Pat Rigsby is a man that needs no introduction to the fitness industry.
Over the last decade, Pat has built over a dozen businesses, with five of them becoming multi-million dollar companies. Pat is a 6x best-selling author and has been featured in hundreds of publications, including Entrepreneur, Men’s Health, and USA Today.
Pat Rigsby’s long list of accolades and vast fitness business experience has made him a trusted advisor, coach, and mentor to some of the industry’s most successful fitness professionals.
You don’t get to where Pat is without your share of challenges, setbacks, and adversity.
So this week, we sat with Pat to learn about overcoming the odds and building the ideal business.
In this episode, we unpack:
- How he deals with challenges and what tools you can use to overcome your own setbacks, just like Pat.
- Learning from Pat’s biggest mistake in his entrepreneurial journey and how you can easily avoid the same pitfall.
- Pat’s philosophies on building your ideal business.
Plus much more!
If you’re looking for the guidance or motivation to level up your business, then this is an episode you won’t want to miss.
Want to use the same great tools and resources that Pat does for his business? We’ve got you covered! Pat’s team uses Naamly to deliver an unbeatable client experience. Start your FREE trial today if you’re looking to simplify your business operations or take your client experience to the next level!
Resources From This Episode:
Watch The Full Episode
Thomas Plummer: So all right,
Sumit: So, well, hello everyone. Today, we have none other than pat Rigsby as a guest, a successful entrepreneur coach and author, pat from his humble beginnings has created many successful multi-million dollar businesses. And it’s probably the only person I know of that has achieved that elusive work-life balance for you accomplished all of that while still being able to give the time, attention and focus.
To his family. So welcome pat, and I’m really excited
Thomas Plummer: to have
Patrigsby: you as a guest. Wow. Wow. Thanks. Uh, that was a flattering intro and, uh, um, I’m happy to dig in and connect with you guys and share today. So thanks for it. Yeah,
[Thomas Plummer: you did write that intro down. Pat, you can use that for your next perform better. That was pretty good
Patrigsby: cooler than I ever thought I was. So,
Sumit: and that’s nothing but the truth because I know a lot of people have made multimillion dollars, but the way you’ve really done it and you know, you’re really been the pioneer in setting up that ideal business blueprint and you embody it, pat, you embody it, you live.
And, uh, I guess that’s what I want to dive in on a little bit, uh, how you got to go
Thomas Plummer: about that in your journey.
Sumit: So Tom turning it over to you.
Thomas Plummer: What do we have found? I want to take you back. How many years you’ve been doing this? I mean, when did you, when is your first day in fitness? Um,
Patrigsby: first day in the commercial side of fitness probably was about 2003.
I had worked in. The university kind of side of things as a baseball coach, strength coach, I taught in the sports science department, that sort of thing, and then made the shift at the end of 2002, beginning of 2003. Okay. Yeah. And
Thomas Plummer: you started mainstream, right?
Patrigsby: Yup. Yup. I, uh, so. I started kind of moonlighting as a personal trainer because I was doing baseball instruction and that sort of stuff in the afternoon.
So there wasn’t a whole lot of market for that early in the mornings started doing some training, uh, ran the personal training department. Uh, they had outsourced fitness. Really? What at the time was the biggest franchisee of Gold’s gyms. Uh, You know, I guess in the industry at the time, the Royce Pulliam and that whole group thing, I knew it’s in there.
Right. So waiting for all the jams in that they owned in Kentucky and then, uh, had an opportunity to kind of plug in and have a training business inside a health club in a smaller town in central Kentucky, uh, that kicked off in 2004. Um, And then opened up a health club that had kind of a separate, but similar training business inside of it that, that I own in 2001.
Thomas Plummer: Yeah. I remember those days, that 2005, that was an adventure. Right. I, I remember you saying that you would heavily advise not to go that path again. So, uh, tell us about that. I mean, you, you, you you’ve had a lot of ups, but you’ve had your ass kicked a few times and man, I think that’s really your ability to help people today is because you’ve been beaten so badly as a kid.
That, that one didn’t work out. Well, I don’t think, tell us about that one. Well, so the,
Patrigsby: the first training business, um, It worked out great until it stopped working on grade. Right? Like it, it was inside a health club. The cashflow was great. The, the, the, the profit was great. And then when it came time to renew the lease, uh, they were just like, sorry, man, you guys are making too much money.
We’re going to take this in a house. And we were just left. Right. We, you know, we ended up getting kind of pennies on the dollar, selling the receivables based to them so they could take that over. But, so that was a tough one. Um, the health club side of things, there was like, you know, it started off, we did a really good job in, I think pre-sale, we were franchisee 33 in the anytime fitness.
