Speaker: 0:01

Welcome to The Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.

Tom Jackobs: 0:36

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready to be inspired'cause today we have the heart and soul of entrepreneurship. Fredrick Hahn is joining us here on the heart-led business show. A true beacon of passion and purpose. Fredrick has taken the plunge into the wonderful world of heart-led business, and we'll dive deep into his experiences and unveil the magic behind running the business driven by compassion and connection. So sit back, relax, and let's get ready to uncover the heartbeats of success. Fredrick, welcome to the show.

Fredrick Hahn: 1:08

Tom, thank you very much. I really appreciate you asking me to, participate.

Tom Jackobs: 1:12

Yeah, absolutely, and I'm really excited every time I have somebody involved in the fitness industry, because that's where I came out of, I always love to, uh, chat with you guys and reminisce of the old days running fitness business, which I would not go back to, but anyway, but anyway. I always like to ask the first question. What's your definition of a heart-led business?

Fredrick Hahn: 1:36

I have been doing this for, I can't even tell you how many years, in the neighborhood of 30, 35 years. The one beautiful thing about what I do and people like me do is we are literally taking someone's health, someone's body, their strength, their, and even in, in many ways their, spirit. Because when you feel stronger, when you feel healthier, you just feel better about yourself. And our program, uh, is focused on, uh, what I like to call positive tissue remodeling. So in other words, we're building muscle, we're building bone, we're built, we're decreasing body fat, improving mitochondria. We're literally, my daughter years ago said when she was little, Hey dad, what is it that you do for a living? And I said, well, I take people's muscles and I make them pulse a little bit more strongly. So they can do anything they want in their life better. When I see, for example, we had a client, uh, still do, um, I won't name his name of course, but he, uh, had a, a type of neurological disease. It wasn't Parkinson's or, or Parkinson's syndrome. It was another type of, neurological disease. He could not come to the studio by himself. His wife had to take him here. We had to help him down the stairs. He needed a walker to go from machine to machine. Within three months, he was coming to the gym, only coming to us once or twice a week for 30 minutes a session. He was coming to us by himself, coming down the steps by himself. He was able to get, he still struggled, but he was able to get into the machines by himself and we greatly improved his, muscle mass which allowed him to function better, which allowed him to go to the movies, which allowed him to live.

Tom Jackobs: 3:25

Yeah.

Fredrick Hahn: 3:26

But we do that for every person on a lesser scale, let's say. So it, it might not be quite as dramatic as what happened to this particular client, but once you hit about the age 35, 40, you slowly begin to lose strength, muscle tissue, bone density, and the only way that can be halted and reversed, and it can be is through proper strength training. And of course, uh, eating a healthful diet. So for me, every single day I go to work, all I'm doing is making every single person who comes through that door and leaves a little bit better.

Tom Jackobs: 4:03

Yeah, and, and you, you can tell too, just from the way that you were describing that, just how much passion that you have around helping, your, your clients and what a dramatic, uh, improvement for that client and yeah, I mean that's, what drove me when I was in the fitness industry as well, is seeing those dramatic results and people just, every aspect of their life getting better.

Fredrick Hahn: 4:28

Yeah,

Tom Jackobs: 4:28

Yeah.

Fredrick Hahn: 4:29

And that's the focus. Whereas maybe in something like, um a CrossFit, a residual outcome is that you become stronger. But the process is not about that. The process is about getting your PRs and how much weight can you lift, and how many pull-ups can you do, and can I do more than she's doing that's what we do. It has nothing to do with that whatsoever. It's not about who's better than who. It's simply about how can that individual become a healthier, stronger individual so that that individual can have a more, fruitful. And, beneficial life.

Tom Jackobs: 5:09

Yeah. Now take us back to, when you first started the business, what was that like for you and, and why, did you start it in the first place?

Fredrick Hahn: 5:18

The true reason is years ago. We're talking 40 years ago. I actually was in the theater. I was an actor and I hated waiting tables, but I was always into martial arts, into fitness, and all that. Personal training was in its infancy in the early eighties. And, this is when Nautilus came out, Arthur Jones and Ellington Darden and high intensity training and all that came out. So I decided that rather than wait tables, maybe I could work as a trainer or be on the gym floor. So I got a job on the gym floor at the New York Health and Racquet Club. I was sort of like a proctor. I'd go around and say, uh, slow down, or your seat's not correct, or, uh, you try one more, like whatever it is. I said, and I really enjoy that. I really enjoyed helping people. And then I got hired, I started dating a physical therapist and I got hired by the hospital for Joint Diseases Sports Medicine Center. And I was then like a

Tom Jackobs: 6:12

Oh.

