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

Welcome back to the Heart-Led Business Show. Today we're diving into the dynamic world of Ryan Golec. A powerhouse personal trainer and strength coach who's been sculpting bodies and hearts in Reno, Nevada for over 25 years from transforming his own journey as a high school teen into a thriving business. Ryan is on a mission to help clients move better and live pain free, all while mentoring the next generation of trainers. Plus he's a passionate advocate for our four-legged friends, and we can see one right there to do if you're watching on YouTube. So get ready as we explore Ryan's heart driven approach to fitness and entrepreneurship. Ryan, welcome to the show.

Ryan Golec 1:18

Thanks Tom. Appreciate you having me.

Heart Led Fitness

Tom Jackobs 1:20

I'm really excited to, chat with you'cause I obviously came out of the fitness industry myself, and I'll always love to connect with other fitness folks, but I'm really intrigued by how you are mentoring the next, generation of personal trainers. So I think that's gonna be a really good part of the conversation and how you balance that and making a profit. So, but of course the first question I always like to ask is, what's your definition of a heart-led business?

Ryan Golec 1:49

I think the important thing we have to address in, especially in the customer service world, is if we're not looking at the individuals we're working with, then we're doing a disservice to whatever our product is. And in the fitness world, it's very easy to get caught up. And I especially still fall victim to this, where I get caught up so much in what I'm presenting as a product, as fitness. Someone's here, they're paying me for the strength, they're paying me for the programming, and the more I do this, you would think I would get smarter, but I don't because I see these, people come in and they really, they need to connect. They need to vent, they need to be heard. Sometimes they need advice, and a lot of it is not fitness related. And as much as my goal is to create a product where someone moves better, feels better, lives better, that's interconnected through our entire neurologic system and for us to not address somebody personally through compassion and love and understanding, then we're only looking at half of the picture of what wellness is. So when I look at the definition of that, I need to see that you care about the individual by more than just what your product is. And within the scope of that, now you have a business that people want to come back to.'cause no matter how much someone dislikes a workout or dislikes that environment, they're gonna return if they feel like it's a safe space for them. If it's a space where they can unload some of the stress and the traumas of what's going on in their life, just even if it's for an hour. So that's really how I see a heart-led business in my world being done.

Tom Jackobs 3:49

Yeah. Now I love that, definition as well because it's, it's so applicable, especially in personal training and health and wellness. I, I see it all the time, working with a lot of the cash pay doctors that I work with now, and they, the patients, when they come see, them, and they actually get seen and heard for more than five minutes in an exam room. You know, it's, it's shocking to a lot of patients that, you know, this doctor would spend an hour going through their labs or whatever it is that they're doing, and. That's what people want. And that's, I think that's, that's a great definition. And definitely in personal training as well. You need to be half psychotherapist and half personal trainer at the same time.

Origin Story

Ryan Golec 4:31

Exactly. Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 4:34

So tell us how, how did you get into, your personal training business?

Ryan Golec 4:39

So I was young. I was always kind of the on the smaller side when I was in school and my first exposure to strength was when I was in ninth grade and I had been in the band for a long time and it wasn't really a passion of mine and I wasn't really that good anyway. And our zero period was either banned or if I wanted to do weights, that was when it was offered. And although I disappointed my band leader, when I told him I was giving up the trombone because I wanted to go get stronger, it was an important transition for me. And I went into the first day of this strength training class and it was primarily athletes. There's a lot of football players, basketball players, and I was significantly smaller than everybody there. And I was kind of taken under the wing of the strength coach at the time who was, I say strength coach. It was the PE coach that, you know, was in there. But either way, the, it was a very basic, rudimentary setup, but it was good for me because I didn't fit with a lot of the groups that were in there. Everybody was kind of matched up by strength or size. And so the first year I was in there was. Really, encouraging and confidence building because I was directly fed the coaching and the connection with the coach.'cause I was the only person that could be there and spot me or, or make it easier for the transitions. And relative to the size I was, I got a lot stronger in that first year. And the second year I, I grew a little bit and I had gotten a little stronger, so I started to fit in with a couple of the different groups and then it was a different experience and it was kind of the social aspect and the little bit of competitiveness and a little bit of banter that went along with that gym scene. But it made a key point in my mind how strength at the dwell, I should say this, Tom, at the time, I can't say that it made this key point. As I look back, I go, oh, at the time I was like, I'm just getting strong and I'm hanging out with friends and doing this. But when I look back at it now, I realize that there's a big piece of comradery and understanding that goes along with that and seen and as childish and as boyish as it looks from the outside when you're looking at that demographic, it really does have a connection to this inter like strength that you build amongst other people. When I looked at that from a future me looking back, I realized that that was the big turning point for me as I continued my strength journey. Because if I would've just had a solo experience there, I wouldn't have really understood what it was to go to the gym with somebody or have a training partner or know what that really meant to anybody.