And then the training business was something that we owned inside of it. So it wasn’t kind of a, Hey, we’re just selling training and billing it through any time. It was a separate company and it all took off pretty well. And then, um, we just, for whatever reason, I think. Thought, you know, it got ahead of ourselves probably, right.
Like said, Hey, we’re going to start spending more money, everything to that point, having been broke, everything that point had been as bootstrap as it could possibly be. And, you know, starting spending money on billboards, starting spinning, started spending money on, um, you know, any number of different types of advertising mediums.
Be it radio spots. TV spots and whatever else, because everything bootstrap and Dawn, well say, Hey, we’re just going to it
Thomas Plummer: logical.
Patrigsby: That didn’t work so well. So next thing you know, it’s like, wow, you know what? We’re, we’re making a decent money from a gross standpoint and it’s less money than we’re spending.
And. The thing about it is all that stuff. Was it wasn’t like Facebook ads are today, right? If you, if you signed on to run the billboards, this is a contractual obligation. This isn’t, Hey, we’ll turn it off tomorrow. Um, same thing with the radio spots and TV spots. So there was more outgoings than incomings and that kind of was a big wake up call.
I know, for me, it was like, you know what? Maybe you’re not, not quite as smart as you think you are. You don’t have this golden touch that everything works out. Maybe you need to get back what got you here. And that’s when I kind of doubled down on everything very much bootstrap maximize using the, the relationship value of every client that we had, whether it be generating referrals.
Moving more of them into personal training and just really, um, you know, I, I hate to say it and I’ve, I’ve heard, uh, you know, the quotes dating back to guys like Walt Disney saying like everybody needs a good heart, failure it at some point early on to kind of get them back in line. And so I, I think, you know, I was just pretty grateful that that didn’t just result in bankruptcy almost.
Thomas Plummer:You know, watching, I, I, I that’s, when I first met you back in those early days, that’s that most guys don’t have that. Where with all mentally to pivot, they, they get caught down a path. You were in mainstream. I mean, and looking at Royce, I mean, that’s something that could have St your career. Cause those guys where I used the word creative.
Here. Uh, but I’ll also as a side note, I guarantee anybody in their 30th scrambling now doing a Google search to find out what the hell a billboard is, just throwing that out there. So, but that, that type, I mean, most guys don’t survive that they go down one path and to be able to pivot from mainstream into.
Uh, trading business. I mean, that was what, I mean, I, you, you explained that, but go deeper on that because that’s most guys don’t survive that process and you’re dealing with a lot of guys now I know in your mentorships and stuff, the guys that are there at that stage of life, where if they don’t move, they die.
And, but man, that was such a great lesson. You did there go deeper with that. I like that. Well,
Patrigsby: so, you know, I think the way that I always viewed it is Lee at least was. You know, I had been a coaching guy having been a baseball coach, having the first training business being, Hey, we just did the service stuff, the training stuff.
And I got out of my lane by going into the membership site. Um, and you know, I was always kind of a high touch, um, results focused person and the membership side. You know, it’s it. I felt in, in hindsight, I don’t know if this whole lamp thing, but else it’s like, you know, you see people who do really well in this one industry and they’re like, I’m gonna open up a restaurant or a bar or whatever.
And I’m like, man, it, it, this isn’t just like, you’re universally good at everything. And I think I learned very quickly. I’m like, you know, this, isn’t my sweet spot. This like, what? I’m good at? Really stemmed a lot from the baseball stuff. Like I am, you know, in, in coaching college athletes, you connect with somebody and you follow up for maybe a year before you did a commitment.
And that was the stuff that I was, what was best with the relationship building, the, the player development, the, and transferring that to, to training and client development and, you know, It was kind of getting back to my strengths and saying, look, you know, I don’t really care what these, you know, what w what these bigger businesses that I had been exposed to, or what I was seeing, w whatever they were doing, or whatever seemed, uh, seemed kind of like the sexier option at the time is like, this is the stuff I’m good at.
I need to do more of that. I need to go deeper with that. I need to see how I can get maybe one degree away from it and, and really build on it. And once I kind of dug into that, um, you know, the business definitely course corrected got back on the right track and it became a training business. The sold memberships.
Until ultimately, you know, I got into more of the, Hey, I’m just going to serve training businesses in general.
Thomas Plummer: What was that? 2005 you made that run 2006 in there
Patrigsby:probably, um, 2006 was kind of that, uh, course correct. Or go under.
Thomas Plummer: Yeah, I missed telling Sumit that those were, there was a dark period in the mainstream fitness industry where, you know, today it’s, you know, guys like you on one side salad, Dino, all these training college girl went here and the mainstream guys, most people don’t understand.
