at the trajectory of that, you know, Gary believes that'll be doubled this year in 2026 as they push forward. So a lot of meaningful, you know, tailwind there and push, you know, we're seeing that chat GPT is getting about the number I was told last was 230 billion inquiries and longevity, health and wellness per week. So you're talking about almost a billion into chat GPT. And Gary talks all the time about the number one question he gets, you know, he gets paid to speak all over the world and his podcast is, you know, is number one in his market, you know, on Spotify. And so he's got a lot of followers in that space. And, you know, he, he views all the time that, you know, the. The number one question he gets is, where do I start? Like, you know, there's all this plethora of information out there. Where do I start? How do I. What's day one look like? I'm down. I want to do it. I want to live longer. I want to do better. What Do I do tomorrow? You know, and then that's why Gary focuses on wake up in the morning, you know, whack back. He says, you know, the. The water and the salt and, you know, the H2 tabs. And he really believes in this stuff, and he really uses it now. People will argue all day long with anyone online whether it works for them or doesn't work for them, or whether it's voodoo or not or, you know, whatever it might be. But, you know, that's how Gary starts his day. And so he is massively connected to it. It is not a, hey, Gary. Gary called me three times on Sunday, you know, so he is. He is massively excited about the business. Tony Robbins is a. Another deal completely. We don't have. Tony Robbins doesn't work here. Tony Robbins doesn't, you know, endorse the product. There's, you know, there's none of that. Some of the people in the world, you know, you know, took that to be like, you know, Tony's working at Sequel or at ulc, and that's not the case at all. So I want to make that clear. But Tony Robbins is the founder of Life Force. He's a shareholder of Lifeforce. It bears his name, I guess, from one of his books called Lifeforce. He's a co founder with Dougal Bain. But Dougal Bane is the. The, you know, call it nothing, take nothing away from Tony. But Dougal's the driving force of Life Force, and so he is the one who shows up here, works here. Our partnership is with Life Force, so some people have taken that to mean that, you know, Tony Robbins is my partner. And, you know, I text Tony in the morning and he says, hey, Anthony, how you doing? That. That is not the case. It will not be your coal tub. Yeah, there won't be any Tony Robbins commercials. You know, there's. There's none of that, you know, but Ultimate Longevity center is powered by Life Force, and that's what we put.
- [53:44]
B
Okay, what does Life Force do? What?
- [53:46]
A
I don't know Life Force does. They're a telemedicine company at the end of the day, okay. And so they do blood draws prior to us, right? They did blood draws in people's homes, at their work. You could go to their lab, they would do genetic methylation tests, they would run your biomarkers to figure out, look, this is where you're sufficient, this is where you're insufficient, and this is where you need to supplement. And whether that was in, you know, hormone therapy and testosterone, whether that was in, you know, iron or B12 or vitamin C or whatever. It might be really like the start of this conversation where I said, you have to get that baseline right at the end of the day. And Gary will say this. Gary is not a doctor, right? He's not a medical professional. And when we open Ultimate Longevity center, what Gary is clear about is that we need to test and figure out where these biomarkers are, right. And where your body is today. We know where we want it to go, and then we fill the gap with executing, right? And we have a real plan and a real path, and this is the place to start that journey, and that's what we want Ultimate Longevity center to be. But if you look at our brand, it says Ultimate Longevity center powered by Lifeforce, right? And that's because Life Force and Dougal is who we're contracted with to do the corporate practice of medicine part of the business. Because otherwise a franchisee would need to be a doctor. The franchisee would need to find a friend that was a doctor. And so the franchisee can't be in the practice of medicine. And so they're not. The franchisee is allowing Life Force to do the practice of medicine at their location. And. And then we have sort of a clinic part of Ultimate Longevity center, right? That's the Powered by Life Force part. And then we have what we call the playground, which is the equipment part. And I took that from Gary's house because at Gary's house, he. He has the hyperbaric chambers and the red lights and, you know, everything. The cold plunge, like, everything you could think of, right? As you would expect. And people see it on his social media all the time when he broadcasts any of that stuff, it's all from his house. And dare get the chance to go to Gary's house. It's. It's fun. But he gets very excited, right? He's like, yeah, get in my hyperbaric chamber, jump in, check this out, right? He loves it. Uh, and so I always felt like it was seeing Gary in a playground, right? And then.
