Martin Rooney is a man that needs little introduction in the world of fitness.
Martin is the founder of Training For Warriors. An internationally recognized trainer, speaker, author, and pioneer of strength and conditioning.
Success leaves clues and in this episode, Martin doesn’t hold anything back!
In this episode, we chat about:
- The future of fitness and what it means for boutique and independent gym owners.
- Why Martin thinks some fit pros shouldn’t become entrepreneurs (and what you should do instead).
- The biggest mistake Martin has ever made in business.
And much, much more!
If you want to learn how one of the world’s most successful fit pros got to where they are (and how you can apply the same principles), this is the episode for you!
Need help simplifying and systemizing your follow-up throughout the customer journey? That’s exactly what we help you do with Naamly! Get started with your FREE trial today and instantly experience amplified efficiency!
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Watch The Full Episode
Sumit: So, hello, everybody. Welcome to a special edition of just one thing. In today’s session, we have none other than Martin Rooney as our guests, Martin really needs no introduction. The founder of training for warriors, which added speak I understand had over 500 locations across 30 odd countries. Um, an internationally recognized trainer, speaker, author, and culture coach.
He’s really one of the few individuals that I know the most energized individual I personally know of that genuinely built something from scratch by chasing what he loves. So Martin welcome a big, big, welcome. And Tom, thank you again for being here. So let’s just dive right in.
Thomas Plummer: Well, Martin, I’m going to start this.
And everybody knows us, knows that if you and I just start talking, this could go on for days. So, but it’s, it’s all about you, dude. So here, you know what? I want to go down a path with you, Martin and people that you have such a strong visual people know you. You know, they know a little bit about your history, Olympic level athlete, they know your martial arts history, but they, I think there’s stuff that’s really important, especially back in the old days that we need to, I there’s things I’d like for you to talk about that people don’t know you about.
So the first thing. Uh, and you and I were laughing before I met you. When I think you were 12 years old,
Martin Rooney: it feels like,
Thomas Plummer: you know, you are that clean cut buzz, cut PT guy, working with bill Theresa back in the day. And I’m like, oh my God, is that where you like 25, 27 years old back then. But the thing that struck me back then, uh, was that you were already.
Uh, visionary. You’re already starting to see things that other people had not yet seen. And the one that really, I thought you were ahead of your time on was just the absolutely the application of sports performance. To, to children where you were, I mean, you were, I mean, I, I remember going through what you guys, when you have that thing really rocking, there’d be groups of 12 out there with young, be like 5, 5, 6 coaches, learning groups of these kids.
It’s like, nobody was doing that. So tell me about that, man. Whoa, where did that start? Where did that come? Yeah,
Martin Rooney: well, Hey for everybody listening, uh, and that doesn’t know me, hopefully you’ll get this history today, but yet it’s true, Tom and I met originally and we were talking about this beforehand. I was 27 years old, you know, single guy.
And I was a physical therapist. I had been a collegiate track and field athlete had been on the U S bobsled team. And, uh, I knew though when I was a therapist and this is very important for everybody to hear first I enjoyed therapy. I knew there was something bigger. There was something in my gut telling me, I either could make a bigger impact or I really wasn’t doing what I love.
And I started going. Back then this is the mid to later nineties. There are no, there is no internet really there’s no, you know what stuff is still on VHS to get a book. It was really difficult. And I just started finding courses or things that I could go to. So I spend my weekends. I was spending my money on things I loved and all week long, I was suffering doing something I didn’t love.
And, uh, on one of those courses, uh, I was flying to Tyler, Texas to back then it was called SAQ speed, agility and quickness. And sit next to me is this guy that I had met way longer before, because we’re both track guys named bill Parisi, and I’ll tell you what his, his energy, you know, was infectious. And by the end of that, You know, we ended up like, we weren’t even supposed to be there together.
We ended up rooming together. We become best friends immediately. And by the end of that, I went home. I told my folks I’m quitting therapy and I’m moving into the basement of this guy that I had met through seasoned jet tickets I had, and I was going to be on this adventure. I wanted to, I wanted to somehow be involved with sports and training.
And, and like you said, I saw. That this was going to be something, it was kind of like find a need, fill a need. Sports were big, but no one was training and nobody believed in it. And, uh, and that was my start. And that was the platform that eventually, like you said, I was always looking for, well, what is the, what could be the, either the next thing or what is something else that really interests me.
But I think the biggest part of the story is. Most people, unfortunately spend their time doing something they don’t love to do. They, they spend their time doing something. Everybody said they should do, or, oh, it’s a good job. And I’ll tell you what the best thing I ever did was chase my passions and try to really become great in those areas.
And the world will find you and man, I have not, I will be honest. I have not worked a day since. And when stuff did become really like work again. And I didn’t like it. I shifted again. I’m not going to say pivot. I hate that word, but I would shift towards, I would shift more in the direction towards my passion and that’s kind of led me the.
25 years since he met me. And, uh, I’ll tell you, what’s go back there for
Thomas Plummer: a minute. We got to go back there for a minute and you’re skipping stuff. You’re skipping the schools, the cool stuff, you and priests. They were like jobs in Wazniak. You know, you were mad scientists sitting in the garage, you know, that’s a, and bill could talk anybody into anything in those days, anybody into anything, I can’t believe how he was able to.
Yeah, spread that passion, but dude, the kids you’re you’re ahead of the time with kids, you were ahead of your time with training, martial arts, the only guy even possibly comparable then was Pablo, who would started back with the martial arts about the same time period. And he was like 12 years old, you know?