Fredrick Hahn: 6:12

I functioned as a, a PTA, a physical therapy aide. I was not a physical therapy aide, but I functioned like one. So I was incharge of all strengthening for all of the patients. And what I was doing with them was what I do now. Very slow, very controlled, very safe, but very effective strength training programs to improve wherever part of their body was needed improvement. The head of orthopedic surgery at the time called me into his office and said, I've never seen my patients get this strong. What are you doing with them? And I told him, and I started to train him and one thing led to another. A year and a half later, he and I went into business. So we opened up a company called Metro SportsMed, and it was a physical therapy clinic at New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn. Where, you know, you'd go skiing, you'd break your knee doctor, fixes your knee, and then you'd go to physical therapy. But at our physical therapy clinic, we didn't just fix your knee. We would strengthen your neck, your back, and your knee, your whole body in half the time. It took traditional physical therapists just to strengthen your knee. And we were hoping that this would of course, flood the insurance companies and everybody would, all the insurance companies would wanna send their patients, their clients to us. And then we'd learn the hard way that insurance companies could care less. They don't care about you, they don't care about anything. They just care about how can we not pay. Yeah, so I, I couldn't do that anymore. So then I opened up my own facility in 1998, here, the one I'm sitting in now in 1998, uh, on the upper West side of Manhattan. And that's sort of how it all, all started.

Tom Jackobs: 8:00

Nice.

Fredrick Hahn: 8:01

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 8:01

Yeah. So when you first started that business, what type of business education had you had up until that point?

Fredrick Hahn: 8:08

Zero.

Tom Jackobs: 8:11

Exactly. Great.

Fredrick Hahn: 8:12

My father was an entrepreneur. He had a series of high fidelity record shops. Five of them. I was in high school like 16, 17, 18 years old. So I kind of watched the way he opened up one store, then opened up another store, and how he hired people and the way he treated people and how he made that all happen. So, but I have no formal education. I do not have an MBA, I do not have a degree. In marketing or advertising or businesses of, of any kind. I knew what I wanted, I knew what I wanted to do. I read a lot of books, so

Tom Jackobs: 8:47

Mm-hmm.

Fredrick Hahn: 8:47

and that's pretty much how I did it.

Tom Jackobs: 8:48

Let's kinda shift gears to the kinda the business side of the business. So how were those first years in terms of, you know, figuring out finances and making a profit and doing all that without, you know, the background to know all that. What was that like for you?

Fredrick Hahn: 9:06

Well, I did read, a bunch of books on, what's the first one I read, like jumpstart your business brain, jumpstart your marketing brain. I read the books Good to Great Built To Last by Jim Collins. Essentially I learned that, first things first. If you wanna do a start a business, you have to do a PNL. You have to do a profit and loss. What is it gonna cost me? How much do I have to charge? And what will my net profit or loss be? And a lot, I think a lot of times people start businesses with this great idea. They love what they do, they have a passion, but they don't actually take a pencil and put it to paper and go, oh, wait a minute. I'd have to charge$500 for a personal training session. Ain't ever gonna happen. This business model doesn't work. So when I did the numbers and the math, it all looked possible because I had been running the physical therapy clinic at New York Methodist Hospital, and I saw what numbers needed to be a little, a little different.'cause that was a medical facility, but, but basically it's the same.

Tom Jackobs: 10:09

Sure.

Fredrick Hahn: 10:09

So,

Tom Jackobs: 10:10

Yeah

Fredrick Hahn: 10:10

when I realized that it was financially viable, then little by little, in reading more, and actually looking at friends of mine who were also successful, asking them questions. And I'm not even saying I do everything exactly right or correctly. I'm sure there are things that I should be doing, could be doing better, there's no question. I've actually started a franchise and I'm beginning that right now to franchise this system. Anybody who wants to start a business, the passion has to be there. The love for it has to be there. You have to wake up in the morning with a burning desire to do that thing if you don't wake up in the morning with a burning desire to do that thing. Do something else.

Tom Jackobs: 10:53

Yeah.

Fredrick Hahn: 10:54

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 10:55

Now, does it need to be every day that you have that burning desire or do you get a few days that you don't wanna work?