- [56:24]
B
Right.
- [56:24]
A
You know, we kind of talked about this, how, you know, the playground is the first place where you start to learn relationships, right? And they're built in communities. So playgrounds for us are, you know, especially us that are older. You know, Gary said the other day, he's like, you know, you used to get burnt on the metal slide. Now there's no more metal slides because kids don't get burned, right? But. But it's. It's. It's where all of that kind of started. And so, you know, we kind of coined the term the playground that has all of Gary's protocols, the hyperbaric chambers and cold shock therapy and lymphatic drainage and hydrogen gas and all the things you'll find in Gary's house and his personal playground you'll find at Ultimate Longevity Center. And then we have the Apothecary, which is really the retail part of the business. Right. The supplements, the Baja Gold salts or perfed aminos or are things like that. And so it's really a partnership between Ultimate Longevity Center, Gary Breca personally, and then Life Force, which is a company that, you know, Tony has had, you know, of course, involvement in it. Yep.
- [57:27]
B
Very smartly put together. So I'm gonna, I walk in there, I've got my genetic, genetic methylation test and I, I can, I have, I can go to the playground, buy a membership.
- [57:39]
A
Yep.
- [57:39]
B
And it's a membership model and do all the things over there or I can go a la carte on the clinical side and, you know, buy what I need and go from there.
- [57:51]
A
Yeah. And we'll have a membership base on the clinical side too for the people. And we really wanted to scale this. So on the membership side we'll have where you, you know, you can come four times a month, you can come eight times a month, or you can come unlimited. Right. So you don't just have a membership that is, you know, call it for the elite only because we're, you know, putting these in locations all across America. They're not just going to be in the Miami's and Manhattan's and Los Angeles's. Right. You know, if we're really going to democratize this and make it for the masses, it's going to go all across the country. Right. And that's what we're seeing right now, the demand. And Gary sees on his platform and you know, his demand doesn't come from, you know, call it the top 1% of the elite. It really comes from the people that are in, call it middle market America. They're like, hey, how, how do I get better? Because the access to this longevity stuff exists in the Miamis and the Manhattans and the la. Right. It doesn't exist in some other parts. You know, one of my franchise salespeople is from Omaha. So I always tell her, I'm like, you know, it's not in Omaha. And she's like, Omaha is coming a long way. Right. But like, you know, we'll have an ultimate Longevity center in oma Hot Right. Where we're like, this is, you know, this is a genetic methylation test. These are your blood protocols. And allowing people to, you know, come in on a four, eight times or unlimited, you know, as you said, eat a la carte on the clinic side. Or they may say, look, this is for me. I want all the supplements from the apothecary. I want to unlimitedly be able to come and use a sauna, red light, lymphatic drainage and hydrogen gas and cryotherapy gone. And the dry cold plunge. Like I, I want all this. I'm going to come here every morning, you know, and, you know, they can buy the unlimited membership, they can buy the, you know, quarterly blood draws with IVs and all the supplementation. We're trying to make all of that kind of high end, unlimited in the, you know, $800,000 a month range.
- [59:52]
B
Yeah.
- [59:52]
A
To make it available for the people that really love it, believe in it, want to do it. We don't want it to be $40,000 a year, $40,000 a month. And all this craziness that you see. And on the low end where people say, hey, look, I want to get, you know, I want to get my blood drawn once a year. Right. And look at how am I doing year over year. I want to come once a week, four times. We want to try and get that into the couple hundred dollars a month range for people that can, can get their feet wet and say, you know, hey, how's this making me feel?
- [60:27]
B
Right.
- [60:28]
A
Right. Do I feel better? Do I have more energy? Am I sleeping better for running these protocols? And we think it's going to be very, very sticky where people are going to want to come back and see how their genetics will stay the same, but then see how their blood draws are coming, see where their insufficient stuff becomes sufficient. And so we think people are going to continue to come back again and again to feel better and, and kind of do more in life.
