0:02

Billy Hofacker has been a personal trainer for over 20

0:04

years. And he's the owner and CEO of

0:06

Total Body Cootcamp and Performance

0:08

Center with two successful locations

0:11

in a hyper competitive market of Iong Island,

0:13

New York. After several years

0:15

of being a full-time professional martial artist

0:18

and BJJ black belt, Billy

0:20

is now passionate about helping fitness professionals

0:22

with their money. He is the author of

0:24

"Fitness Profits," as well as the creator of

0:26

"Financial Freedom for Health and Fitness Professionals" course.

0:29

Billy is also the host of the leading financial podcast

0:31

for fit pros, "Your Money Fitness Coach" podcast.

0:35

Billy is regularly an expert guest on local

0:37

and national podcasts and media. He's

0:39

also a distinguished Toastmaster with Toastmasters

0:42

International. Billy has conducted hundreds

0:44

of presentations over the years at churches, businesses,

0:46

and organizations. And I can't wait

0:48

to introduce him to you today. We're going to be talking

0:51

about how to win with money. Chris Cooper

0:53

here to talk about Beyond the Whiteboard, the world's

0:55

premier workout tracking platform.

0:58

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1:02

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1:29

Hey, Billy, welcome to Two-Brain Radio.

1:31

Thank you, Chris. I am super pumped

1:33

to chat and

1:35

share hopefully some valuable

1:38

info.

1:39

I'm sure. And I can't wait, man. Just

1:41

to give people context on where you're coming

1:43

from, what brought you into the fitness industry

1:46

in the first place?

1:47

I mean, the longer

1:52

deeper story where it's going to feel like

1:54

you're my therapist has to do with

1:56

when I was younger, has to do with

1:59

some bullying and just me

2:01

really feeling like I needed to learn how to protect

2:03

myself. I needed to gain confidence. So that's how

2:06

I got into working out. I got into working out

2:08

in martial arts, and then I don't

2:10

know how common this is, but it's like the only thing I've

2:13

ever done. I've had a

2:15

real job, I guess you would say

2:18

I started of incommunity college

2:20

and a guy that , he

2:23

ended up becoming like a friend slash mentor. Who's a little

2:25

bit older than me. He's

2:28

like, yeah, I train these women at my gym

2:30

and he was making, like, I want

2:32

to say he was making like a hundred bucks a

2:34

session. This is like

2:36

23 years ago. And I was like,

2:38

really? I was like, tell me more. So

2:41

I was actually going for pre-physical therapy

2:43

at the time. I just

2:46

knew because of my background, because of my interests

2:48

and passions, I knew I wanted to

2:50

do something in the

2:52

health fitness, like science-y type realm. And

2:54

, the only thing I really could think of was physical

2:57

therapy and I had experience with my own therapist with

2:59

a back injury. So I'm like, oh, that'd be

3:01

really cool to help other people.

3:03

And then , my path changed a little

3:05

bit when I was doing

3:07

my volunteer hours and I

3:09

became pretty friendly with this physical therapist

3:12

at the clinic. Her name was Colleen. And

3:14

I don't know if I peeked over at her

3:16

check or if she showed me,

3:19

but I remember being shocked cause I

3:21

was doing like part-time personal training.

3:23

I'm like, am I making more than her? And I was

3:25

like , so that definitely was part of the influence. And then I

3:28

walked past the room and I saw this

3:30

is elderly obese person, you know, getting a massage and

3:32

I saw skin flying everywhere and I'm like,

3:35

I don't know if I really want to do that. So my experience

3:38

just showed me that it really wasn't what I wanted to

3:40

do. I'm sure it was just like my experience,

3:42

but that led me towards personal

3:45

training. And that was like 23 years ago. And

3:48

I've had definitely some ups and downs and some

3:52

zigzags , there was a period there where I did martial arts

3:54

professionally for a few years. But that's

3:56

really all I've done.