And then you brought, you brought the, so you brought, there was four or five things that came out of that early days with you. Go to those things. So the
Martin Rooney: story. Yeah. Well, the kids stuff, I think what we did and Hey, for anybody listening, if you call your business sports performance or you have a turf in your facility, or you even do kid training, combine training, MMA training, whenever you want to call it, uh, the birthplace of that.
And again, the Genesis was as a result of bill Parisienne and the platform he created. He really did. He created a platform for me and he let me run because I kept proven myself to him. Well, we had an amazing team of people. It was just this unique time. We had this team of great guys, everybody was passionate and it was almost like every day we were learning something new.
But it’s interesting because the stuff we were building now, I just see it replicated. You know all over and it doesn’t mean that that’s bad. It’s just, we were on this exciting cutting edge where man, I was getting up early, staying up late, reading everything. I could get my hands on what it moved, not just from the performance aspect, but it was the business aspect, the marketing aspect stuff.
People will never see that we were doing mailers to 20,000 people in design designing those. I was designing ads that would go in the newspaper to try to drive people in. It was. It was just this exciting, incredible time, but we were also working our tails off, like you said, we were doing non-stop sessions all day long, building this stuff, cashing out at night and, uh, man it, and then remember to, Hey, there was the franchise aspect and how that spread and how it grew across the country.
And these were all incredible experiences. But again,
Thomas Plummer: I don’t want, you guys don’t know that you were in the mainstream health club business, that you were actually. Kind of Bill’s general manager for a while. So you kind of came out of when he had the clubs, you were kind of running the training, you were running the clubs, you were, you were it.
Again, though, all stuff goes to bill where this was just this opportunity to learn about all different areas, you know? And I think man, uh, like anything else, uh, you rise to the level of, uh, what you’re able to do or you’re incompetent. So it was all there and we just kept growing it.
But again, it all goes back to bill that if he’s not there the visionary and remember the other stuff, people don’t see that, you know, and you were there. There was never afraid to always bring people in and get better. And probably Bill’s greatest strength I say is, uh, his ability to see something in his body, as well as, uh, take risks.
And man, what I always say is what differs between, I guess bill and myself, where I wish I had a little more of what he has is man. He is not afraid of. Big big risks. And, uh, and because he did that, it always gave me the confidence to stay by him and go. But yeah, he took incredible risks and just GC in that, you know, the multimillion dollar facilities and the stuff that he did, it’s almost unreal.
Uh, you know, that people will have no idea cause you know, he’s now, you know, he’s the speed guy again, he’s got a new book coming out. We talk all the time and I couldn’t be more excited, but nobody sees. No one will ever see this stuff, the real stuff behind the scenes and the stress that he was under. It was, uh, you know, about it.
But man, uh, you know, for the stuff that he did and for our industry, someday there better be a big award for, uh,
Thomas Plummer: Hey, we’ll get takes, take all that history. Take, take all this stuff that you guys were so right about in those days. And projected ahead and tell me where I’m looking at sports performance.
Now it’s almost like. When you guys kind of took off, it was, it was really peaking. There was velocity. They tried to get in the game and those units, Paul prey there, and those units were so big and they, they, they stumbled and then it just it’s, it’s almost like you guys were 20 years too early with that, but now it seems like it’s.
No, it’s back. It’s almost like it just started today. It’s really hard to describe it, but it was, uh, people don’t understand in the nineties how right. You guys were, it was course performance, but it’s kind of got lost and now it’s back. So what’s your take on that? What’s the future. As
Martin Rooney: far as performance goes, they haven’t been in it the whole time.
Cause you know, still I’m here in Charlotte, North Carolina now, and we have a police and a training for warriors. The, in the facility here in Charlotte. And, uh, so I can’t say it ever went away, but what I would say is, I think there was a time when, what you’re almost describing as everybody tried to go a little too big, right?
Like, so whether you want to use the velocities of the world, they did know. They had the dog and pony show. They sold a lot of these giant facilities, but there wasn’t really a business model that accurately work behind it. So it didn’t mean that sports performance wasn’t valuable and couldn’t be a business.
But I think what we discovered as it should. Be connected to two other businesses or revenue streams, as well as man. You don’t need to do the gigantic gigantic facility. So sports performance, if you look around and it’s just on fields, it’s out in the parks, it’s in small places, dedicated spaces inside of facilities.
And I don’t think that went away. Uh, but what I would say. It went so big, so fast and people were throwing money at it that I think it had to establish itself as, you know, what it is and what it can generate in the end.
Thomas Plummer: I think I got tarnished a little. So another weird question, and I won’t use the word pivot, but uh, another, another word question.
You’re you’re all over the world then. You’re you’re you travel as much and probably more than most anybody does. So, uh, I’m looking at the training. In some ways that’s some of that’s almost stagnant. It’s reinventing itself. Forget. So if you, if you could put your visionary hat back on, give us like a tenured look of where training’s going for, not just athletes, but for adults, for children.
Where’s the, where’s the path that training. How do you see this progressing? You got a trainers coming in now they’re 26 years old. They’re overly credentialed. They’re under experience. And they’re all, you know, every business card they have is master trainer on it. The guy’s got 18 months of experience, but there’s a whole generation of people that think through there, but then training, it’s almost like it’s, it’s struggling a little, it’s like, it needs to be reinvented.
What’s your vision of the next 10 years now? Where’s this.
Martin Rooney: Hmm. Well, that’s a great question. And here’s, I guess what I would say, even taking a step back there, cause you talked about the trainers and the coaches. I think, uh, you know, maybe we talk about, Hey, where not to go and Hey, through my experience and what I’ve seen, having helped so many people in the industry and seen so many businesses, I think maybe the most important thing for anybody listening that they can ask themselves.