Fredrick Hahn: 11:02

Yeah. Well, maybe after, maybe the day after a martini, no. But, when come to work, I will say every day when I come to work, I look forward to the clients. I look forward to talking to them. I look forward to the discussion, making them stronger, asking'em how they feel, hearing their stories. Like, Hey Fred, I just went skiing last weekend and I was able to ski all day. I could never do that before, it pumps you up. And not a day goes by, really, honestly, not a day goes by where I don't hear something like that from a client or two. So it's, it's very uplifting. You know, and the other thing is you're not harming the environment. You're not harming anything or anyone. Yeah. Yeah. It's a true service to other humans, which is so, so great and gives you so much pleasure and fuels that passion as well. Were you always heart-led when it came to the business, even before you started the business and when you were working for the hospital? Did it feel heart-led at that point? Yeah. I would say that when I started out, when I wanted to be an actor, one of the things about being actors, making other people feel things. Um, whether it's fear or whether it's joy or whether it's, you know, laughter, whatever it is. So you're very, very interested in, you know, serving the playwright or whoever wrote the script and then presenting that to an audience and, and getting that audience to feel and think and feel things. So I've always had a desire to do that, um, and seeing the tremendous benefit. That strength training gives if you do it right, and the fact that the way we do it, the very slow, almost like a Tai Chi approach to strength training, no one ever gets hurt. Everybody just walks out feeling exhilarated getting stronger and feeling better about everything they do in life. So I would say from a very early age, I've always kind of, yeah, my type is I would always felt like helping people.

Tom Jackobs: 13:08

Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, the passion then, uh, for having your own business and helping people has definitely propelled you. And you said the business itself has been 35 years?

Fredrick Hahn: 13:20

I opened up this facility in 1998, so about 28 years, almost 30. In Montclair, I opened that in 2015, so that's 10 years strong this November.

Tom Jackobs: 13:33

Wow.

Fredrick Hahn: 13:34

As I'm getting older, I can't keep opening up gyms all over the place. So, the franchise model seemed very, doable and possible. I'm going to try to spread this type of benefit as far as I can.

Tom Jackobs: 13:51

Yeah. Oh, that's cool. And, as you were saying that, it is kind of popped into my mind as well, is that when you do franchising and, and you're expanding, how do you plan on keeping the heart as part of the business so that that doesn't get lost when other business owners, you know, have a stake in it?

Fredrick Hahn: 14:12

Yeah. It's called vetting. I have a friend of mine. His name is Luke Carlson and he's the owner, CEO of Discover Strength. Good friend of mine, amazing business owner, businessman. I've learned a lot from him about building a business, and expanding a franchise. And one of the things he said to me was, Fred, you have to be very, very strict about who you vet out never, ever, ever sell. Like if Jeff Bezos came up to me and said, Hey, Fred, uh, let, let me buy the rights to the East Coast, you know that Jeff could care less about exercise. He could care less about any of that stuff. Your answer to Jeff Bezos would be no, even though you'd have$40 million in your bank tomorrow. So you have to make sure that the person that you actually, award, let's say a franchise to that that person has that drive, that passion, that desire, for your industry, for what you are doing. Meaning help him know, making people stronger and healthier. Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 15:18

Yeah. And bringing the brand into it as well so that the brand doesn't, deteriorate over time or with, you know, bad levels, so to speak.

Fredrick Hahn: 15:25

And that's all part of your operations manual and making sure that, you know, once you develop a team, I mean, eventually, on my 10th franchise, let's say, I'm not gonna be able to go to every single franchise myself. You're gonna have to have, regional managers or vice presidents or whatever the title is, who show up unannounced and have a checklist of 20 things that they must see happen. Then if not, then they go up to the franchisee and they say, Hey, what's going on?

Tom Jackobs: 15:53

Yeah.

Fredrick Hahn: 15:54

Yeah,

Tom Jackobs: 15:55

Have a little conversation.

Fredrick Hahn: 15:58

Yeah,

Tom Jackobs: 15:58

Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. That, that's very exciting. I'm sure it'll take quite a bit of work, to put all that together.

Fredrick Hahn: 16:05

It's already been two years at it. I've been working out for two and a half years, and I'm in no rush. I wanna do it right. I wanna make sure that I have everything in order so that the potential franchisee that gung-ho passionate franchisee has all their ducks in a row and really can sink his teeth into,'cause it becomes their business's. No longer my business, my rules, but it becomes their business and they really have to, they have to shine, you know? Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 16:35

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it's nice, you know, having the franchise, you know, everything kinda in a box for people having that system. So that's very cool. So along the way, as you were building your business over the last 20, 28 years, which is just incredible too, by the way, Fredrick, so congratulations.

