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

Well. welcome back to the Heart-Led Business Show where we dive deep into the soul of entrepreneurship. Today we're swinging into the world of wellness with the extraordinary Nathanael Rabbitt, lovingly dub Tarzan. As the fearless founder of Conscious Body Recovery, he blends earthly wisdom with modern science for a holistic dash of health. Join us as we explore his heart-lead journey filled with insights on resilience, recovery, and connecting to nature. A true adventure in business and wellbeing. So let's leap into the vibrant conversation. Nathanael, welcome to the show.

Nathanael Rabbitt 1:14

Thank you, Tom. Thank you for having me. Very excited. Very excited to be here today and, oh wow. What an introduction. Thank you so much.

People Over Profits

Tom Jackobs 1:22

Hey, no problem. I'm really excited for today's conversation as well in the health and wellness industry. I support a lot of health and wellness folks now, and I always like to geek out. This type of work and especially how it makes it heart-led and how you navigate being heart-led and still making a profit. So really excited about diving into that today. But first, the first question I always like to ask is, what's your definition of a heart-led business?

Nathanael Rabbitt 1:48

My definition of a heart-led business is pretty simple. It's people over profits. I think that customers always come first. It's about the people, right? Prior, before I had gotten into the sauna and cold plunge business that, that I run now it was personal training. And one thing that my father would always tell me is that he would say, Nather, you're not in the personal training business. You're in the people business. Personal training is just your avenue to get to people. And that's something that I've always kept with me and reminded myself as I'm training clients or working with people or customers in any regard. It's about the people. And when you keep that at the forefront of what you do, it's going to make sure that your service or what you're offering is best for the customer. And ultimately, that's how you win in business, in my opinion, is that you keep the customer you keep what their best interests are at the forefront of what you do. Yeah, pretty simple for me. Just people over profits and if you continue to do that, you will continue to have a thriving business.

Tom Jackobs 2:53

Yeah. Absolutely. That's a great definition and I love what your dad said too about know what you know, basically. I'm paraphrasing here, but know what business you're in. The real business that you're in, the people business, not the workout business. And that was actually the big mistake that I made when I first started doing my personal training business and opened up my fitness center. was selling workouts and what's the last thing people wanna do? Work out. The moment that I started selling results and really talking about, and knowing that the business I was in was getting results for clients, that's when everything changed. Yeah knowing what businesses that you're in and putting people first, that you can't go wrong with that.

Tom’s Fitness Background

Nathanael Rabbitt 3:37

Yeah. I didn't know that you did personal training, Tom.

Tom Jackobs 3:41

Yeah. Yeah. Did that for, oh gosh, 15 years.

Nathanael Rabbitt 3:44

Wow. Now, did you work for yourself at any point or was that like.

Tom Jackobs 3:48

Yeah, I had a 6,000 square foot facility in Houston, Texas, and I had about four trainers that worked for me, and we had about 150 clients.

Nathanael Rabbitt 3:57

Wow. You had your own facility in Houston?

Tom Jackobs 4:00

Yeah. Yeah. I sold that in 2008, I'm sorry, I bought it in 2008 and then I sold it in 2018, I had it for 10 years.

Nathanael Rabbitt 4:09

Okay. Nice.

Tom Jackobs 4:11

It's still going on. The new owners that are friends of mine, actually one of the owners is my financial advisor as well, which is funny.

Nathanael Rabbitt 4:17

Oh, hey, that's pretty convenient. He said, Hey, as your financial advisor, I'm gonna buy your business from you.

Tom Jackobs 4:23

He became the financial advisor after he bought the business.

Nathanael Rabbitt 4:25

Oh, I see. Got it.

Tom Jackobs 4:26

Oh, okay.

Nathanael Rabbitt 4:27

Oh,

From Hockey to Wellness

Tom Jackobs 4:27

But it's still running today, which is really heartwarming to see that with the people because it was about people and the community. So tell me, how did you transition then from personal training then into the cold plunge and the recovery business?