And this is important. Do you really want to own a business or are you see, I used that word with bill before. Bill is an entrepreneur. Bill should own businesses. Bill should be involved in businesses. Whereas most people I meet should. And unfortunately, if we look at the life cycle of. Trainers, if you will, or coaches in this business, it’s they work at a gym, whether it’s a big box or somebody else’s vision, they move up the chain.
They’re there long enough until they start saying, Hey, I’m making all this money for this guy. I need to do it myself. They try to take some people with them, scrape some money together from their uncle or some, uh, you know, wealthy client that they have. And then they dig in and then they realize. They’re not a great leader.
They realize they don’t really understand business. And then they use this word I’m grinding, right. I’m grinding. And then they grind for a few years and then eventually they disappear and they either become a cop or a teacher or a fireman. And if I meant for how many times I saw that happen in this industry, it’s unfortunate because the real thing that person should have been doing was working in a great business coach and helping people.
And they probably maybe would have made more. Right. And so ultimately, I’m challenging the people to listen before you worry where the industry is going, where do you really want to go? Because I think what we create in our industry, it was, if you didn’t own a business or have your own logos or some name with extreme on it, you’re not real.
And that’s not true, right? Like it’s, it’s really, Hey, first off, we’ve got to level out where we should be. But I definitely think, man, especially in particular with COVID, there’s going to be. Opportunity or space available. And that could be dangerous if people are jumping into it, they don’t know what they really want to do, but I think, uh, the smaller, uh, boutique spaces can and will continue to be incredibly successful, but as I’m presenting on now, but that means you’ve got to have.
More better services, better relationships, and you can have a great business. And, but in order to sustain that over the long-term, you’ve got to continue to do the work. And unfortunately, a lot of times people don’t want to do that. And again, I got a lot of ideas, but what here’s, another one is, uh, this business and I’ll give this very frankly, for everybody, this business.
It’s a tough business, but this is a business you have to work. This is not a business where you take pictures with your feet up in the sand and you think you have a gym and it runs by itself. Uh, as soon as you try to aspire to something like that, that’s the minute it’s probably going to be quickly going away.
So I do believe the future is, Hey, it’s. It’s somebody that’s super passionate. They’ve got a handful of team behind them that will eventually cycle through and go away. And you got to be a good leader with that. But if you still have the vision to help people, whether it’s kids, adults, whatever, man, there will always be a market for that.
But you got to deliberate, incredible service. And you and I have talked about these things before, too, you know, like as the boutique space, if you will entered in it’s, you know, I would say some of them are probably very challenged by COVID right now, if they had big spaces and commercial spots and they’ve been shut down.
But, uh, but when the world where you opens back up, there’s going to be a need for that. No, now we lost
Thomas Plummer: 30% of all the gyms in the country last year. Um, everybody looks at the big chains as getting devastated, which they were, but you drive through most neighborhoods and you see an empty bar studio, an empty yoga studio, empty martial arts trainer guy.
But what you said, there was very powerful Martin. I was talking to a guy yesterday and he’s been in business for a while and he’s got about, uh, right around 5 5500 square feet. He’s in California. And I was like, I spent the whole hour on his consulting call trying to talk about it. I was like, no, man, you need a clubhouse.
You need it like 1200 feet. You need to train clients and go home because you can’t manage. You’re not a good manager. He didn’t want to learn marketing. He hired a bunch of people. He’s one of the nicest guys and he’s, he’s a good coach. He really does the right thing, but he just he’s, he can’t, he’s not a commercial business guy.
Sometimes the answer is. Uh, I don’t think that we used to talk about the 20, 60, 20 rule, you know, 20%. If I look at a hundred trainers, gyms, 20 of them are exceptional gyms. They’re the top of the class. No, uh, bill, it would be Frank Nash guys like that, that just kill it. The middle, they buy themselves jobs.
They’re really nice people that they make 60 grand a year. And they’re thrilled. And the bottom 20% as you guys found out when you first did the franchise was, uh, they shouldn’t. They shouldn’t get out of their mom’s basement ever. They should be sitting down there smoking pot and eating brownies and hiding because they, they, these guys can’t not run a gym.
So, no, that was very good.
Martin Rooney: I don’t sugar coat it for us, Tom, but ultimately for everybody listening, we’re doing everybody a favor is it’s really? Yeah. You’re asking the bigger questions that guy you talked about with the five places. Well, why do you want five places? Because. Because then that is it ego you’re fueling like, oh wow.
Now I have five places or wouldn’t it be better to have one really successful one that like everybody loved. And, and I think that is, but there are people that do need to do more and can super succeed, but it goes back to who that person is. And again, understanding and understanding the real why, and because.
To be honest. And why I say all these things for everybody listening is not to identify, oh, this person shouldn’t do it. I’m saying this because every time a gym goes out of business or a person loses their passion, there’s somebody, they can’t help. And still at the base of like what I do, whether it was get a kid faster, whether it was help somebody lose a hundred pounds, that we can never lose sight.
That that’s the big. That’s the big reward at the end that if you do it right, you’re going to make money too, but never lose sight of, you know, why you’re doing it. And maybe it also takes having a few jobs you hate first to get into it. So somebody that only gets into fitness probably says, oh, fitness sucks.
Whereas I had a lot of jobs. I didn’t like first, so I’ll never forget, like, man, I got the coolest job in the. I remember
Thomas Plummer: I, uh, weird story. Remember that Italian restaurant, that bill, when I used to come and visit you guys, he used to take us to, and we’d sit in there and have a few beers and eat really too much food.
And I remember yelling at bill that night just cause he just, he wore my ass out that day. He probably threw 30 ideas on the table. And then of course
Martin Rooney: he knows that.
Thomas Plummer: When you were on fire that night, it’s like, okay, we can do this. And it’s like, I’m like, guys, just pick one. What the hell do you guys want?