Tom Jackobs 7:38

Yeah.

Ryan Golec 7:38

So as I continued into college and occasionally worked out by myself or worked out with friends and just stayed along that line, I got my first fitness training certification. I was a kinesiology major.

Tom Jackobs 7:52

Oh.

Ryan Golec 7:52

I had intentions to go to physical therapy school. And that was still my path, even when I got my fitness certification Came outta school, started working at a local hospital in their outpatient clinic for physical therapy as an assistant. Building experience was gonna apply at the time. It was very competitive, difficult to get into PT school and even harder to get a job when you got out. Now, you get outta school and there's 15 job offers. There's so much need for physical therapy now. So as I did that, what I really got turned away from was the bureaucracy of the hospital setting and the insurances, and there was this piece of me that knew that. This was an afterthought. These, the physical therapy, these were things that were happening after the fact. I'm already injured, I've already had surgery, I've already done this, and I wanted to know if there was a place for me where I could work towards the preventative side of this. So, although I was young and I was, all of my programming still looked very bodybuilderish. My intentions had always been on this improved movement, reduce pain, empower people to kind of get their lives back. So naturally, my demographic tended to cater older as I started to build my business. But I stepped away from the physical therapy idea, put myself fully into personal training. And it took me a while to build up a steady clientele to where I was busy, but I was able to build that over the next few years. And as I've adapted my style and look back and say, Hmm, you know, I wouldn't have done this with handful of people now. I always felt like the, the, the heart-led side of it was there. Like I was always interested in the person and I was always interested in their goals. And I've just, I would like to say gotten better with people and the training has been a secondary side of that because the continuing education side of things is very important to me for both my brain and improving the people I work with. But working the more people you work with and the more voices you hear and the more bodies you have, the easier it is for you to find some of this compassion. So that's what's led me to, as you said, 25 plus years down the road and still being able to do it. And in this industry, if you can make it past five, you can probably make it. Most people get to two, three years and they're grinding and they're not finding that success and it's difficult. So I'm happy to have spent the time to get here and pleased with how I've ended up.

Building The Business

Tom Jackobs 10:48

Yeah, I mean, it's a testament to be in the industry for, like you said, more than five years. I think I heard a statistic that was more like two years, for most personal trainers, once, once they get certified, they last about two years before they, go out. But when, when you started, you didn't work for another, like a big box gym or anything like that. You just went from being a PTA to then, training people at a, were you renting space or how did that the business kind of form?