- [60:59]
B
Yeah. About 10 years ago, I started realizing that I was aging. I'm 57 right now. And I, I, I wasn't executive, I, I wasn't group. So I had access to all of these things. At least the concept of all these things, concierge medicine, you know, some hormone replacement therapy, some things around brain function, brain fog. And what I found was, is that you couldn't, they weren't accessible. You had to go so many different places to get these things. And so I actually, I still have the domain name. I created the concept similar to this, but I never created the concept. But I started working it called 45 plus. And it was like, okay, when you hit 45, there's all of these things that you're gonna start to need. There's nowhere to go get.
- [61:52]
A
All of.
- [61:52]
B
You've gotta chase em everywhere. All these specialty places, you know, this guru, that guru, this physician and I got distracted with other things. It was probably a little early, but what this does is it makes all of those things accessible all in one place. And I think it's very timely.
- [62:09]
A
Yeah, and that's kinda like I said with Gary, it's, you know, that's the number one question he gets when he gets off stage. Right? Right. Where people like, like, where do I go? Where do I start? Where, you know, is there a. Is there a website like startme.com or something? You know, is there 45 plus? Like, where do I, where do I go to do this? And it's always been a very tough question for him because it's like, hey, join, join my program, right? Like Gary's. All of Gary's content, you know, he has some VIP clubs and memberships and things like that. But all of Gary's content is not behind a paywall, right? I mean, his podcast is free. His, all of his short content, long form stuff, all of that is free. Even as you know, he'll do these massive, call them zoom calls, right? Where everybody logs in and that's free. His challenges are free because he's trying to help the masses. And I think that's why his following has been so large, because it's so authentic. But it also is with a lot of, hey, this is how you start the day. And he meets the customer where they are, you know, this guy Paul, who's a biohacker online, I love him. He's great. He's a good dude. I got to have dinner with him once. And you know, Paul doesn't. He can't take water on a flight with him and he doesn't want to buy water in the airport because it has microplastics in it. So. But you can take food through tsa, so he takes coconuts with him and then drinks the coconut water out of the coconuts on the flight to get water. Right?
- [63:52]
B
Paul is coconuts.
- [63:54]
A
Yeah. And it's awesome. Like, I love watching his stuff because you're like, dude, that is genius. You know, but is everybody going to start carrying coconuts with them on the flight? Probably not, right? It's tough. And so I think what, what Gary's good at as well Is like, hey, wake up. Throw a pinch of this salt in, drop in this tab, whack it back, and move on, you know, for the day, right? Kind of make your cocktail, get your basics, and then move on, right? Get your breath work in the morning. Like, go breathe for a couple of minutes. Like, as crazy as that is, I literally stopped going to send Gary a text message and tell him thank you, but. Cause it came from him. But we're literally starting Discovery Day today. And like, everybody, I have a life and kids and a wife, and I took the kids to school and got them ready and did all that. And then I got here and had a couple minutes before Discovery Day. And as I was walking in, I felt the sun hit me. And I was just going to walk into the office and start my day, and I'm like, nope, I'm going to take three minutes for me, I'm going to stare at the sun, I'm going to get some sunlight, and I'm going to do some breath work and just breathe, right? You know, Gary does breath work before he goes on stage, right? Like, calm the nervous system. Have a reset for yourself. So I think, you know, I think humans, too, we're pretty hard on ourselves, and we kind of run that ambition, that drive. And, you know, we also have to take the time to. To stop and, you know, give yourself 180 seconds. You know, give yourself a few minutes to. To breathe and soak up some vitamin D. You know, even Paul and his coconuts posted the other day that he didn't believe in grounding. And then, you know, he's kind of now realized, like, it's like, it feels pretty good standing on the sand. And so, you know, just was the last time I asked people this all the time. It was the last time your feet were on the ground. And people, like, all the time. And I'm like, no, you're barefoot on sand, grass, or dirt, right? Not on concrete and not your shoes on standing on grass. You know, and people have a hard time answering that question, you know, and that's one. The other one I always ask adults, you talk about 45 plus, what was the last time you were sprinting, Right? When's the last time you sprint? Not, like, feel like, oh, I ran the other day now, like. Like sprint. Like someone's chasing you. Sprint, right? And the answer is just, people don't do it. But if you think about that, and I like to think of, like a cheetah or something, those videos you see in the safari, right? When was the Last time, your body was in full motion, right? You know, walking, we all know, is great for you, and it's because your body's in motion. But I also believe in. In running, right? I do sprints just to get that body. It's like having a car. You're like, blow it out, right? Like, get that full RPM going. And, you know, people don't do that anymore. And. And I think that's necessary. We've got these Aeon weighted vests now that we have in our stores, and they're phenomenal. For the first time ever, you can sprint in a weighted vest without it smacking you. And you can lay down and do ab work. And they've done a great job of adopting, I'll call it the Lululemon aesthetic right into a weighted vest. So they have cropped ones women can wear. They have different colors, different sizes and styles. And so I run wind sprints, you know, on the beach with my weighted vest, you know, and someone said that. They're like, what are you trying to do? And I'm like, I'm trying to break myself, right? Like, I'm. I'm trying to get to that point where I feel like I'm playing full out. My body's going full out. And I think those things are important.