Just pick one, just one. We can’t do all 30 of these things. And bill was wound up there. We had notes all over the table, drinking some beers and it’s just, bill was like know, and he was just, I’m just like, dude, you’re going to kill me here, man. But it’s a guy. Sort through that your point is very valid.
Most people can’t, they can’t sort through that, that they don’t know what they want. If I, if I had to say there’s one thing important, and I think that’s what separated your career. I think that’s what you’ve done. So brilliantly is, and I look at a lot of other coaches, they don’t know. What they want.
They don’t know what they’re trying to get done. There is no expected outcome. And I think you’ve done that. Well, you, you have managed to shift when you needed to shift the term. I wanted you to talk about this reinvention. Talk about that term, man, because you’ve done that as well. And a lot of guys we know, I mean, you’re, you’re obviously you’re a close friend with all the gurus and Boyle and grey and Lee and all these guys, but there’s all these guys seem to have a.
Where they get down certain run and then they’re willing to reinvent themselves and they’re willing to change. And the guys that don’t, uh, you know, we, how many of those guys would be be, you know, VHS’s that made those tapes are all gone and all those gurus that failed because they, they climbed the one day you reinvention Martin.
It’s been a pretty beautiful thing to watch. Talk about that a little tell, tell the
Martin Rooney: generation about. Yeah, it’s funny you say that because I don’t think I ever intentionally said, Hey, it’s time to reinvent myself for change. Like I said, I was always chasing my passion. So for instance, the kids, the kid in sports performance, it’s just, it was just such a passion.
I was just so into it, but, and there were even fragments within that. There was a period of time. I was the barefoot guy before barefoot was cool. You know, I was the breathing guy before breathing was cool. Um, you know, obviously the speed guy, the youth training guy, and then don’t forget the NFL combine guy where we had such a successful program.
And, uh, and again, do you know, without a doubt to the relationships that bill could create, the facilities that we had. And, uh, but what I would say is then we were labeled there for a while, whether it was the 40 yard dash guy or an N. Within that, whether it was deceleration, all these different concepts that we were exploring and, and Hey, putting out there so everybody could benefit from it.
And then again, I think one of the biggies was whether you want to say the MMA guy or the training for warriors guy, where I was training fighters. When no one else was doing it when the sport was still banned, that’s where the books came from, that led to the courses that led to, you know, another entire area.
But then even within that, what I started to notice was all the training that got created was actually very useful and worked for all these people that weren’t fighters. And then it became that anybody could be a warrior. And, um, and then as. As that continued. See, I started coaching all my coaches and I realized the importance of a coach, which that led me down the coaching hole, where everybody will say, Hey, that Martin Rooney, he’s this, this coach that coached with me.
And then now where I’m really exploring. Because I want to help all these businesses survive and everybody heard it today is I’ve really realized, Hey, once you’re coaching, once you’ve got your passion, once that’s in place, you got to create an environment. You know, you’ve got to create a chemistry.
You’ve got to create. And ultimately the word was culture. And that led to the latest book. And I’ll tell you what, Tom, if you haven’t read it, it is a business I can say. My masterpiece where it’s business, it’s, it’s coaching. It’s all of it together. And it’s what people need, because you can have money.
You can have a business, you can have people working for you and create a lousy business with a lousy culture and go out of business. And. So I never said, Hey, I’m going to reinvent. It’s almost, Hey, here’s where I am. And then that is the stuff that you start putting out there, but verbally listening for the last seven years, I’ve been in the middle school and high school track coach in town.
So I’m still using all of the stuff that I learned and I’m quarter, I’m going to corner the UFC next week with the guy that has the most fights in UFC history. So those don’t. In particular go away. It’s just, I guess, who are you are, you know, what are you exploring right then too, but yeah, over and remember, we’re talking a 23 year span right there too.
Thomas Plummer: So it takes me to the question. The big one is your, let’s say you’re a man of a certain age now you’ve crossed the, the hard barrier
Martin Rooney: to hassle.
Thomas Plummer: So how’s this story. What’s what’s the next generation. What’s your, everybody’s got to have an escape plan. Everybody’s gotta have what’s next. You’ve got to be everybody that turns 50 has that thought everybody sits down like stared at a glass of wine going, what the hell am I going to do with the rest of my life?
You’ve had that talk with yourself. Everybody does. So tell, tell me what’s the next version. I mean, you’re going to move. While you’re, you’re going to where, excuse me, where next? What are you going to do
Martin Rooney: next? Well, I guess here’s an interesting thing for everybody to listen to because I haven’t said it yet, but I have four daughters.
So when I met Tom, I had no kids. I have four daughters, so I have one. Turn nine. So I still have little kids.
Thomas Plummer: You say that like, that’s my fault.
Martin Rooney: He made me get married. What I’m getting, what I’m trying to say, which is really important. And this is pretty neat. Thomas. You remember. When we were driving it, I was going in super early, coming home really late.
And I can remember when I had my first kid and now the kids getting to be about one. My wife said, Hey, this, you can’t, you can’t do hours like this anymore. Something has to happen. And what’s interesting is, is, Hey, you know, bill was great, but it was like, Hey, then you’ve got to figure out other ways to build this.
You having to be here all the time, maybe get home a few days a week or something. And, uh, that’s where the DVDs came from, you know? So it’s kind of interesting that my skill sets are the things that we developed were oftentimes based off, how could I not only take care of my family, but be with my family.
And, uh, why I’m saying that is. One I’m thankful for them because it forced me to, to, to become more, either efficient or effective. So I could be with them. But at the same time, too. Uh, you know, like, so my oldest just started at Notre Dame, people, guys, you don’t want to know what that bill is. You do not want to know what that bill is.