Ryan Golec 11:15

I did the traditional, path, which if I recommend it to anybody else. That's the best way to go. I was working actually at the physical therapy clinic and in the evenings I started working at a gym that's now gone, but it was Lakeridge Tennis Club at the time and it was a little higher and, and I was taking a handful of clients from the referrals that I was getting just because I was only there a couple hours a night, and I stayed there for another two years after I left the, physical therapy clinic and the environment for me wasn't spectacular. It wasn't, the gym was good that, you know, I mean, you know how the box gyms work. There's some demo, there's some dynamic in there that usually isn't comfortable. But Yeah I spent a total of three and a half years there. And honestly, I walked out of that gym and then moved into a, one of the only private training facilities in the area at the time with five clients. And I was young. I still wanted to adventure, and I ended up like taking a month off, five weeks off. Not much after that and went and traveled Europe with a buddy of mine that graduated from college. And I came back and that's part of what took me so long is that I really did not come with a book. I stepped out and I had a handful of people and I was reliant on a couple referrals here and there. And then the gym, the four trainers I was working with. The owner at the time was able to feed me a little bit here and there. And there was no social media. There was no, you know, if I really wanted to do it, there was mass marketing, so occasional walk-ins. It took me the better part of five years before I was make where I felt like I was making a living. And to, to your point with the two year window, I easily could have stopped at two years. I mean, I had very, I lived with two roommates and I had very low expenses and I figured it out. But in today's economy and with online presence, two years is honestly probably generous for a lot of people. It's challenging.

Tom Jackobs 13:29

Yeah.

Ryan Golec 13:30

But I did end up in the private training sector and I indirectly, I did go back to a big box gym after I left that I went in as an independent contractor, but it was more for the space. I did get a handful of referrals if I needed them from there, but I went in with a pretty full training book and it was a mutual agreement where my people joined the gym for their monthly, and then I only paid a nominal fee to the gym monthly. And that was good for a while until the same type of stuff happened. And then I ended up with, working with the, the man that owns the gym I'm at now, and we've worked very closely together to expand this gym. We're now in our fourth facility. He started in a spot that was about 900 feet. We, we moved together into a spot that was about 1600 feet. Our last space was, just under 5,000, and the one we've just moved into now is, almost eight. So it's been, it's been a pretty exciting adventure to see the growth of the facility and the business and keep doing what I love doing.

Tom Jackobs 14:46

Yeah, that, that's awesome. And is it just one location or, or do you still have multiple locations?

Ryan Golec 14:51

No, we have, we have one primary location. We have a entire physical therapy group that's on site as well. So we have about 11 trainers and seven physical therapists

Tom Jackobs 15:02

Oh, wow.

Ryan Golec 15:03

work with a handful of anything. I mean, our entire facility caters to young, young kids, athletes, you know, standard gym goers. And then, actually pretty high demographic of baby boomers.

Tom Jackobs 15:17

Okay. Yeah, that's good. That's a great demographic as well because they, they definitely, one, they have the disposable income, but they also have the desire to stay active and stay mobile

Ryan Golec 15:29

Their goals are reasonable. And when I was, you know, I'm, I'm older too, right? So when I was in my twenties, of course you wanted whatever your other trainer wanted, you wanted these young bodies that wanted to get really strong and fit and do their thing and said, some of them were, oh, well I can't really afford that this month. Or, I don't want to do this when I'm not gonna do the cardio, or I'm not gonna do, and I got really, really tired of, I felt like I was more somebody's mom than I was their trainer. Like I'm constantly on'em about what are you doing on your own? And I still have to do that a little bit, but I said in the older demographic, it's really about moving better and being able to maintain some semblance of what they used to do. I have a guy who's 77 still playing tennis. I have a 90-year-old that's still golfing, and you really see that some people they don't want to give up on life. They don't want to be the couch surfing and be like, I retired and I'm doing this. You see the deterioration of people so fast and even the people that I don't have that are active sports or athletic people still want to keep that, still want to go camping or you know, they want to go travel, whatever it is. They want to be able to keep moving or they think they need to. You know, I get the couple people who are like, well, I wouldn't come here, but I know I need to. And I go, well then that's probably true. Yeah, that demographic has, has always been one of my favorites because you just see, you give people back a life oftentimes that they thought they might not get. and the younger it's, we all take it for granted when we're younger and every year is another ache or a pain. And you help people understand that. it's not about being pain-free as much as it's like, all right, well, let's move through this range of motion comfortably, and let's accept that every once in a while you're gonna wake up and you're gonna have a stiff back or a stiff neck. But that's just the general physiology of a human being as we age. But can we get up? Can we move? Can we sit down? Can we stand up? Can we get off the floor? It's a pretty amazing thing to see somebody that just comes in and goes, oh my God, I, I did that and I didn't think I could do it. I feel like that's more rewarding. It's someone's like, oh, I bench pressed 300 pounds. That's cool, but where does that get you at the end of the day? But if someone can push themselves off the ground, all of a sudden they're like, oh, Wow. I stood up, which seems so nominal and silly to everyone else, but when you see it over and over again when people can't do that. Now it's getting up off the grounds of one of my standard assessments. I have someone to come in and be like, all right, lay on your back and show me how you get up.