Nathanael Rabbitt 4:40

Yeah, so how I got to where I am now, running the sauna and cold plunge really was like a weird combination of my whole life. That kind of all just happened at the right time, at the right place. I moved out to, so I'm originally from Michigan and I've got a pretty extensive sports background. So ice hockey was my life's mission. That was literally my only plan growing up. So I was constantly training, working out, skating on the ice doing workouts off the ice, everything I could do to become a better athlete. With the goal that I had was to play in the NHL. Now I fall, I fell short of that goal. However I had almost an entire lifetime of sports training and fitness training, learning about nutrition. Recovery, all these kinds of things. So hockey didn't work out. I went ahead and just got different jobs for the next six years and when I was 24, I moved to San Diego. And as I did so I was like, you know what? I'm over working in factories and foundries. I'm ready to go towards my passions of health and wellness. Also during that time after high school and before I moved to San Diego. I was going to a lot of music festivals and I was learning about the chakras, and I got certified in reiki. So I was learning about all these different modalities alternate healing methods and things of that nature. So I guess I, you could say that I had developed myself spiritually as well during that time. And obviously was still spending a lot of time in the gym. I could finally gain weight because I wasn't doing cardio all the time. So that was super exciting for me. I was always a pretty lean, skinny kid for the most part. So I moved to San Diego in 2020 and I got my personal training certification and I got a job at Crunch Fitness. And the guy that hired me, his name is Scott, and Scott became one of my best friends. And he went to, he had left Crunch Fitness and went to a gym called Self-Made Training Facility. Which is where you get to work for yourself. So you pay rent all the trainers in there. It's a private personal training facility, so all the trainers in there will pay rent and then they get to bring in their own clients. They set their own schedule. And so my buddy Scott went over there and he said, Hey, when are you coming to Self-Made? And I said I don't know, August. So I said, I'll just go over there in August, which was several months from at that point in time. I went over to self-made, started working for myself. And typically when trainers do that, their goal is to get their whole roster, to follow them, that they had built up at a box gym. That's a playbook that a lot of trainers use. I think I had one client come with me. So I basically started over. Also too, I didn't tell any of my clients that I was going to self-made. I was going to Tom, I went to go. I was I put in my two weeks. At crunch. And then during, over those two weeks, I was gonna tell all my clients. And so when I put my two weeks in, they like pulled me aside and they're like, Hey

Tom Jackobs 7:50

Oh yeah.

Nathanael Rabbitt 7:50

Where are you going? And I said, I'm not sure. And they're like, oh, okay, cool. Are you going to self-made? And for me, I don't care if I'm talking to an employer or who I'm talking to, like I am a man of my word and I just, I'm not gonna lie.

Tom Jackobs 8:08

Yeah.

Nathanael Rabbitt 8:10

I felt like I could get around it by saying, oh, I'm not sure yet. I'm still thinking about it. But when they specifically asked me, are you going to self-made, I was like, yeah, I'm going to self-made. And they're like, okay, you're done here. You can't, we can't let you finish your two weeks. I'm like, please can you please? I really need to work these next two weeks. And they're like, no. I'm like, okay. So I didn't get to tell any of my clients hardly that I was going to the other spot. So anyway, I basically started over.

Tom Jackobs 8:35

Yeah.

Nathanael Rabbitt 8:35

So Scott him and I were buddies there at self-made training next to each other running our own businesses. He ended up buying a self-made down in San Diego and then he opened one in Delmar, which is still technically in San Diego. So he became the owner of True Self Made. And so he once he bought his first one, he said, Hey, think of a business to put in here. And my personal training business was already called Conscious Body, LLC. And so I decided to just add onto that. And so we threw recovery on the end of it. I threw a sauna and a cold plunge in there. In the years that I was working in Michigan after high school construction was one of the things that I was doing. I did that for about a year. I have a bunch of tools and the experience to know how to do a simple room remodel like that. I was able to convert an old bathroom into, basically this conscious body recovery, what we have now. Yeah. And then the idea for conscious body recovery started as a journal entry in 2020. I was just journaling and I thought of the name and I drew the logo. And I wrote a bunch of notes beneath it of all these things that I thought would be really cool. And then I shut the notebook and didn't think about it for two years, and then started my personal training business and opened Conscious Body, LLC. And then sometime later added recovery onto it with that opportunity. So it was just one thing led to another, but it started with me following my heart. Yeah, that's where it all started. I moved across the country and I said, you know what? I'm gonna do something. I want to do what I'm passionate about. And that, if you're working at a box gym as a personal trainer, you're not really making that great of money.

Tom Jackobs 10:19

Right.

Nathanael Rabbitt 10:20

So it's not as though that, my intention is yeah, let's do something that gets me rich. It's nah, you know what? I'm gonna do something that I'm passionate about, and if I do that, I know that good things will happen. Good things will follow. So it started with that. But yeah, it's just been a random combination of things that have led me to where I'm at today.

Sauna vs Cold Plunge Lessons

Tom Jackobs 10:39

Yeah. So why the shift from personal training to recovery, was there, did you find a need for that or was it just Scott saying to you, find a business to put in here?