3:57

That's amazing, man. So , that's

3:59

a great story on how you got started in fitness.

4:02

How did you get started or how

4:04

did you realize that fitness pros needed help

4:06

with financial management or how to , you

4:09

know, how to win with money?

4:09

So , man

4:15

, going back about 11 years

4:18

ago now, I

4:21

was doing my thing. I was living my

4:23

life. I'm a generally

4:25

like happy, positive, optimistic kind of guy. It's just how I'm

4:28

wired. I was just living

4:30

my life. I was recently married, about to start a

4:33

family. I was doing what I loved, which was training

4:37

people. And then , one day I got a knock on

4:39

the door as I was getting ready for work.

4:41

I think it was like 7:30 in the morning. I

4:43

opened the door and there's this big musclebound

4:47

dude standing on my porch. He's got tattoos

4:49

on his neck. He's got to goatee, shaved

4:51

head. And I looked past him

4:54

and I saw my beautiful,

4:56

shiny brand, new white Honda accord.

4:59

And it was hooked up to his tow truck. And

5:02

it was

5:04

like a shock. But what was shocking

5:06

about it, well, I guess that's like

5:08

kind of the definition of shock, right? It's like, I

5:12

didn't know it was coming. I didn't even realize that I

5:14

was in danger of that happening. I never heard of

5:16

it. I'm like what's going on here? I didn't even,

5:19

that's how bad things were that I didn't even

5:21

know because now that I look back, like I had

5:23

to have been behind several months and I

5:25

had to have been getting warnings, that just

5:28

doesn't happen, you know , out of nowhere. But

5:30

for me it did, I was just really oblivious. I was

5:32

hiding my head

5:34

under the sand or brushing

5:36

the dirt under the carpet. However you want to say

5:38

it. And , from that, at that point , I

5:41

dug around and I wanted to at

5:43

least get some sense of reality and discovered

5:51

that my wife and I were 130,000 , and

5:54

change in non-mortgage debt. So it was crazy. I

5:57

think I had every debt possible.

5:59

I had medical debt. I had credit card debt,

6:01

high interest. We had

6:04

student loans on both sides.

6:06

We had loans with friends

6:08

, loans with family members. It was a

6:11

mess , stacks and stacks of

6:13

bills piled up to here. And that, so that was

6:15

the start of my journey. So

6:18

, how I got to realize there was a need

6:20

in the fitness

6:23

industry was years later , this story, has

6:25

a really good ending , five years we

6:27

were able to pay off

6:30

every dollar, every cent of that

6:32

debt. And then I started

6:34

just like, I guess a lot of guys, or

6:36

hopefully a lot of guys, they start getting involved with

6:38

coaching and masterminding. So I started

6:40

getting around more people and people

6:46

would start asking me like how I'm doing, how I'm running

6:48

my business because the businesses were successful. I have two

6:50

facilities here on Long Island and we have a small

6:53

footprint model and it was , things were going really well for

6:55

us. So people started asking me questions , that

6:57

ultimately led to me doing a little bit of business coaching.

6:59

I ended up creating a sort of like a

7:01

product. I was more than a product, more

7:03

like a , I don't want to say licensed

7:06

program, but it was the real

7:08

deal. It was kind of like how to run the business. That's

7:13

what started the journey to the financial stuff. Cause

7:15

then I started really digging into

7:17

things with people and they would come up to me and they

7:20

would tell me the reality of

7:22

their business and it wasn't good in many cases,

7:25

you know, people that they weren't too

7:27

far from having their doors shut

7:29

down. They were , heavily in debt. They

7:31

were making no money. They weren't taking

7:33

home any money, regardless of what the Instagram photos

7:36

or the Facebook photos showed, they weren't

7:39

doing well financially. And , that's when I realized

7:42

that, wow, there's a huge need

7:44

here. The level of

7:46

financial education and knowledge is

7:49

really low. It's probably like that in every industry, but

7:51

obviously this is the one that I'm in. And

7:53

that's what I saw. So that led to the led to

7:55

me doing all this stuff. I know that was super

7:58

long-winded .