Tom Jackobs 18:19

Wow.

Ryan Golec 18:19

And I mean, there's a couple people that will look at me and be like, well, I can't do that. But even the people that do like the, the way that they have to manipulate themselves and the ground to be able to get off is you go, okay, we take this for granted. This is a general task and a need.

Tom Jackobs 18:36

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I always had clients that, the older clients that I had, it was like, yeah, I have one goal that nobody else needs to help me get off the toilet. I wanna do it all by myself.

Ryan Golec 18:46

I had the same client. I had a client said, I need to get off the toilet at 90, and he was about 67. And I go, okay.

Tom Jackobs 18:54

Oh, wow.

Ryan Golec 18:54

I go, all right, that's what We're doing

Tom Jackobs 18:58

We're doing squats today.

Ryan Golec 18:59

Mm-hmm.

Pricing With Integrity

Tom Jackobs 19:00

Every day. So let's shift gears a little bit into the business side. How you balance making a profit in, in the business and still being heart-led? Yeah.

Ryan Golec 19:13

This is, this has been a struggle for me for a long time. I appreciate loyalty as I think anybody should in this type of business because I look at personal training and massage and I dunno, maybe acupuncture, even doctors, you know, even your concierge doctors or your concierge level physical therapists, like you're relying on people to consistently come to you for a long time to maintain your, your business. And I appreciated that for a long time. But the truth is, if you look at in 25 years, what something cost 25 years ago and what it costs now is a pretty big skewed line. And my people that I've had, and I have a lot of long-term people. I have 10 to 15 people that I've had 10 years plus. I have one client I've had for 22 years. Of those people up until about two years ago, I had raised their rate one time, and then I started seeing the skewed line between what people were, the rate I was having people come in at, like if they started today and where I had these other people. And my biggest fear was to lose the people that were consistent because I looked at my business and said I'm reliant on them. Like someone comes in and trains with me for six months at the new rate and they're like, oh, you know, I can't, or it's not worth it, or whatever it is, I lose that person. The person I've had forever has been there and will stay. But I had, and I've had to have that conversation with myself several times before. I eventually did raise it and I go, if people are loyal and they appreciate you, they're gonna appreciate you at what your value should be, and my value needs to be at what my lifestyle needs to sustain in today's economy. So I made a pretty nominal bump the first time. That was about two years ago, and then this year I also made a little bump, and for the most part, I don't get a lot of kickback. I have a couple very frugal people. They're like, well, and I just try to have the conversation if I need to, where I say, listen, what does it cost you to get a banana today versus what it cost you to get a banana four years ago? I said, it's not about me trying to gouge. The people that I'm with, it's about me trying to make my business match exactly what everything else is going. And I understand that just like when I go to the store or I go to a business, everything's higher. So when I ask someone for more money, they're like, something else that's higher. But that's the nature of the economy. And it would be cool if it wasn't, but I have to match my output and I have to match where the world is going. And at some point, I'm almost 50, and at some point I'm not gonna want to grind out, you know, eight or nine straight hours of clients for five days. I'm gonna want to scale that back, and for me to scale it back, the numbers have to match. And so every year I slowly raise up my rates on incoming people. And then I just try to keep the real consistent people I have at a discounted rate relative, but something that consistently makes me feel like I'm getting my value when I'm with them. And I'm not cheating the people that are also with me, that are paying a sig, you know, a fairly significant amount more. And when I started doing that with the minimal amount of kickback, I got more comfortable with it. And also having a community of trainers that I work with that are also in the industry a long time and having the same struggles. We've all kind of talked to each other and be like, well, this is, this is something we need to do. This is something we need to consistently do. And when you price somebody out, you can make the decision, is this somebody that I really care about, that cares about being here, that cares about the results, and I'm willing to make the adjustment for this person? Or is this someone that can get as much out of what I'm giving them somewhere else where they feel that they can get a better rate? I don't wanna say it's, it's selfish, but you look at, I have a couple people or have clients, my colleagues that look at their clients, they say, oh, I'm gonna have someone that's gonna argue over me bumping their hourly$5. And they roll in, in their, you know, their brand new BMW, that they just pulled off the lot and they just came back from, you know, two weeks in Italy. I'm like, well, you know, it's a lot of times it's prioritization just like we all have. If this is important to you and you feel like the benefits are life changing, at the end of the day, you are gonna value it. And if it's more valuable that you travel or save money for your, save more money for your children, or you want a new car, then that's where the priority's gonna lie. And I wish you luck and I hope that you find a place that you get the results you want at the price point you want. My important thing is, if you value me, I value you. And the more that people just go, great, I mean, I also have the people that are like, why are you only raising it$5? I'm like,