Nathanael Rabbitt 10:50

I can't take all the credit. Scott, actually, I was paraphrasing, however Scott actually reached out to my now wife, who was also a trainer. We had met at Self-made and got together. Um, he reached out to her initially and said, Hey, think of a business to put in here.

Tom Jackobs 11:05

Okay.

Nathanael Rabbitt 11:07

We were together at the time and so she was thinking she was gonna do spray tanning and she was, we're like sharing ideas with each other and I said, are you passionate about spray tanning? No. Okay. Do you have experience spray tanning? No. I'm like, I'm not saying you shouldn't do that. It's not a bad idea. I said, I think we should try to think of something that, where we can add onto our income and not, shift laterally, I think that we should try to find, let's find something that's somewhat passive. What can you do that you can also train clients in the facility and have somebody in there doing whatever they're doing. She had the idea. She's maybe we'll do a sauna room. It's oh, okay, yeah, that's a good idea. So we start looking into sauna. I was like, oh, cool. There's a bunch of cool saunas on the market. So that was like where we started thinking in that direction what can we do that's like somewhat passive? And then the cold plunge was an afterthought. And so when we opened, we actually opened two locations right away. We had one in Delmar, it is new facility. And then one in San Diego the facility that he took over and the one in San Diego because it had a shower and waterline hookups, we were able to add a cold plunge in there because the room allocated for that. The one in Delmar, we just had the sauna, so they really tripped customers out in the other location that we also started at the same time basically failed because we've got two locations, one with a sauna and a cold plunge and a shower, and the other one with just a sauna. Imagine you find a business that does sauna and cold plunge.

Tom Jackobs 12:45

Yeah.

Nathanael Rabbitt 12:45

And it's a private room and they've got a shower and everything. And then you go to a location and it's just a sauna. You're like, where's the cold plunge? So that happened all the time at that one location. It was like we'd get people that would come in and they're like, where's the cold punch? And I'm like, and then I'd have to explain you know what, this location only has a sauna. Like we set it in the description if you look, but yeah, so that it didn't work out at that location.

Tom Jackobs 13:08

A little tub in the back with some ice in it, or.

Nathanael Rabbitt 13:11

No. Oh man. You know what, the amount of times we heard that it's like, there was like, you'd be surprised. There was like wood flooring in there and there was nothing. It's and water goes everywhere. When you have cold plunge like that, it just, no matter what you do, water's gonna go everywhere. But yeah, we got that all the time. Can't you just throw a little something? I'm like, we can't, it's not that simple.

Tom Jackobs 13:36

Kiddie pool, one of those inflatable pools.

Nathanael Rabbitt 13:39

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 13:39

Yeah.

Nathanael Rabbitt 13:40

I think the question you asked me was how did we go from.

Tom Jackobs 13:43

Yeah,

Nathanael Rabbitt 13:44

personal training to to recovery like that. Yeah, my wife and I put our heads together and came up with this and then, like I said, it didn't work at the one location with just the sauna. And then it got to the point where the recovery room was getting so busy that I decided to stop personal training and focus on the recovery full time. That was really exciting for me to be able to transition away from personal training and get into something else where I can help way more people. And from so many different backgrounds, we help people with healing from mold toxicity. Looking to recover and people with chronic pain. People who are chronically fatigued. There's just so many different people that we're helping for so many different reasons.

Keeping Modalities Simple

Tom Jackobs 14:31

Yeah. That's awesome. Are you doing anything else other than the sauna and the cold plunge? Like any type of stretching or other recovery, or is it just taking people through the cold plunge and the sauna.

Nathanael Rabbitt 14:43

Yeah, just the sauna and cold plunge. We try to keep it simple. We've thought of adding, different modalities in the room and also just in general. And the space that we sublease within the facility is not huge. And to add anything else, like we've thought about adding some norm tech boots or some I forget what that's called, like compression therapy or something. But there's just like logistical challenges there. But yeah, we're just keeping the main thing with the hot and cold, and one thing that I always say and that I get excited about is, when I sell it, is that temperatures have been around. Since the existence of the universe. Before there was humans existed, it was like there was extreme hot and cold.

Tom Jackobs 15:23

Right.

Nathanael Rabbitt 15:24

And we've obviously figured out that, the contrast and temperatures has incredible healing benefits to it. Incredible healing benefits.

Tom Jackobs 15:32

Yeah, a hundred percent did. And is it a red light center or infrared center?

Nathanael Rabbitt 15:37

No. Red light is separate from infrared.

Tom Jackobs 15:41

Yeah.