It’s two separate industries. So not many guys got out alive from that era. So that was a. And then you went right into a Europe, your own training gym at that point, right? Yeah. I
Patrigsby: mean, you know, it was back to, I mean, we still had the contractual obligations there, so we kind of just morphed that into a training gym that, you know, the down sell was, Hey, you can get a membership.
And so we really kind of re-engineered that we still had the other training business inside of a health club and. You know, it, it really just became, Hey, everything’s training and in the one jam, if you won’t do training, then sure. We’ll let you have access for a membership. And almost it was like a, a self-liquidating offers just, Hey, we’ll pour the membership money back into, you know, making the training side.
Thomas Plummer: 15 years later, anytime trying to figure out that model again, you were 15 years of heavier time,
Patrigsby:you know, and to their credit at the time they, when we were doing that, they were like, how is your draft for training higher than your draft for memberships? And there was even the, the idea of, Hey, do you want to do something?
Industry wide or, you know, franchise wide with all of our people. But you know, at the time those guys had 500 members of club. It was definitely not the robust thing that it is now. And I’m like, man, I can’t manage a training business with 500 members where they’re signing up in a month in, you know, in Montana somewhere.
And so, uh, we didn’t know. Didn’t go that route. And you know, I mean, I think it’s worked out in some ways when they’ve tried to do, do others things since, but you know, to their credit, even when we went and started our own training franchise, they, they were fine. They were supportive and they could have probably, um, but on plenty of roadblocks.
Yeah,
Thomas Plummer: yeah. Could have back then Sumit, I’m stepping all over him here. What do you got? No, no, this is
Sumit: great. Uh, I did want to ask, like, you know, you’re picking up, well, the team, Tom, that you mentioned, pat Smith, I head of his night all the time. So talk about this being ahead of 15 years, you
Thomas Plummer: know, it’s still going to, when people are trying to figure this thing out,
Sumit: how you got into online fitness even before online fitness was a thing.
So
Thomas Plummer: how does this
Sumit: happen to you? Or what are the cues that you look for? Like, I guess I want to understand not so much as to.
Thomas Plummer: How you went about doing it, but why,
Sumit: what are the shifts that you see? What are you reading? What are you doing that gives you these, these triggers to say, this is where I need to put my energy and time on
Thomas Plummer: next.
Patrigsby: I appreciate the way that you frame that. But I always thought of it as like desperation based problem solving. Um, you know, and again, it started as a college baseball coach. We had the smallest budget. In our conference, we had no scholarships. So I had to find creative ways to win. When we, he started a training business, the first training business was about 12 miles from the Fort Knox military base.
And so we would have a lot of people who would come in, they would become clients and they would get treated. And usually it was like a spouse of somebody who was enlisted or whatever, but occasionally it was people who just wanted a change of scenery and didn’t want to be on post for everything. Right.
But when they would get transferred, it was like, how do we hang on to, you know, some of this receivable space, how do we keep them paying us? And it was like, Hey, you know, we can still design your program. We can coach you up and give you something to do. Even when you get shipped to Fort Campbell or Fort brag or whatever.
And so, you know, we were able to keep a lot of those people paying and it would just be, we’re going to design a program for you. We’ll email it to you. If you have questions you can email or you can call, there was no texting. There was no Facebook group, nothing like that. You can email or you can call if you have questions and we’ll just design you a new program every month.
And you know, before long, there were probably 50, 60 people that are doing that. It was just kind of the, you know, necessity is the mother of invention, right? Like they, they were going to move. So we were either going to find a way to keep them involved, or we were going to lose the revenue from those.
Thomas Plummer: Okay. Yep. That might be one of the greatest business principles of all time is desperation management. Uh, I had drinks with Grondahl Mike Rondell just when he was leaving planet fitness. And we were up way too late Las Vegas. And I said, man, how did you do this? Right. I was two months away from losing my gym.
I had no choice. I had to come up with something and then that was it. And we, I think he had a world gym at the time and it was going down and he was behind almost a year. And the renders his story and sold his way out of it. $10 at a time. But he said the same thing. Pad is just desperation. Man. Just drives you to another level of creativity.
Yeah, that’s a, you’re gonna have to start teaching that in your mentorships more. I think that’s a good principle. You know, there,
Patrigsby: there are a lot of people who, when they’re kind of punched in the face with something, they’ll complain about it. They’ll well on it, they’ll, they’ll get consumed by it. I think, you know, if I’ve had any one kind of professional trait that is served me better than anything else it’s been.
