My friend and fellow coach, Shane McLean, is shutting down his garage gym as he and his family prepare to move to a different state.
He recently made a post about it and I sent him a message giving some love and support his way.
If you don’t know Shane, let me share just a small bit about him. From my time knowing him in the fitness industry, he’s a guy who rarely has a negative thing to say about anyone. He supports a wealth of people in this industry and (from what I can tell), Shane’s the kind of guy you always want on your side. He’s caring, compassionate, smart and he always wants to see you succeed.
Reading that he had to shut his business down was a tough thing to digest. I know how hard it can be to run a successful fitness facility.
In his post, he began to question what success meant to him as he embarks on this next chapter of his career and life.
Within the context of my message to him, was something else I wanted to share with all of you.
Many of us (myself included) can find ourselves using the success of others as a gauge for where we should be.
We can easily forget that the success of someone else might come at a price we are not willing to pay.
I know, for example, what the revenue is of my business and I know that, based on size alone, that number is something to be proud of (especially since we’re not in a metropolitan area). It would be easy for me to look at another gym and ask: Why can’t I be as successful as them?
But in asking that question, I have to consider other factors:
-What did they sacrifice to get there?
-What square footage do they have?
-How many coaches work there?
-How long have they been profitable?
-Does the owner have a life or is the gym their life?
I could ask other questions too, but the answers to those first questions can tell me a lot.
In my message to Shane, I knew that he had to look at success through a different lens. Did he improve the lives of the people he worked with? Did he grow as a man, a husband, a father and a coach? Did he learn valuable skills which he can later utilize in shifting his business into another state or into online coaching?
And this post isn’t just about Shane, or me, or fitness business owners.
It’s about you.
It’s about taking inventory of where you are in life: with your health, your social life, your finances, and your relationships.
If you see someone who’s met an ideal that you think you should be at, what price did they pay to get there?
If someone has a body that you compare yourself against, how reasonable is that comparison? Who are their parents? How hard do they have to work to maintain that body? What drugs/supplements do they have to take? What type of diet regimen are they following?
Most importantly, what are you willing to do to get closer to that ideal?
I learned that for me to keep some sanity along the way, I needed to focus on what was in front of me: my family, my clients, my coaches and my business.
While I can look to another gym or gym owner for inspiration or mentorship, focusing on how to inspire, motivate, or improve the people around me will take me further than wondering why my life doesn’t look like someone else’s life.
And to my friend, Shane: Thank you for many years of friendship and camaraderie. I wish you nothing but continued success however you define it.