So right now, when you say, Hey, am I done? Or am I out no way, like, like, man, I need the world to open back up. Cause I need to do more speaking again. You know? So really what. I love, you know, I love the rush of being up on stage. I think that’s where I’m at my best and that’s where I could get people excited to then be part or want to be part of my organization and training for warriors.
And for the last two years, really my ability to have done that has been really limited. So it has hurt, man. Like it has hurt the pocket book. The wallet it’s hurt me spiritually, where I’m not out there doing what I love, but definitely, uh, I also would say this, uh, everybody that I’ve ever watched that was more passionate about what they did.
And then whether you use the word retire. Or stopped doing that. Um, they kind of fell apart really quick. So I am in no rush not to do what I love. It’s just, I’m going to continue to hone my life. That I only do what I love. Right. Like, so I don’t want to spend, you know, so I consider the successful person, the one that spends all their time, doing the stuff they love with the people they love.
And then you’re going to success, no matter how much money you got in the bank. And. But ultimately, I guess what I’m saying in a roundabout way is, Hey, I still need to generate money. Cause I got, I got the next 17 years, 17 years, I’m going to have a kid in college, straight for the next 17 because of how we space them out.
And, uh, Training for warriors is my man. It’s, it’s the most important thing to me where every day I’m hearing from these people that it’s helping somewhere in the world. So it really has, it’s been incredible and I never had a vision for what it is now for what it would be. But like we were talking offline the last couple of years have just been so challenging where we just had so many people mandatorily shut down for so long that something that took me 20 years to.
Grow to see it be so threatened or damaged. That was also very, very stressful time and still is right. Like, because it exists. So I don’t see myself ever again. Being a part of that as well as not, you know, look at, you know, yourself, like, Hey, I, I think of you when I see you, when you’re up on stage and you’re still rocking it 20 something years later, like, that’s, that’s what I, you know, I envisioned I would want to do, because that’s what I like doing, you know, like, you know, I miss it.
Like, that’s what it showed me is man. Not to ever have anywhere to go or people to fire. Was, uh, it really did. It was a great Debbie Taylor of what was important to me. But at the same time, I got to spend a lot of time with my family and it reminded me of that too. But yeah. So I don’t have any vision of.
I’m not involved. What I would have the vision of is I would love, again, like I said, to be somebody that could really come in and help people that are starting businesses, but, you know, people that, you know, help them create the vision from the 20 something years of what I did. So they don’t make the same mistakes that we made.
And. You know, and, and really have a rush with that, you know? So, but yeah, so, so I have no visions for anybody listening. I’m not a guy that sits on a beach or like, or lays around, like I would lose, I would lose my mind and, and have no purpose. And I think that like, yeah, I would fill that space with bad stuff or something.
So I am, so I, yeah, I like, so I want the world to open back up and. And get back to, you know, doing the stuff I love doing. Let’s assume
Thomas Plummer: it. I warned you that between Martin and I getting a word in his accent. So I’m sorry, Matt, go, go, go, go.
Sumit: Copious notes. I’ve been enjoying the interactions. I’ve been getting a lot of insights.
So I wanted to jump now in modern and you know, like you’ve said, they’re the two big things that we’re talking about first. Let’s go back to the bill area, where he had those 30 ideas that you were talking about, Tom and YouTube, Martin, you have such a rich background and you were doing things you’re making an impact.
And now you’re like, I want to pick one of these paths. How do you guys decide which path to pick? It’s like, there’s the saying? You have to drown some. And that’s a very terrible thing to say, but you have to drown some puppies. How did you pick and choose like what was going on in your head to say, because all seems good, all seems great ideas and you’re all passionate about it.
So help help me. And the audience would say, th these are some strings you can pull on to say, let’s, let’s go down this path versus the other.
Martin Rooney: Yeah, well, I’ll preface it with this. And you know, bill knows this, what, and Tom knows this too. What made he and I are happy to. Me. I don’t know how to, you know, what made us such a great was, uh, he was such a vision.
But man, we had this open, honest dialogue where we could argue, Tom saw it. Like, it’d be knock-down drag-out fights, but we were always friends at the end, but there was also this level of trust. Like I just trusted him so much on, you know, cause again, because of his passion, where do you want it to go and what it wanted it to be and our relationship.
But at the same time he trusted me because he knew, you know, you build up enough track record of having success with the things that you do, you go for it. And then. Yeah. Like again, like I said, we were doing big projects and, but that’s how I would describe it. What made our team so great. And again, it wasn’t just me.
We had other great people involved too, but, uh, he would throw it out there. And then it would be like, man, let’s nail one of these down and go for it. And I think a part of it, I wish I could say, oh, systematically. We know, but I think it was gut and instinct and we did a lot. That’s, that’s how we operated left and right where I just, I think sometimes I, I either, whether you want to say I have a good touch with reality, or I just have a, I have a.
Ability to see, like this is going to work or this is not. And, uh, you know, on Tom was always there in those meetings, right? Like, and there would be some that man, they sounded like great ideas, but when you flesh them out and that’s probably not going to work, whereas, Hey, here’s an idea that we can implement and let’s give it a shot.
And when we would find those, they would happen. But, but they would’ve never happened to. Wasn’t crazy enough, you know, in some ways to say all these things that might sound so crazy, but then they do work and think about it. What’s crazier than a guy starting with a van, you know, and, you know, and then, uh, to a facility and when no one was doing it and he didn’t have the money and then a bigger place and a bit like.
He’s the ultimate with the track record of, you know, making, making things that probably couldn’t happen happen. So, but that was out was as it would be, it was a TV in here. Ideas. I was a part two. We had a lot of meetings. Tom knows that, like, that was another thing, man. We were not afraid that meetings knocked down, drag out stuff, but we were always.