Fredrick Hahn: 16:56

It's like, where did that time go?

Tom Jackobs: 16:57

Yes. Yeah, I know exactly. Have there been any really pleasant surprises that have happened because you were heart-led versus just looking for the profit?

Fredrick Hahn: 17:09

Well, the truth is, I never looked for the profit and the other truth is personal training, as far as I'm aware, is not a very high profit, business model. I mean I'm 63 years old and I live paycheck to paycheck. I don't have a house in Malibu. And you know, this is not a high, it's not coca-cola. You don't make a lot of profit. You live well. But the focus is really on the passion for what you do and helping people become stronger and healthier. And as I mentioned before. It's sort of like that movie, field of dreams. If you build it, they will come.

Tom Jackobs: 17:48

On the flip side of that same, same question, different side of the coin, what kind of train wrecks have happened because you were a heart-led or you know, the decisions that you've had to make that were difficult to make because, you know, it was either I go the profit side or I go the heart side, but it's those type of stories. Any of those.

Fredrick Hahn: 18:13

Not really. I mean, I would say that, you'll always get a client or two or three as the years go by who are disgruntled and unhappy and this isn't working for me, and or they disagree with your theory. Those kinds of things do occur and sometimes people just are not willing to listen or they just hear what's going on in their head. I've had to sometimes say to some clients over the years, I don't think this is for you. I think you may need to look for something else. Because I really only want people here who get it, are passionate about it, are interested in actually achieving, improving themselves. One thing also I will say is there are a lot of people who do what I do and they do group training. Now I am against group training and I'm against group training because if I'm training three people and two people are doing something that's dangerous, who do I go to first.

Tom Jackobs: 19:16

Right, exactly. The one closest to you probably.

Fredrick Hahn: 19:19

You know? So with us, we specialize in the highest quality, one-to-one instruction. So when we are in the gym, training your instructor, never ever takes his or her eyes off of you. We're watching your breathing. We're watching your shoulder movement, we're watching everything. So there's no way in heaven or heck that you can get injured or do it incorrectly. So people say, oh, Fred, you know, but if you did group training, you'd double the money. It's like, probably.

Tom Jackobs: 19:50

Yeah. That's, well, that's definitely from the heart and looking what's best for the person and the client, like you said, versus what's best for the bottom line. That would be my definition of a heart-led business.

Fredrick Hahn: 20:05

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 20:05

As well, that you're looking out for the person and not necessarily the profit.

Fredrick Hahn: 20:09

Yeah. Yeah. There's no way that I can give all of my attention and the very best that I can give if I'm training in a group. It's not possible. Period. It's not possible for anyone.

Tom Jackobs: 20:23

Hmm. Yeah. Well, especially when you're doing like physical therapy type and rehab type of exercises. Yeah, for sure. Well, cool. Well, Fredrick, how can people learn more about what you're up to and maybe even investigate their franchise for themselves?

Fredrick Hahn: 20:42

Yeah. Well, thank you for asking me, I appreciate you letting me, give this information. My website has pretty much all the information, and that website is slowburnpersonaltraining.com. And it has information about the New York facility, if anyone was interested. The Montclair facility, and it also has information. If someone's interested in being a franchisee, they just fill out their information. It's a process. We get the process going. We have a conversation, we have two conversations. Then I invite the franchisee, potential franchisee to come and visit. We sit, we talk, we watch, but all of that information is at slowburnpersonaltraining.com.

Tom Jackobs: 21:22

Okay. Very cool. Well, we'll put that into the show notes so everybody can check that out as well. Fredrick, thank you so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate your, your wisdom, especially, you know, 27 years of being in business. That's, that's really amazing.

Fredrick Hahn: 21:37

Anytime.

Tom Jackobs: 21:38

Yeah. Thank.

Fredrick Hahn: 21:38

I'm happy to come back. Anytime.

Tom Jackobs: 21:40

Awesome. Thank you. And also thank you show listeners and those watching on YouTube as well. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We certainly do appreciate it and make sure you're checking out everything that Fredrick's doing, and we're gonna provide all that down into the show notes. And also, if you could do me a very, very good favor, and while you're down there in the show notes, click on that little button that says give a rating and review. And that really helps spread the word about the heart-led business show. And until next time, lead with your heart.

Speaker 2: 22:12

You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.