Tom Jackobs 24:28

Exactly. I was, I was actually gonna ask you that. If you had clients that said, well, it's about time, Ryan, that you raise the rates. Like, like, but only$5.

Ryan Golec 24:36

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 24:36

You know,

Mentoring And Value

Mentoring And Value

Ryan Golec 24:37

Or I've had one, yeah, I had one client. It's like, just raise me to whatever your current rate is. I was like, great. Spectacular. And actually had, yeah, yeah. Alright, if you say so I did, this was probably 10 plus years ago. I had a former golf pro that I was working with and he was the first person to look at me and go. I'm not gonna pay you this. He goes, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pay you like, I think at the time my private rate was 60 bucks an hour and he goes, I'm not gonna pay this. I'm gonna pay you$75. And I was like, Oh okay. I'm like, cool, that sounds great. But it was the first time when I really felt like somebody looked at me and goes, you're undervaluing what you do. And if you don't feel in the business world, if you don't feel like you have value or a certain value, then it's gonna, it's gonna bleed out to the person you're working with. They're, they're gonna look at you and be like, well, that's what he's charging me. So that's the service I'm getting. And when I, when you talked about mentoring. And I have some of these, a lot of'em are coming in, maybe in a potential employment in the facility we're in. But when I talk to people there's a weird disconnect in the youth of this market today where they really come in with zero experience with this over visioned idea of what their value is and I had a young guy who had got a three day training certification and hadn't trained one person. He was 22. He goes, well, you know, I'm at work. I'm not gonna really start before eight or nine. I like to, you know, I like to sleep and get rest and get started in the morning. I think I have to charge about 125 an hour and I go, okay, there are people out there charging that. I said, why, you know what? What are you bringing to the table at$125 an hour? And if you can't give me an answer, then you can't charge$125 an hour, even if you fake it because you're not there, and therein is the disconnect to the heart-led side, right? I'm just charging a big amount of money because I think that's what I need to be charging. Or even what you're providing them. Like if I've got tens and 20 thousands of dollars into different continuing add things throughout my career and I did my master's later in life and I, you know, I've done mentorships and long certifications. I've done everything to try to bring whatever I can to improve the people that I work with and to say that I can walk out the gate and be like, well, this is my rate. It feels disconnected to me. I want to know that that person knows they're getting the value. And so when you look at it, when someone looks at me and says, that's awesome, I'm happy to pay it. That makes me feel like I'm in the right spot when I have someone else that goes, Yeah, I don't know. I go, I, I totally understand. I'm, I'm not offended. If you need to leave, but I'm not gonna make you a special rate because you don't know if you, if it's worth the value, because I want you to see the value in it.