Moving forward. And like I said, looking back, it was this incredible exciting time because we weren’t just building the framework of our business, but now what you see that exists today, it’s just so funny. Like you said, you’ll see all these people producing stuff on the internet or whatever else we were doing that a long time ago.
You know, there’s not a lot of 25 years ago.
Sumit: Did you guys taste success right out the gate or was there a period of. Like you had to be really resilient and keep on powering through things. And like, no we’ve discussed as we fleshed out the ideas, it will work because in theory it works in these spreadsheets that you were making.
If you were, it was working. Oh, you just taste the success right away. So it did not emit it just validated it. And you did not have to go through that struggle period,
Martin Rooney: if you were well, I would say no. Cause Hey, there were as many ideas that there were many that went by the wayside. Tom knows that like we try, we, I think the secret Sumit was wheat.
We were not afraid to try things, right? Like. Can this warmup be different? What about this speed drill? Here’s a new piece of equipment. Here’s some new technology. Hey, let’s try to mark it this way. Hey, wait a minute. We need a website. Let’s go. And we would just learn how to build websites. Wait, we need, we need VHS tapes.
Let’s go. Hey, we need DVDs. Let’s go. Hey, we need, it was just moving and shaking. We need manuals. We need to replicate things like we had no fear taking on new stuff. And diving in. But when I look back, there were a lot of things that either didn’t work or went away, but we didn’t sit there and lament over it.
We just kept moving, you know? So
Thomas Plummer: let me interject on that Martin, that Sumit bit that’s, he’s being almost too modest on that. That even when they were wrong, they moved to the head. It still was, they were, they were more raw, right. Wrong than a lot of guys were. Right. That even their mistakes moved it ahead.
I remember one day Martin, I got, I was down there. We, I spent a lot of time with you guys for a number of years down there. I was down there on a Saturday morning. And they had the speed school rock and, and there was some special event. I think Martin, there hadn’t been over 200 kids out there that day.
And you had some pro athletes out there and Martins got everybody organized and I’m like, this is a freak show. This is such a, but there was nothing like. In the country at that time, even in those days was still traveling all over the world. There was nothing like that. And so even if these guys made mistakes, which I think is a great lesson, mark, even when you guys were wrong, it moved it ahead.
It actually got. they didn’t screw up much. There, there, there wasn’t anything in there that was life-threatening, but it’s like, okay, we tried that, but that would be forgotten in like 20 minutes as they moved on to 30 other things on the wall, you know, it was, there was an incredible energy about that.
That’s why I like the Steve’s advice and the act kind of analogy because somebody somebody’s got. Take the mad science and turn it into reality. And that was Martin’s gift. Is he that he could get stuff done. He could. Okay. Okay. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. Okay. Bill, just go away. I can do this. And then Martin would create magic with some of this stuff.
It was really something to see. So they, you have to have both players like that to create something magical. And I think that was really March gift at the time, but that was, that was a magical era. I looked back on that. I mean, they’re just, you know, that’s one of those golden periods of your life. You look, and you’re just like you guys.
Everything was for a long run. You guys had a long
Martin Rooney: route. So for everybody listening too, it was, you know, 14 years, you know, so 14 years and there was, you know, and bill a little task, this man, like he’ll drive, he drives you. There was no, there weren’t like days off or times we weren’t thinking about it or going, it was always going and, but it was the rush and that was the excitement, you know, and, and.
Yeah, it was like I said, it was the greatest lessons and education and, and, and in particular, again, I think people have to hear this part that when I look back now, the training. Like see people think the trainings, the whole thing, the training is a very, you know, now, as I see it a smaller piece where you got to understand how to manage people, you got to understand business, you gotta understand sales, you gotta understand marketing.
And man, I. Those 14 years, as much as I learned about speed or whatever else, I feel like I should’ve got three MBAs, you know, in the same, being honest in the same time. And I think that was the greatest strength too. So for anybody listening, man, you wanna own a fit, you know, never forget. You’re not owning a, you’re not owning an exercise program.
You’re owning a fitness business and a. Yeah, holy cow, like Tom note, you know, think about a time that was, that was everything, all your books, everything else that, that a man, unless you’re well-versed in all those areas, you’re going to be challenged to
Sumit: talking about challenge, which was the other thing that was crossing my mind.
Martin. When, you know, you talked about the last two years being so brutal on you from all aspects, right? It takes away what you love to do best beyond stage rallying people. And then, like you said, you, you, it hurts the financial side of a big time as well.
Martin Rooney: So
Sumit: here you are, you know, you’re used to a certain lifestyle, things have been going well, and then COVID is of course everyone’s been impacted.
But how are you coping with these setbacks and these cheerleader challenges, like you said, on your own accord, like, what are you doing? What is Martin Rooney’s recipe of, of grappling with change and grappling
Martin Rooney: with setbacks? What are you doing? Yeah, and I, and I, I wouldn’t sugar coat it, it’s not just changing setbacks.
It’s been fear, anxiety, you know, I would, you know, it’s been. It’s been the scariest time, because remember from now we’re coming up on two years when this was all going down, it was like, what’s going to happen? Where, where is this going to go? Is it all gonna go away and where I coped and here’s a great line.
Um, and I think this is maybe the biggest thing I got from this is a. If you’re having problems, go find somebody to help that has more problems than you. So what I kept doing was I kept burying myself into everybody else that was having even bigger. You know, everybody’s challenges were huge. And I would just, I tried my greatest.