It’s been that I immediately just kind of start searching for solutions the minute I kind of sniff a problem. And you know, sometimes they work out great. Sometimes they’re harebrained things that don’t go anywhere. But, you know, I think that if you look hard enough, there’s probably a solution to most of the problems we encounter.
Thomas Plummer: Yeah. So looking back, man, 20 years, you’ve been doing this. So the single biggest. I, I won’t say mistake inefficiency, but the single biggest thing you regret in this career where, where where’s, where you said, oh man, if I had that shot again, but what could you teach a young guy there about that type of stuff?
Patrigsby: I mean, I’ve got a couple, but the first one is just doling too. Y doing too many things, instead of being a really good in a narrower Lang right. When some of the opportunities started to present themselves online where, um, you know, it was like, Hey, Hey, you guys are doing really well here. Can you get involved with me with this?
I’ll give you this equity, or I’ll sell you this equity at a discount. And next thing you know, it’s like, I’m a co-owner of 15 different businesses and that means I’m not doing any of them really. And it’s like, you know, if you just stay with this core thing and just make it better and pour yourself into it, how far could that have gone?
I mean, and there was a point where, you know, we, we found the disfranchised, it was really a conversion based franchise. Um, so a little bit different than a lot of the ones that are out there. You know, I had 275 locations and I’m like, man, if I would have just kept the blinders on instead of paddling and all these other things, how big could that have been?
How much impact did that have had? So when I found myself kind of screwing things up, it’s always been because I was spending too much.
Thomas Plummer: yeah. Good. Good story. Yeah. So the darkest day that broke his stay of your life. When you’re sitting on the curb, just wishing God would take you home just that day. Um,
Patrigsby: gosh, um, it wasn’t, it wasn’t business.
It was being forced to resign as a college baseball coach. I, that was my entire identity. At the time I was on billboards, I was on TV commercials. Oh. I was the winningest coach in any male sport in school history. And then I had a, uh, kind of a hissing Mack, so to speak with the vice-president and I clearly lost.
And it was like, well, you’re going to be forced to resign and you get this severance or you can get fired. And so I tucked my tail and walked, and that was probably the. You know, in many ways why, why it wasn’t in business, because it certainly gave me a thicker skin and, um, made me a lot more tolerant of rejection or anything like that.
But, but that was it. It was, you know, my entire identity kinda being yanked away. It was like, okay, well, this is what I’ve made my career about. I’ve got. Start
Thomas Plummer: over here. Oh yeah. That’s a great story. And you’re going to have to write that one out sometime. That’s a cause most guys, I don’t think handled that well either everybody gets that reset once in a while, how you react to it and there’s a good moral in that story.
Yeah. You’re going to have to write that one out. I think big detail. So let, let me go in another direction with that. So how does your story end? How do you get out of this? What’s the exit strategy? Um,
Patrigsby: You know, the, I, I think I probably have a completely different view of that than I would have had, uh, you know, a decade ago it would have been, Hey, build something up and get a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you know, sell it all in at this point, it’s probably more of a, Hey.
Refining what I do staying in my lane, doing the things that I like to do, uh, which is helping, you know, pretty much independent fitness business owners who are doing good work, helping them kind of build the business that they want to have. Um, and it, if anything, like if we’re talking about a retirement time or anything like that, it’s more.
Like narrowing and narrowing and narrowing and being pickier about who I work with and what I do with which to be honest has been happening for probably the last 3, 4, 5 years. Um, and I don’t have any urgency to do that. Heck I got a 10 year old, so I got plenty of bills facing me coming up. Um, but the, you know, I, I think that.
I, I that’s my professional purpose, right. To, to go coach people. I really get a lot of fulfillment out of coaching people. Um, I just think that as I’ve evolved in this who I coach and what I coach has definitely narrowed, I could just totally see me continuing to narrow that as I go. Do
Thomas Plummer: you ever dreamed someday of just running away and being a baseball coach again?
I thought you would that’s that’s a loaded question because I, I remember talking to you a couple of times it performed better and I thought, well, he’s about six feet away from hitting the door hard.
Patrigsby: It’s like the perfect scenario. Now I coached my older one. Who’s off in college now. Now I’ve coached the younger one.
And you know, I love doing that. I could never go back and work at a university or. Something like that. I mean, I’m sure you, you probably feel the same way that being employed in a bureaucratic setting is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
Thomas Plummer: Um, yeah, let’s take you 20 years to become completely unhireable in the real
Patrigsby: world.
So I think I’ve kind of got the best of both worlds now being able to, to coach, uh, you know, without that and still do the things that I really liked doing.