- [67:41]
B
Yeah, I know you're a Goggins fan, and I went deep into his stuff. And my. My takeaway was, what are your standards? In the face of no goal or no consequences? Like, what are your standards? Just for the sake of your standards, how far are you willing to go? How far will you push yourself? You're not running a race. You're not signed up for a marathon. You're not going to get fired, okay? At the core base of it, like, how do you roll? And, you know, what do you do when you're competing with you, right?
- [68:07]
A
And that's why I said, you know, that person text me. They're like, Cause it was in the sun. We were in a little bit of a heat wave. Uh, we've blessed with one here in Southern California for a little bit. Um, but, yeah, I was on the beach, weighted vest, running wind sprints, you know, uphill. So it was like, what is. What is the worst thing I could do? And that's why that friend of mine was like, you know, what are you trying to do? You're trying to kill yourself, you know, kind of thing. And it's like, no, I'm. I'm trying to break, right? I'm not going to break, but I. I'm trying to get to that point of where am I testing myself mentally and physically. Probably more mental than physical, right? Where am I going to give up? And as I was running up this, this part of the beach, every time I got about three quarters of the way, my brain said, like, you can stop here, you can go here, right? Like this is. Okay, you did three quarters of it. This is your fifth one. This is your eighth one. And then do you push for that last quarter on the 10th round when nobody's looking, when there's no, you know, there's no trophy, there's no nothing? And that's what I had to get out of my system, right? The demands of the job, you know, being a franchisor, as you know, is not, not the easiest task. You're trying to, you know, I used to say at Exponential, we had 3,000 open stores and, you know, try and invite 3,000 people to dinner and get them all to agree that the food was good and the time was good and that, you know, the location was convenient. Like, it's not going to happen. The goal is that it happens, right? But that, that is the demand is, you know, how can you be everything to everyone all the time and show up how they need you to show up that day, in that moment. It's like being married to 3,000 people and, you know, being a good husband, a good dad and a good whatever, right? And so, so demands are a lot. And so I also think, you know, in my life personally, what gets me through all of those tough times, because God knows I've had them and still have them. What gets me through that is I am sleeping, I am eating a whole food diet. I am pushing my body and my brain, you know, not every day, but definitely on a weekly basis. Taking the time to get some grounding, taking the time to get some sunlight. Those are the things that I, that I think makes a difference is I. I'll be joining the 50 plus club here in a few weeks.
- [70:37]
B
Welcome.
- [70:38]
A
Yeah, thank you. And you know, I look at that fine. Yeah, I look at that and I'm like, look, I don't want, you know, I don't want that to be two thirds of my life over, right? Because I think a think a white male in the US is supposed to die at 76 or 77, right? So I don't, I don't want my life being 2/3 done. I can maybe get my head around getting to 100 and it's half done. I like Gary's more at 120 is where he thinks he'll live to at this point. And he thinks that, like I said, in five years that everybody will be able to kind of choose that. They may not choose it, they may not execute on it, but it will be there for the taking. So I look forward to that.