Tom Jackobs 27:48

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's the, the whole crux of any business and especially heart-led businesses where I think a lot of business owners struggle with showing the value and, you know doubting, own horn, so to speak, in terms of, promoting themselves in terms of they, they, that they deserve that amount of, that, that rate that they want to charge. And they undervalue themselves too much because they don't really look at the value that they're providing to their, to their ultimate client. It's an interesting dynamic for sure.

Ryan Golec 28:24

In our economy, there isn't a standard, right? Like with medical care, there's a standard, either it's dictated by what insurance payouts are. So when you're talking about concierge doctors that you work with, they're paying a certain, they're charging a certain amount because that's what other people are charging or relative in that window. Massage, when you're looking around town, there's gonna be a skewed amount, but if you have, you know, your rolfing style body workers or people that have a very specific style, there's a, there's a rate, and the fitness world is so skewed by what the product is. That It's really hard to know by, you can see it a little bit by region, but if I have a really experienced one-on-one trainer that's gonna charge X and then the box gym is charging Y and then the group instructors are charging, you know, Z, and those numbers look so different that when someone doesn't know any better, they're gonna walk in and be like, oh my gosh, no. And the other part of it too is to take yourself outta the equation, because I'm not, you know, I'm not coming from a financial background of whatever you're charging. I'm paying, like, I look and go, if I was paying for it, what could I, what could I reasonably afford? What would the value be to me? And I have to take myself out of that equation because I'm not. I charge myself zero to train myself.

Tom Jackobs 29:51

Right, exactly. Well, and I told, my employees at the, fitness centers, like, well, you know, I wouldn't pay this because I don't need it.

Ryan Golec 30:00

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs 30:00

But our clients need it and we provide a great value. And that's why the price is the price. Yeah.

Ryan Golec 30:06

Right, So I think it's, it's really understanding that the value of your service is more than the value of what you would pay personally. But

Tom Jackobs 30:15

Yes.

Ryan Golec 30:16

when you're looking at who you're working with, there is always gonna be an exception of someone that's like, this person really needs what I'm providing and I would like to help them out. Like, that's an understandable thing. But if you are just sitting there going, I, I can't charge that much, I'm gonna lose people. That's an undervalue of who you are. So I'm happy to put myself into scenarios where someone, I'm gonna help somebody out if they need it, if I really think that they value what I'm doing and they're getting a lot out of it, but when it comes down to it, the business still has to be the business, and I need to provide something that when I go home, I'm paying my bills, I'm taking care of my family, I am taking care of my needs, and I'm giving myself an opportunity to not have to do this until I'm 90 years old.

Where To Find Ryan

Tom Jackobs 31:07

Exactly. Yeah. So, such, such good advice. And I know a lot of heart-led business owners, whether they're in the personal training space or the medical space, really do struggle with that value. So thank you so much for, for sharing that, that piece. With the audience, how can people learn more about you and your facility and the training that you do?

Ryan Golec 31:32

You can find me on instagram, which I am not a spectacular poster, but I've got a handful of content on there. And that is, movement, M-O-V-E-M-E-N-T, mechanx, M-E-C-H-A-N-X. I don't even know how to spell my own, my own handle. And then, I work out of a facility called performanceEDU. And you can find that at performanceedufitness.com.

Tom Jackobs 32:04

All right. Cool. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing your wisdom and your, you know, 25 years in the fitness industry that that's, really quite the accomplishment. So congrats on that as well. And thank you for sharing your, your wisdom with us.

Ryan Golec 32:19

Alright, thanks Tom. Hey, I've had a great time. I appreciate it.

Final Thanks And Outro

Tom Jackobs 32:22

No worries. And thank you listeners for listening to the show or watching the show today. We really do appreciate it. So make sure you're checking out everything that Ryan is doing. We're gonna put all those links down in the show notes, so make sure you're checking that out. And also, while you're down there, if you could share the show with a friend or family member that could use this advice today, that would certainly help spread the word that heart-led businesses can make a profit and still be heart-led. So until next time, lead with your heart.

Speaker 2 32:52

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.