Thomas Plummer: Well assume that I’m jumping in here. Take him another direction. All right. I’m going to take him
Sumit: back to the point where you mentioned pat, about how you reset after you got fired or resigning from baseball coach thing.
You’ve had a number of those events in your life, right? You’ve had, you’ve had to reset multiple times and it’s coming at different phases. You were singled out. Yep. It helps you to cope better, but now you’ve got a wife, you’ve got a kid you’re dealing with your kid’s illness. Now you’re dealing with the fitness revolution, sell
Thomas Plummer:off every time
Sumit: that’s happening.
What are you telling yourself? Like, how are you going past those darkest days? If you will, because you built something, you built them from the ground up. You’re like never, ever again, this is going to happen, but this happens. So you have that choice. You’re like, you can be miserable. Or, or you decided not to w what’s going on in your head.
I want to, I want to tap into that.
Thomas Plummer: Like, um,
Patrigsby: so, so with, with all of this stuff outside of when my younger son, Alex got sick with his auto-immune condition, the rest of them, honestly, after the baseball thing,
Thomas Plummer: uh,
Patrigsby: it was more of, um, More of a, I’ve been through this before. I’ve got this mentality, whether that’s blind faith or what, but I felt like, okay, I’ve done this.
I I’m making this next step. Knowing what I have more information in my mental volt, I’ve got more experience. This next thing will be better. If anything. I mean, and this is when, when, when Tom asked me kind of the biggest mistake, the second place on that list was hanging with everything a year or two long.
Every one of the things that I looked at gone from it was like a year or two late on all.
So there was never like this, oh, what am I going to do? Panic type of thing, because. I mean, like I said, after the baseball thing, it was like, man, I’ve got this, the rest of those. I felt confident that my experiences, my, my skills, my strengths, my network, that sort of thing. I was going to be able to do something better and different with what I learned.
Um, so I don’t think that ever was. Causing me the doubt that it might cause some people, um, honestly, the, I mean, it was very much the, like, like that in the pandemic here, when this kicked off too, I just immediately kind of defaulted to like, man, I’m the right place and the right time for this. And if there’s anybody who can help people be adaptable, I’ve been pretty adaptable.
And I think that helped me tremendously. The, like you alluded to this stuff and my son and, you know, he’s got this autoimmune condition called pains, which is like, if there’s like, if he were to get a virus or a bacterial infection, it might trigger something. It calls like brain inflammation and, you know, knock on wood.
I think all that, stuff’s pretty well under control. And he. No seemingly pretty happy. I will be kid, but for awhile, I mean, it was kind of like our world just shut off. And that was the focus. Um, that was really the only time that, you know, I didn’t feel like man, I’ve got this because it was just uncharted territory.
And, um, I, and assuming I’ve told you this, I think that probably helped me. Be a little more grounded when the pandemic started. I’m like, man, this, this is nothing for me compared to what we just went through a year ago. Right. Um, so, so yeah, it, man, I think challenges, circumstances, events, whatever you’d like to call them, they’re coming our way, one way or the other.
There’s always going to be something. It’s the economic downturn we saw back in 2008, 2009, whether it’s the pandemic, I mean, there’s going to be something and you know, how you respond to it is probably going to dictate your outcomes. And so I’ve worked pretty diligently towards being better at my response and dwelling less on the circumstances.
Thomas Plummer: That’s beautifully.
Sumit: So here’s the thing, right? I guess the challenge is most people know that, right? Control the narrative. You can control how you respond. We know that, but your, you embody
Thomas Plummer: executing that.
Sumit: So, so what are the habits, if you will, what’s your behavior like, or are there any coping mechanisms when you go through those, those, those phases that, that that’s like, okay.
Here we go again, but you know what it’s going to be. Okay. Because, and I’m dealing it with like, like here are my go-to steps. I don’t know. I mean, is there something like that? I don’t
Thomas Plummer: think
Patrigsby: that, you know, I think you used a, a very valuable term, like coping mechanisms, like me seeking solutions immediately diving into something is definitely my coping mechanism for problems get is not, Hey, I’m going to go drink myself into a stupor.
It’s not. I’m going to go do this thing or that thing, my coping mechanism is this kind of dive into problem solving whatever it is. Even like when my son got sick, it was reading everything I could read and calling everybody I could call. And sometimes it might even just be the illusion of I’m doing something right.
But. For me, that’s, that’s how I cope with problems is I’m searching out solutions. I’m trying things because I, I just, you know, I, I probably have some deep seated fear inside of being helpless and not being able to control any of what’s going on. And I think some of that comes from being a baseball coach where it was like, man, I got, I have no recourse here.