Nathanael Rabbitt 15:42

They get mixed up a lot. The infrared yeah, our saunas are infrared yep. They use the infrared light waves to heat up your body from the inside out, as well as the air around you. Typical, traditional saunas are gonna just heat up the air around you.

Tom Jackobs 15:56

Yeah.

Nathanael Rabbitt 15:57

Which is fine too, those are great. I definitely never down on traditional saunas. Some people prefer them.

Tom Jackobs 16:02

It takes longer to get that heat, the internal temperature up when it's just a traditional sauna versus the infrared.

Nathanael Rabbitt 16:10

Yeah, and I've been in some saunas with, some buddies with the, like they've got the hot rocks and they pour the water on it.

Tom Jackobs 16:16

Oh yeah.

Nathanael Rabbitt 16:17

I feel like it melts my skin off sometimes when they pour that water on there and that heat wave, it's like it burns.

Tom Jackobs 16:24

Yeah. Like a good steam.

Nathanael Rabbitt 16:25

It's crazy. And they just keep dumping it on there. I'm like, dude, I gotta get out.

Tom Jackobs 16:28

A sweat lodge at that point.

Profit Boundaries and Policies

Nathanael Rabbitt 16:31

Yeah. So I like the infrared saunas, I think they're great. To me, I, in five minutes, I'm already soaked. I'm tripping sweat five minutes.

Tom Jackobs 16:38

That's cool. So how do you balance then making a profit and running the business?'cause you have to still run a business in order to help people. So doing that and being heart-led at the same time.

Nathanael Rabbitt 16:51

It's definitely a dance. That's something that I've had to work a lot on with within myself, is to hold boundaries.

Tom Jackobs 16:57

Yeah.

Nathanael Rabbitt 16:58

With customers and'cause naturally I'm very giving, I'm very understanding and I'm very empathetic and when people come to me and they want an exception for maybe a policy that we have or like a no show fee or something like that, like naturally I'm very empathetic. If you make exceptions for everyone, it does make it challenging to stay open. And at the end of the day, if we aren't open, how many people can we really help? And so in a way you have to look at it like this is, these policies are in place for a reason. And it's not to, it's not to gouge people or because we're stingy or anything like that. It's literally just to protect the schedule, protect the business so that we can stay open and continue to carry out our mission. But yeah, to be a heart-led business, I think is to continue listening to customers and hearing them out. I think that I do my best to, to still give grace when I can or when I feel as though it's appropriate. But then there are times when I have to hold the boundary. And so that's definitely something that was harder early on. When I was relatively, you can be a great personal trainer and not know a lot about business and, but then as I get into this son and cold plunge, it was like, just developing more and more. And I knew nothing when I started. Like I didn't know a thing. And so as things developed and my experiences continued to grow and my business knowledge continued to grow, I learned that I had to have those boundaries. Otherwise, people will just walk all over you.'Cause they, a lot of people don't always really understand we're a small business. We're not Walmart, we're not Amazon, we're really not. It's me and my wife and this is how we put food on the table. And yeah, it's definitely been challenging. However, I'm really proud of myself because I have, I've grown a lot in setting healthy boundaries and still being able to communicate respectfully and give grace when I can.

Grace vs Refund Requests

Tom Jackobs 19:00

Nice. Now, do you have any stories of certain situations where you had to make a choice between, the profit or being heart-led and how you reconciled that within your own brain?

Nathanael Rabbitt 19:14

Yeah, I think that there was an instance or there was instances where we've got like different options that people can purchase, right? We offer memberships and so we typically offer, or we have a 30 day notice for cancellation. So our memberships are just month to month. And then for cancellation, just a 30 day notice to terminate that. And so I always said to myself, if someone comes to me and it's like right before billing and they say, Hey, listen, something happened, like I really cannot pay this next month, or what have you. I've always, said to myself like, I would give grace to those people. However, if sometimes people will forget that they're, on a membership, and so the billing will go through and they'll reach out and say, Hey, can I have a refund? And it's I'm like, listen to put it plainly, and I wouldn't necessarily say this to the customer, but it's not my fault that you forgot You signed up for a membership renews. That's what it does. I said, I'll waive, the next 30 day notice or whatever, I won't be billed again. So I was getting that quite a few times, but then there was finally, but I would tell myself, if someone came to me and sometimes people would get nasty and it's that's not helping. And it doesn't make me want to, help out more. But no, there was finally had an instance, and this is, like I said towards the beginning when we opened, but there was finally an instance where someone came to me and was like, Hey, listen, like I understand you have these policies, but something happened and I'm really struggling. I know my renewal is supposed to go tomorrow and I didn't do the 30 day notice, but would you please be able to help me out and waive that? And so that finally happened and I was like, it just felt good, to know that the things that I had said that I was willing to do for people, I finally got the opportunity to do that in the right circumstance.