7:58

No , I think that's great. And you know what I do think that

8:00

the need is even greater in fitness, because

8:04

fitness is generally chosen as a

8:07

career by passionate people who

8:09

are really focused on just helping people out

8:12

and getting them fitter and healthier. There's

8:14

a low barrier to entry to enter the field.

8:16

Thank goodness. But that also means

8:18

that you might not have a financial background or an education.

8:21

I mean, I certainly didn't when I started. So

8:23

what problem do people bring you most often?

8:25

Or what do you see out there most often

8:28

among fitpros?

8:29

This isn't really like the answer

8:31

I almost even want to give, because it doesn't sound so exciting,

8:33

but what seems to be coming up a lot

8:36

is like the relationship with money,

8:39

you know, things like

8:41

I can't control my

8:44

spending and things like I can't get on the

8:46

same page with my spouse because,

8:48

you know, she or he is doing one thing

8:50

and I'm doing another and we can't seem

8:53

to get alignment. So it's like, I wish it

8:56

was easier, you know , I wish it was just like, Hey, all you need to do is

8:58

like X, Y, and Z. But these are some

9:00

deeper issues that people really need to reflect

9:03

and figure out, you know, why they

9:05

have certain behaviors or why they're having problems with communication.

9:08

So these are like deeper issues, but those

9:10

are some , and then of course, there's also the very practical things

9:13

, like, Hey, I'm in debt

9:15

and I need to make a plan. I'm

9:17

ready to take action. And

9:19

I just need to figure out how to do it. And that could be

9:21

on the personal side and on the business side

9:24

as well.

9:25

I would love to learn more about that relationship

9:27

with money concepts . So, you

9:29

know, and a lot of the gyms that we worked

9:31

with started out that way, right.

9:34

I'm just really passionate about CrossFit

9:36

or, or sports training or whatever it is.

9:39

And so I feel kind of guilty about even charging

9:41

a dollar for it, let alone what I should be charging.

9:44

And we've just started working with more and more

9:46

yoga gyms now. And I see this pervasive

9:49

attitude there too, of like, oh,

9:51

I'm so lucky to be able to do this.

9:54

I feel guilty about making

9:56

a good wage, you know, what are some tools

9:58

or tactics that we could use to overcome that

10:00

mindset?

10:01

I guess it comes down to first identifying

10:03

it and just recognizing

10:06

the value that we're actually bringing.

10:09

You know, people think, oh, I'm just training them for an

10:11

hour. You know, I shouldn't charge too much. I

10:14

had one guy , actually yesterday,

10:16

a coaching client. He told me that

10:19

he'd raised his rates and one of

10:21

his clients called him greedy.

10:23

And it actually like

10:25

pissed me off, like to my core,

10:28

I got really mad for him. And I

10:30

said, dude, I said, I want to

10:33

talk to this guy, you know, cause you know, what does

10:35

he do? And he's like some kind of professional

10:37

and what does he charge ? And you know, of course he's,

10:40

you know , making all types of money and he has the

10:42

nerve to say, this guy is greedy

10:44

because he's, you know, he's a life -changer , he's

10:46

adding so much value. So my

10:49

advice to that young man was to

10:53

really recognize who

10:55

you wanna work with and who you don't want to work with.