I can’t. I, you know, I can’t go repair this relationship. I can’t do it. Like he wants me out on out. And so I’ve continually just said, okay, when I’m hit with something, you know, I, you know, I may make a, a list of your potential ideas for solutions. I may dive in and start researching or studying things. Um, If I, you know, I, I, if I were to coach somebody on the confidence building side of it, I think we’re really good at focusing on the gap, right?
Like how far we still have to go or you know, where we’re not, you know, I think that most of us that have had any sort of entrepreneurial success, we’ve got plenty of things in our rear view mirror. That are what Dan Sullivan calls the game, right? Like things we’ve accomplished. I do not ignore that. I use that to give me a little bit of confidence that I can do this, you know, that I can go and do the next thing.
And I tend to try to borrow from all of my previous experiences. And, you know, if I have to tweak something that worked at this point, Then I’m going to, you know, tweak it and apply it. I don’t look at things and just start from a blank page. It’s like, well, what do I know that it has worked when I’ve had my back up against the wall in the past.
And I’ve tried to draw from that because it gives me a little confidence. Cause I know that I’ve executed and I’ve succeeded with it before.
Thomas Plummer: Let me take you down a new path, change the subject. Okay. This would be better over three glasses of wine at late at night, but
yes, we will. Uh, dumbest client you’ve ever had. And why, what, what were the behaviors that made that person? You just, even with your experience, look at the guy go. I can’t, I can’t help this guy. This. He is. So, because I think there’s a lesson in there when you see that client that just they’re their own worst enemy.
So tell me, we’ve all got that. They usually do come out after three glasses of wine, but again, the client where you just, it was, it’s the one that still haunts you. It makes you crazy. Get tough. Tell us about that. Um,
Patrigsby: it’s in, there’ve been a few of the same, right? Um, and it’s invariably, the person that.
Hires hires you, or hires me to keep doing what they’re doing and expect a different result right. To, to, Hey, I’m going to pay you, but I’m not going to listen to anything that you say I’m going to vent about my problems. I’m going to be unwilling to change and willing to execute. Um, and then I’m going to be.
Angry at you because things didn’t magically transform into this better outcome. And, you know, and there, there have been a number of them over time thinking that, man, if I, if I pull my credit card out, all these problems go away. Like, no, I mean, you probably have to change the behaviors that led you down this path in the
Thomas Plummer: first place.
So what’s the lesson for the rest of the guys that do want to change. Tell me the lessons
Patrigsby: in it. The, I mean, first, first and foremost, you have to accept that the, the outcome that you have is a reflection of who you currently are and the things that you currently do or have done. So we want a different outcome.
We’re going to have to do different things. We’re probably going to have to get out of our comfort zone. We’re going to have to. Probably change the way that we personally operate, not just the way the business operates, because you know, I mean, a lot of times you may have good people, but if you were leading them poorly, then you know, they’re, they’re not going to be able to, to right.
The ship without you. Um, you know, so, so I think it’s just. You know, the, the acceptance that man different outcomes require change. And if you’re not up for change, then there’s nothing I can do to help.
Thomas Plummer: It’s it’s sad. It takes so long for them to process that though. It’s instead it’s this it’s, it’s almost more frustrating being you carrying that guy for six months, then that guy, sometimes it’s just, it’s a bit.
Patrigsby: The, the interesting thing is the people that we, that we coach, the people that we serve, they’re teaching the same thing. Like you want a different health outcome, a different body composition outcome, a different performance outcome. You got to change behaviors. You’ve got to adopt new habits. You’ve got to operate in a different way.
So they, they teach it. So it was like, Hey, I’m selling it, but I’m not.
Thomas Plummer: Good point. Well, we’ll put together there. That’s fine. Let’s see what, what else you’ve got on your list. So since you talk about the worst client, if
Sumit: you will, I want to talk about, tell us a client that touched your heart, pat, like you like that made you feel like, yeah, there are two sites, like tell us a client that really touched your heart and you’ll be like, you know what?
I love what I’m doing or, or
Thomas Plummer: even changed your outlook towards.
Sumit: Your life, your career, the way you process
Thomas Plummer: things. Um,
Patrigsby: you know, there, there have been plenty of wonderful clients. Um, I can think of one person offhand and I won’t use his name. Assuming you, you would probably knowing through description, but just like, you know, he, he grew up in like a.
Uh, a trailer Parky has, uh, an incarcerated father. He, you know, he, he, he’s got all the makings of a guy who’s not going to do well. Right. Like, and you want to talk about the quintessential, like, if I say, Hey, you should go do this. He goes and does it. And probably. Does it beyond any expectation that I would have.