- [71:21]
B
Yeah, I believe so. Anthony, you've been very generous with your time. I've got just a couple closing questions for you, but before we do, I've heard you mention your children on different podcasts. Are there any. And you're obviously it's father's a role you take very seriously. It's something that you clearly enjoy. Any philosophies that translate from how you think about influence your children and then applying that over to franchising? Or are there things that you've learned in raising franchisees that you've used in raising your children? Because it is not dissimilar.
- [71:56]
A
Yeah, it's close. Look, I think there's things from the business, maybe not franchising in general. Right. My kids know exactly who Gary is. They know exactly his longevity is. I was on it. You know, I've known Gary for a couple of years, but. But I've been playing this game and actively for about eight plus years. I met a guy named Damon Sewell who I thought was just outright crazy 8 years ago when he told me to drink salt to feel better. Because at that point I thought you died from drinking ocean water. And to me that was salt water. I'm like, why would you want to drink salt water? It dehydrates you. Right. That's what I thought. Not that it actually hydrates you, that when you go to the er, they give you a salt bag. You get a saline IV when you check it in the er, if it was just water you needed, they'd give you an Aquafina bottle with a tube.
- [72:51]
B
Right.
- [72:51]
A
Like that's what they would do. And so he deserves credit for that and that start. But I will tell you, from the world of longevity, from the world of fitness, you know, I've got a 7 year old and 11 year old with little six packs and it's because, you know, do I let them be kids and do they absolutely eat garbage? You know, compared to what I would do or what I want them to do for sure. But we do little things like, you know, for Halloween, my kids, I still want them to dress up, I still want them to go get as much candy as they want. I want them to be excited about that. I want them to be excited about getting the king Size bar from the person at the door, you know, but I don't want them eating that. So, you know, I started the Target challenge years ago where I weigh their candy, and for every pound, they get one minute at Target in a full blown shopping spree. And so people think it sounds crazy. It actually works out as a parent to not be very expensive because the rules of the game this last year they had five pounds each. So they got five minutes. So the five minutes starts at the door of Target. So it actually takes them a while to get through Target, to get to whatever departments they want to be in. Then there's the consumer choice. Like, there's so much. So it takes some time to figure out what that is. They can only. There's no baskets or carts. They can only take whatever they can hold in their little arms.
- [74:20]
B
Yeah.
- [74:20]
A
And anything they drop on the way to checkout is out of bounds. So they got to be able to grab it, hold it, and get it to the conveyor belt. Right. And then I'll buy it. So it ends up not being a ton of stuff. So it's not like it costs you thousands of dollars or anything.
- [74:39]
B
But what's the biggest thing they. What's the biggest thing? What's the smartest thing? One of them grabbed a bike.
- [74:44]
A
I don't know if any of it was smart. They have it. No one's grabbed a bike, thank God. And people tease me all the time and say, well, wait, as they get older, they're going to go grab an Xbox or a TV or something, you know, at Target. But they're, they're getting. Now at 11, they're starting to get into, you know, lip gloss and, you know, skin care stuff. So they end up, you know, getting that. My daughter grabs a, you know, pair, a couple pairs of pajamas, you know, on the way out, or, I mean, it's really innocent. They end up, it ends up at like 80 to $100 per kid at the end of the day.
- [75:21]
B
And then you get the candy.
- [75:23]
A
Yeah. So we actually leave or trick or treat with friends, and we just leave it at their house. So their friends, families want it, they eat it. That's fine. It doesn't even come back to the house. And, and they're excited and their friends have started to do it. Right. Because then they're jealous that they don't get the four minutes, six minute, five minute, you know, kind of Target challenge. And so. Yeah.
- [75:43]
B
And then the one kid's house that ends up with all the candy, you're just taking years off his life.