Tom Jackobs 21:02

Yeah. That's great. And I think that is, typical heart-led business is finding that balance. Because a lot of us are empathetic. We're givers and we wanna help people and do all that, and unfortunately there's people that take advantage of that. But at the same time it's, you have to learn that give and take. And that takes a skill and a mindset and time to go through and get different situations and go, okay, how would I handle this? And all that's, yeah it's a hard balance for sure.

Nathanael Rabbitt 21:32

Yeah. And each one really is different. People's answers are different. I always hear people out. Like I said, if it's just oh, I forgot. If we did that for everyone who forgot, we would, we were closed.

Tom Jackobs 21:44

Yeah. And on the flip side, if you forgot to write down somebody's appointment, oh my gosh. The end of the world at that point, right?

Nathanael Rabbitt 21:50

And I always, I always compensate if something ever falls short on our end. There have been times where there's like some issue with the sauna. They come in for their session, the sauna's like off, it's not on or something like that. I always compensate. I'll usually give a refund plus two additional sessions, and I try to be more than fair.'Cause I wanna show people that we care because we do care.

Where to Find Them

Tom Jackobs 22:12

Yeah. That's awesome. That's the right way of doing business too. And that's what's going to grow it. So Nathanael, tell us how can people learn more about, your business and potentially coming for a sauna in a cold plunge?

Nathanael Rabbitt 22:26

Yeah, absolutely. The best way to find us is at our website at consciousbodyrecovery.com. You can book your session on there. We do offer 50% off on the first session. That information is gonna be posted pretty much right on the first page. We try to get that out to everybody. So there is a promo code for that. It's 50 off, it's five zero OFF to get half off on your first session. We're also on Instagram. Really all the social media platforms. Instagram handle is conscious_body_recovery. I think it's the same for TikTok.

Tom Jackobs 23:02

Okay.

Nathanael Rabbitt 23:02

Facebook, you just type in conscious body recovery and yeah, we're also on YouTube. But yeah social media is gonna be a great way, our website is a great way as well.

Tom Jackobs 23:13

And it's where in San Diego?

Nathanael Rabbitt 23:14

So we are in Point Loma.

Tom Jackobs 23:18

Oh, okay.

Nathanael Rabbitt 23:18

Point Loma, like Midway District right off of Sports Serena Boulevard. And then we also have, we've got a second location, which we didn't really talk much about today, but we opened our second location back in June of 2025. And that's up in Temecula up there in wine country. It really is Marietta, but we just say Temecula because it's people recognize Temecula more than Marietta. But but yeah, we've got a second location. We use the same website for both locations. So it's gonna be the same landing page. When you go to book a session, you'll be able to choose which location you wanna book at.

Tom Jackobs 23:47

And both of'em have cold plunges right now.

Nathanael Rabbitt 23:50

That's right. Yeah. But, yep. Yeah. There we fixed that. Yeah, we learned that one. Yep. Both same setup, plunge, shower, fresh towels in every session, and fully private. So people you're gonna have the room all to yourself every session.

Closing Thanks, and Signoff

Tom Jackobs 24:05

Oh, nice. Very cool. Well Nathanael, thank you so much for being on the show today and sharing your journey and how you've created that your heart-led business. So thank you so much for sharing that.

Nathanael Rabbitt 24:15

You're very welcome, Tom. Thank you so much for having me on. And thank you for sending me your book as well. I haven't read it yet. I'll be honest. I have not read the book you sent me, but thank you for sending me that. This was super fun. Really appreciate what you're doing. In the community and online.

Tom Jackobs 24:31

Thanks again and best of luck with the rest of your business.

Nathanael Rabbitt 24:35

Awesome. Thank you so much, Tom.

Tom Jackobs 24:36

And thank you listeners for watching the show today. We really do appreciate it. Make sure you're checking out everything that Nathanael's doing, and we're gonna put all of those links down in the show notes along with that coupon code so you can get that 50% off the first visit if you decide to go to San Diego and get a good sauna and cold plunge in there. And also, while you're down there in the show notes, if there's a little review button, I'd really appreciate it if you could give us a rating and review. Just helps spread the word about the Heart-Led Business Show and helps other people that might be struggling with their business gets a little bit of advice and encouragement to continue on. And until next time, lead with your heart.

Speaker 2 25:15

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.