And now, you know, he’s got a wonderful boutique training business, the, you know, those half million dollars a year. And I don’t know, like 1600 square feet or something. It’s crazy, no paid advertising at all. Zero it’s all relationship stuff, referral stuff. Culture where people just are so excited to spread the word.
He’s, he’s built a little bit of personal wealth already, still relatively young. And, and so that sort of thing it’s, for me, it’s like the coolest thing possible, right? Because it’s kind of that whole rags to riches type of story, and he he’s died. What I would consider if somebody’s going to throw, um, excuses or circumstantial challenges out there and say, Hey, this is why I’m not doing this.
He’s probably got as many relatively valid ones as anybody could come up with. And man, it didn’t slow him down for a second. And I look at that, it’s like, man, this, this is why you do this because this guy. Change the entire trajectory of his life. You know, they have kids, it’s probably going to change the trajectory of their life.
These clients are getting this wonderful experience because I mean, how much he cares about their success just kind of pours out of him on a daily basis. So, you know, when I look at like a true coaching business, like he’s the embodiment embody mint. And, you know, so, so that’s the first one that comes to mind.
And honestly, we probably sit here and I can list off a bunch of them, but that, that one’s pretty
Thomas Plummer: cool. Not assume mine. The one that touched my heart, I ended up marrying she was a client for 20, some years ago. So he’s in the other room. I’ll tell you that story. Okay.
Sumit: That was good. We should probably take a clip of that and send it to her.
Thomas Plummer: don’t a lot of brownie points. So my last question, pat, my last question, you’re standing up in front of 500 people. You got your there you’re raging on a Friday afternoon at a performance. Okay. And here’s the question. If I could teach you anything, it would be that’s your question to this group. And if somebody goes, if you could teach us anything, pat, what would you teach us after this long, very successful career?
You know, you’re a guru you’re well-respected which in this industry, as you well know, after 20 years, it’s a hard thing to continue with. Uh, you’ve done some good work out there, my friends. So, but if you could teach
Patrigsby: that 500
Thomas Plummer: people, anything, what would it be? Final lesson, um, It would be
Patrigsby: basically kind of, how do I want to phrase this?
I don’t want to be abstract with it, but it’s like, I’m a big believer in owning your outcomes and being a producer. Like if you want something it’s all on you. And so it’s not about like, I, I would not be teaching a tactic. It would be this mindset. If I want to do clients, what did I do today to get new clients?
If I want to improve the way that my staff functions, how did I train them better today? How did I develop systems today? It’s this, you know, it’s owning a business is basically saying it’s on me and having this, what I call this producer mindset. That I am going to take personal responsibility for making sure that the outcomes that I’m seeking are happening.
Um, that would, that would be it.
Thomas Plummer: Good lesson took you a long time to learn that a long run Sumit, final question for you. I have a
Sumit: Pat, tell me this. What, what do you believe with this long illustrious career of yours that people still seem to misunderstand about you?
Thomas Plummer: Um,
Patrigsby: you know, I think it is funny. Tom used the word do Rue earlier and when somebody says. You know, the way they do room gets thrown around. Now, it’s almost makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth to be no w with that it’s like 100%. I see myself as a coach. I see the marketing that I do is coaching people until they pay me to coach them and, you know, I’m not like I’m not interested in being the marketing tactic guy, the advertising agency guy.
Um, the, fill your gym in 30 days guy. It’s no, I want to coach you, you know, I want to see where you want to go assess where you are and help you build a path to get there and coach you along way and problem solve when challenges arise. Been my identity in internally for as long as I can remember. And, you know, I think occasionally I will get, because people see ads in their Facebook feed or whatever else, you know, I’ll get the, well, what makes you different than them?
Kind of almost like the assumption that everybody who runs an ad to a fitness business owner, Has the same agenda, the same, like, man, I could list out about 5,000 times more things that were different about then were the same about,
Thomas Plummer: so
Sumit: it’s just so funny. You said that I was talking to Tom earlier
Thomas Plummer: and he brought
Sumit: up the point about total solution.
And I think that’s what you embody as well. Like how do you provide that total solution? It’s not about marketing or sales or, or staff or team, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s the, it’s, what’s your ideal business. Like you frame that really well and say, Hey, let’s work towards making sure you get where you need to be.
And
Thomas Plummer: here’s the blueprint.
Patrigsby: Yep.
Thomas Plummer: Um, guru’s good class though, by the way, you, you deserve that, that rep you know, there’s guys out there that have been around for awhile. There’s a lot of guys on social media make me crazy. They’ve been in business for like six weeks and I’ll end there. You know, guru guys has survive, boil, you know, guys, you got first Phegan there’s guys out there that have paid their dues for decades that have changed a lot of lives.