So one thing that was really neat is in my organization for 65 straight weeks, I would do an hour webinar just like this, just for them with where we were at, where things are confront the brutal facts, but give strategy. Ideas, anything that could help us to succeed. I was on the phone with just so many of them all the time, helping negotiate leases and with landlord, whatever it was, however I could help to help them sustain.
And as Tom knows, and it wasn’t like I was, you know, making real, you know, a lot of money there to do that, but it was should protect to protect what I had helped create. And really what I would say is the thing I think I’m most proud of over the last two years has been. What it taught me about leadership and the responsibility that goes along with that.
But also again, I looked at the silver linings. I got to spend a lot more time with my kids in particular. I got to invest in my oldest and now she’s gone to college and I, and I savor that we spent so much time together. And what did I do? Guys, I wrote two books that got published with one of the biggest publishing houses and has sold tens of thousands of copies.
And, uh, so I, I, again, maybe it’s that old line like control what you can control. So if I couldn’t speak, then I can write, right. And if I can write why not write my masterpiece? And man, there were a lot of days, it was those four to six hour days just digging in and writing. Cause I just didn’t have anything else to do.
You know, as Tom mentioned. Man. I was one of those 150 days a year on the road, guys. I didn’t realize that I never added them up when all of a sudden you’ve got all that time on your hands and, and, uh, you know, can’t leave your house. It was, uh, so I turned it into creative energies, but also, uh, energies to help others.
And I think that was, uh, yeah, but I will say like, definitely, um, Hey financially and everything else like it it’s been, you know, it’s been crushing to, uh, for that, cause that was a, you know, a lot of it really, the only places I made my money were the things that were, you know, kind of taken away. So that forced us to have a lot of deep, hard conversations.
You talked about lifestyle and how you live and preparing for the kids for college. These were all real, like serious, deep conversations that we had to have and plan for the. Right. So it’s uh, yeah, so I’d love to say it’s been all fun and games, but it definitely hasn’t. Yeah,
Sumit: no, I, I can imagine. So, so protecting business, showing up controlling what you can.
How do you still fill your cup Martin? Like how? I mean, it’s still not over, right? It’s still there. People are still hurting. I’m sure you’re hurting. Uh, you’ve got the masterpiece out now. It’s it’s there. Yes, it channelizes the energy away to, to put it there. But is there anything else that you’re doing for them?
Probably coping is coping. Would I be last few? But now how are you filling your cup? How were
Martin Rooney: you feeling? Hey, Tom’s known me for a long time. Like, Hey, I’m a training still maniac. Like I train every day. Uh, and where I have the luxury too, is that my children like to train too. So I do get to spend some quality time with them on that.
But maybe one thing I haven’t mentioned too, is, uh, like my most proud possession is my life. And, you know, so yeah, I write books, but I read thousands before. Well, you know, yeah. So I’m at about 2000 books. So I can almost say now, you know, in the last 25 years, so man, not only do I read, but in particular, these last two years, I’ve read like 250 books in the last two years.
I’ve just improved how I read my comprehension, how I invest to pick the book that I pick. So I am. Like a nerd at heart. My wife calls it OCD, but I am always working, working through the works of others to see how to, how to get better or, you know, and how to improve. So I am always trying to move myself forward as well.
And definitely I’ll say physically, I feel great, but I know I can’t do the things that I used to do. And, you know, and you kind of deal with that stuff too, but. I just love training. I love studying, and it’s almost like I’m addicted to somehow moving forward every day. And if I haven’t either learned something new or challenged myself, I’m not happy, you know?
So it’s. You know, so that’s a little insight there too, for everybody listening. Like guys, I’m not a watch Netflix guy and, uh, you know, and lay around what a couple of bottles of wine. And I know a lot of people like that and that’s just that again too is never going to be me, but, uh, but this has helped me, uh, At least I got to refocus on myself.
I could say a little bit, but definitely it’s this weird thing. Feel like what I would say, the weirdest thing I deal with, maybe this will resonate with somebody it’s almost like guilt, like, like I’ve been so busy. Tom and Sumit for so long. And just so driven that, like, I don’t know how to shut that off.
And when man, all of a sudden I didn’t have somewhere to go or somewhere to exactly be that that was maybe really, that was a big challenge for me. But then I turned it into the writing, the reading and just trying to continue to grow. And that kept me going. But yeah, like I think that was the biggest thing is it’s like, I felt like.
What a, what now? What do you know? What do I do? Cause we’ve just been driving for so long. It’s hard
Thomas Plummer: and it will be the virus. See that’s it’s like the biggest reset, slap upside the head. I wrote an article about it, just calling it it’s like the biggest slap upside the head because it was a correction.
it forces you, you either grill or you fade and, uh, yeah, at that, that was very well you just said there was really good marketing.
It’s just, when you chose to get slapped upside the head, it just grew. And a lot of guys, there are a lot of people ask you that were so angry, they just shut down. They just kind of lost everything, you know, be an angry. It’s something you cannot change, just doesn’t get anywhere. So,
Martin Rooney: you know, we thought we saw a lot of that.
Like I think one of the weirdest things during this, and this is something important too, is. I really believed just having deep conversations with myself, that people are going to remember what it was you did during this. And man, you know, I get it. People have their political views or their views on different things or their anger.
And, but so many people were just so vocal with it and polarizing that, like you said, yeah. Like it, it goes back to that thing. Like, I always say the way I weather, how I tap into things or just knowing what works and what doesn’t, I’ll say this, I know that’s not going to help move things forward.
So I’m going to give you a whole quick list here. Biggest mistake you’ve ever made.
Martin Rooney: Um, biggest mistake ever made, uh, not understanding who was managing my. And, uh, you know, so, you know, I thought I knew what I thought I knew what I was doing in the stock market.