- [75:48]
A
Yeah. And so for us, it's like, look, we. Yeah, we don't. We don't want in the house, but we want the kids to still be kids and be excited about what they're excited about. And so, you know, there's things we do to. To modify. And I know the kids, you know, they get enough candy and stuff when they go to birthday parties or they get whatever where. I'm sure, you know, where I'm not there. I don't buy it. I don't put it in the house. But I'll tell you, my kids are, you know, they're in great shape. They love to go. My daughter all the time is like, dad, can I go to the gym with you? Or she'll run, you know, with me on the beach or so those things. So we've really made kind of this blue zone stuff. Right, right. Like sleeping. We go to bed at 8:30, you know, all the kind of things that. That you do to make sure sleep is intentional, whole food is intentional, movement is intentional. They're both competitive dancers, and so they do that on weekends. And. And so it's. It's great.
- [76:40]
B
Awesome. All right, I've got a curveball and a fastball for you. Last two questions as we nudge this tug gently on the reins and nudge this podcast towards the barn. But before I do that, where would you direct people to learn more about what you're doing?
- [76:57]
A
You know, we have a website across all the brands called SQLBrands.com and so you can go there and see the five brands and see what we're up to and decide either as a consumer or franchisee, if it resonates with you. And if it does, we'd love to talk to you about joining the family or becoming a customer.
- [77:17]
B
Awesome. Gun to your head. You've got to start a new business in the next 30 days, and it can't be anything that you're currently doing. Where do you see the opportunity in the marketplace?
- [77:29]
A
I wish you would have given me that one on longevity a few months ago because I was super, super excited about that. Look, I still think there's a gap in the market on weight training. Think I really believe I've seen a lot of technology out there, but I really believe humans, you know, still enjoy a dumbbell and a weight training part. And like I said earlier, I think, you know, outside of sauna and all these things that we're starting to hear that all the experts are starting to agree on, it is weight training, and so will you see that at, you know, the planet Fitness of the world, the crunches of the world, the 24 hours, the LA Fitnesses, you know where I see that, I think you'll start to see that as a focus. And when I go to, you know, the big, you know, international kind of conventions on fitness and you see all the equipment suppliers there. I was just there this week and we saw a while where the weights went away, meaning people weren't really buying them from the suppliers. And you saw this massive amount of treadmills and bikes and ellipticals and just general cardio. Right. And this year I saw the weights back again and there wasn't this massive kind of push. Saw a lot of longevity stuff that I'd never seen before. So I was excited to see that. A lot of red lights and hyperbaric chambers, which I hadn't seen hyperbaric chambers at international fitness conferences and maybe I missed them, but, you know, multiple hyperbaric chamber companies, cryo companies. So a lot of longevity stuff. But, you know, importantly, I saw the weights back and so, you know, whether people are going to get that inside big box gyms or we're going to see a revival of people on kind of the personal training, weight training side to get muscle mass, because people are starting to understand, and I see that wave coming, that it's not about aesthetics, it's not about, you know, your shirt off, it's summer. And that's what people kind of associate with muscles. But it really is around longevity and lifespan and insulin resistance and oxidative stress and these things that are real markers for cardiac and bio hacking and longevity. And so I think we're gonna see somebody, hopefully do well on it, on a pure weight training kind of type play.
- [80:00]
B
I actually have a company I think you should talk to. I'll ask him if he's interested in talking to you. It's a Brandy new franchise, doing really well. Great unit economics. Interesting concept. I didn't believe it when I saw it, but it works. Maybe you guys should have a conversation. I'll ask him. I don't know that he's ready, but I really think. I really think a lot of them.
- [80:21]
A
So I'll be happy to. Happy to help him wherever I can, regardless.
- [80:24]
B
Oh, I know. I appreciate that. All right, fastball straight down the middle. Last question. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be?
- [80:34]
A
It would be the blue zone thing that I talked about. It would be eat better, move, sleep and love the ones that are around.
- [80:43]
B
You work in some root vegetables?
- [80:46]
A
Yeah, exactly. Absolutely.
- [80:50]
B
Purple sweet potatoes for everybody. All right, Anthony, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for being on.
- [80:56]
A
Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate you.
- [80:58]
B
Yeah, absolutely. This has been Jeff Duden here with Anthony Geisler on the unemployable podcast. Thanks for listening.