So yeah, we’re that, we’re that once in a while. Well, you know, you earned that title in this legitimate, original intended form, but you’ve definitely arrived at that stage of your life that for sure. Well,
Patrigsby: thank you. And, uh, you know, to be mentioned in that same category, I mean, the, the people that we get to share the stage with and perform better, I mean, that’s the type of person I, I really love being associated with not just the people who have figured out how to run a Facebook.
Thomas Plummer: Yeah, well, great cooks the only one in there except, you know, it sitting on his roof, smoking pot, drinking whiskey, shooting deer with a crossbow eye, and he’s still one of the most genius people I’ve met. So, but when you call him a guru, I do see your pain there. But he is great. He’s a legend. He’s the most fun guy to hang out with.
It’s probably out there, but again, he had CS, you know, so I went to her speak and in Boyle, not necessarily to the crazy side, so, oh, I, I th this,
Sumit: this is my, probably my last question, unless something else comes to my mind as it gets, and none of this is scripted, it just comes to me. It’s just, you know, you helped so many people in getting direction, clarity about where they need to be.
Where do you go? For yourself, like, you know, because you’ve accomplished so much, but how are you filling your cup? Like what do you do?
Patrigsby: Um, I mean, there’s never a time that I don’t have some sort of mentorship in my life. Um, it may be specific to a particular lane in that moment. Um, and then I’m, uh, an avid reader.
Biographies of people who’ve done interesting gray, you know, whatever you’d like to call it, uh, uh, you know, achievement oriented things. Um, so yeah, there’s always plenty of input for me. I just, um, you know, I think that at least on my end, what you said, the whole kind of filling your cup. I think that’s that’s key, right?
Like for me, learning from other people, even if it’s, it’s somebody teaching me a specific thing, they may have a really interesting way that they teach it or a way that they communicate or something like that. I’m always looking and I tend to really get excited about looking. Outside of the industry and seeing what’s happening in other areas, just to give me a fresh perspective.
And, um, you know, I, I think there there’s so many, so many things that I, I mean, the, the laundry list of things I don’t know is never ending. Right. So, um, Yeah, I’m always excited to learn something new from somebody different. So it’s never been like, Hey, there’s just this one person. It’s like, man, there’s this just a laundry list of people that I’ve learned from, um, you know, present company included.
Thomas Plummer: Well, thank you.
Sumit: I guess that goes right to Tom. So Tom, anything, any, any last questions from you? Thank you so much, pat, for that. Uh,
Thomas Plummer: No, no questions, pat. That was I it’s nice for people to get a chance to see you. The, the, the guy that has paid his dues so long, I don’t think enough people to get, to hear your story, get to see, you know, part of the journey here.
You’ve had a nice run, you know, you, you should sit somewhere and sit down and have a glass of wine. So yeah, it’s been okay. You know, you’ve done some good work. So we just wanted people to kind of see that there’s more to you. There’s some depth, there’s some, you know, it wasn’t all the glory days, you know, people see you now, like, oh, he’s always been successful.
No, No very few of them have. And so you got a good story. Thanks for sharing them with us today. It’s wonderful. You told some good stuff today. Very helpful.
Patrigsby: Yeah. Well, I appreciate you guys had man. I mean, I’m flattered to be able to, to share and hopefully, um, you know, some of this land with some of the people checking this out because.
Yeah. I mean, anything that that’s the farthest from, from accurate, right? It’s definitely not been all home runs. Right. It’s definitely not all been all wins, but I think that’s, that’s a lot of the fun, right? Like the, the journey, the process has been fun. And I fortunately at this stage of my life, I definitely, uh, It acknowledged the winds a lot more than I would have a decade ago or beyond.
Um, you know, is that they’re not a, they’re not a given, they’re not something to take for granted. So if you earned them, enjoy it.
Thomas Plummer: Fair enough. Good advice. Thanks pat. Very much.
Sumit: And before we let you go, like you’re talking about clients, like if someone wants to get in touch with you. They want to know more about ideal business.
How do they get to work with you? Where do they go? Um, can you share something about that?
Patrigsby: Yeah, sure. Um, pat rigsby.com is kind of the hub of everything. You know, there are plenty of posts there. You can opt in and get copies of, you know, different books that I’ve, that I’ve written. There’s pod short podcast episodes that go up every year.
Um, or if somebody wants to reach out to me directly, pat pirates.com, happy to connect with people and see if, uh, see if I can be of any help.
Thomas Plummer: Well, thank you. Well, thanks
Sumit: again for coming up, pat. I appreciate it.