And I thought my person did too. And they didn’t. So really? Yeah. Really not understanding money. Like I should understand money, probably the biggest mistake I ever made.
Thomas Plummer: Oh, that was a long time ago. So one book you’re tossed out of an airplane. You’re sitting on that proverbial desert island. You got one book.
Hmm.
Martin Rooney: Uh, you know, the one that I started with that got me going first was called the way of the peaceful warrior. So I’ll go with that. Dan Millman. That was a classic.
Thomas Plummer: Good. Uh, let’s see, uh, one thing on your drop dead list. You’ve got to get done before. You’re 60. The one big thing. Everybody’s got a bucket list, especially when they turn 50.
So one big bucket of.
Martin Rooney: Yeah, my biggest bucket list thing. That’s still on there and I’ve been having this stuff written down, but I see now that I don’t know if it’s real, I wanted to have a New York times bestseller and what now, but now I understand. Sometimes that is a regardless of what you sell or who you are.
It’s still up to them. It’s very subjective, not objective. So, but that is one, I don’t know, just for me or if, even if it said national bestseller or something, and again, that’s an ego thing talking, but I would, uh, I w I’d really love that. And I’d probably, uh, you know, I definitely want to do. Uh, throughout south America in particular Machu Picchu.
So that’d be two. I want to stand up. Oh,
Thomas Plummer: okay. Uh, don’t see any names here, but the, the dumbest ass gym owner you ever work with, what was their biggest mistake? Keep in mind. We only have another
Martin Rooney: hour, I think. Uh, yeah. Biggest mistake. Biggest mistake, I think is bearing a lot of money. And thinking that’s going to make it work where it, this is a people business.
And if you don’t like people, you probably shouldn’t be in it. So, you know, that I would say is definitely that I saw that over and over again, that it was like people wanted to throw money at problems versus throw conversations at them.
Thomas Plummer: And the last one biggest success, what’s the biggest win. If you had to celebrate one win, what would that be
Martin Rooney: for myself?
Yeah, well, the biggest, biggest one right now, again, uh, Hey, my kid is on the track team at Notre Dame and, uh, man, I, you know, because that’s so fresh, it’s just incredible. But what I always say is, Hey, there’s something to be said for, I trained all these NFL guys and MMA guys and helped all these people, but when you can do it in your own home too, when you still have a good relationship with that kid, I think that’s a man.
That’s, that’s a big, I actually really couldn’t be more proud of that. And, uh, every day I wake up happy, uh, because she’s having just like the time of her. That’s awesome.
Thomas Plummer: Okay, Martin, you, uh, you’ve had one of the best careers I’ve seen and I’ve been in this industry 45 years. You have
oh, no, no, no. I have that slap up the head. My realities go in a different way, but you’ve had, you’ve had one of the best runs, man. I admire your career. You. You don’t like the term reinvention, but you’ve managed to keep moving forward. You’ve adapted your stuff. Congratulations. My friend, you’ve had an amazing run and you’ve got a lot to be proud of and it was fun to get you on today.
But Sumit said, let’s get mark. And he goes, I hardly know him. And I said, don’t. He can talk.
Martin Rooney: He’ll be fine. I appreciate it. And not only that, but shout out to you too, because you know, you have always been, and we didn’t get to talk about that today, but yes, for everybody listening, it’s not like Tom and I, oh, we met 20 something years ago.
I am most measured at Tom that we were always, it was like, Checkpoint, whether it was every six months of those last 23 years. And, you know, we would always sit down and I would say where I’m at and you would give me advice. And so many of those things. Have stuck with me as well as just watching you up on stage and watching your stuff change.
And Hey, I read your posts and just seeing what you’re doing. And there’s just always this wisdom because you’re further down the road than me that, uh, Hey, I always appreciate that too. And you know, it’s easy for you to give out the kudos like that, but man, you’ve been, you were in this game when I was an infant and your still going, you know, it was, you know, again, it’s just been.
Yeah. Like I said today to, to almost another checkpoint to say, holy cow, you know, I still think I’m that 27 year old kid, you know? And, and yeah, I’m not. And, but we’re all, you know, we’re all still here, which is really cool.
Sumit: Yep. Yeah. And I’m the luckiest one. I’ve got the legend and the myth together here, learning from both.
And, uh, you know, you talk about the New York best time cells. I’ve been reading your book, Martin. It’s an amazing book. I haven’t finished it, but it’s. Holds
Martin Rooney: you want to go? And Tom, I got to get it to you if you don’t have it. Cause I put I’ll get it to Tom. That’s the, that’s my responsibility, everything so much into it.
But I, but again, Tom will appreciate, I do deep into the writing. Like I want to, I said, I want to be a good writer. And so I just started studying writers and how they wrote and reading everyone in the words that they use in the way they did it. And then, but then I wanted to have my style, which has your readings.
The stories within the story and then the character government, wait, do you see where this book goes? Like it took me six months to come up with the ending. So, uh, yeah, this is no. Oh, uh, just slap some cool ideas in there and some weak characters. This one hits people, people cry and. Yeah, it was an man and, and Tom will tell you, right in the book is arduous, like arduous.
And so I’m, I’m really proud of, of that one, which only came out a few weeks ago too. So, yep. Mark Martin,
Sumit: well, thank you once again. I know Tom, you have a 10
Martin Rooney: o’clock, uh, you know,
Sumit: Martin, I know you are onto the next call as well, so thank you both for coming in. Thank you for the time.
Thank you for the insight. Thank you for the wisdom. It’s deeply, deeply appreciated. No, my
Thomas Plummer: pleasure. Right? I’m proud of you Martin. You’re a legend man. Good word.
Martin Rooney: Thanks Tom.