10:58

You know, I said, listen, if this guy's

11:01

going to call you greedy for charging

11:03

and if I told you the actual

11:05

number, it's like so far from greedy,

11:07

I said, you know, I don't think you want to work with a

11:09

guy like that. You want to work with people that

11:12

value you, value your time and they're

11:14

happy to pay what you're

11:16

worth. So I think it's just a lot of it

11:18

is , it's just not having that confidence because

11:21

partly because yeah, they got into it because

11:23

it was a passion. They love working out. They

11:25

like helping people and they don't have

11:27

that business sense or that financial

11:30

knowledge. And they're not confident in

11:32

a lot of times treating it like a business and realizing

11:35

that, Hey, if I'm charging, you

11:37

know, only X amount of dollars. And I have

11:39

all this overhead, there's really very

11:41

little left and , number one, that's

11:43

going to be a problem just to

11:45

survive. but number two, if I ever want to

11:47

grow this thing or step out of a coaching role

11:49

, there's no margin to do that. How am I going to , I'm

11:51

barely making any money myself, how am I going to pay somebody

11:54

else to provide a service? So they just have to really

11:56

, I think it's education, knowledge, it's

11:59

getting more comfortable with some of

12:01

these things.

12:02

So repetition, experience probably

12:04

helps. Would you say so, Billy?

12:06

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I tried to encourage

12:08

him like, Hey, we all kind of start there. We all go

12:11

through this. Most of us aren't, you know,

12:13

born with like super business and

12:16

financial savvy. It's something that we do have to go

12:18

through. But at some point we do have to get

12:21

uncomfortable. We have to get out of our comfort

12:23

zone. We have to , just take a chance,

12:26

you know, just do different things, put yourself

12:28

out there and take a chance. And I

12:31

basically assured him, I said, listen, you

12:33

raising your rates. I

12:36

basically guaranteed him. I said, I

12:38

can guarantee you that it's going to be

12:40

a good move for you. You're going to be happier that you did that.

12:43

You're either going to retain all of your clients or

12:45

you're going to retain the ones that you want and the ones that are on

12:47

your waiting list that you just told me about

12:50

are going to be happy to fill in that spot of if

12:52

somebody does leave.

12:54

Yeah. I agree, man. So,

12:57

you know, early on, a lot of us had to learn

12:59

that lesson the hard way. And for me

13:01

it was, I worked , I had like 13

13:03

client hours booked back to back, no breaks

13:05

all day. I finally went

13:07

out of my little 10

13:10

by 10 tiny personal training studio

13:12

gym at nine o'clock and counted

13:14

up the money. And I said, there's just not enough. Like I cannot

13:17

support my lifestyle on this. And

13:19

that's what forced me to do it. But

13:21

the other problem that comes in at that

13:23

stage too is debt,and debt

13:25

can really creep up on you. You mentioned

13:28

that that was a problem for you. How did you actually

13:30

overcome it and like pay off over a hundred

13:32

thousand in consumer debt in five years?

13:34

Well, the very

13:36

first thing that had to happen, which

13:38

is kind of obvious, but just to make sure we're

13:40

not looking past it is I just

13:43

made a very clear decision that

13:45

I was going to do it . Once I

13:48

did , it was like a switch that went off. I was really

13:50

mad at myself. I was mad at

13:52

the, basically the husband I was being

13:54

to even put our family in that position. And I said, this

13:56

is it. I am done with this.

13:58

I am changing things. We

14:00

are going to do

14:02

whatever it takes to get out of this

14:04

debt and move forward. So that was like the very

14:07

first thing. And then after that, you

14:09

just take one step after the other,

14:11

you know, I got into that $1 at a time and I had to

14:13

get out of it $1 at a time. People are surprised

14:15

when I tell them that, you know , I would

14:17

do things like, you know, take

14:20

like a little extra dollar and

14:22

60 cents and put it towards like a

14:25

$2,000 debt. And it's like, you know

14:27

, why would you do that? You're not making any

14:30

progress with that. And it was just the

14:32

idea of like becoming that kind of person, creating

14:34

that identity in ourselves that like , we're

14:36

just people that are getting out of debt and we're doing whatever it takes. If

14:38

it's an extra one penny, I'm

14:40

going to pay it, as crazy as that sounds.

14:42

That's the kind of stuff that we did. And then at

14:44

one point we were doing

14:46

well, we were making progress. And of course, you

14:49

know, you get discouraged because you know, you might make

14:51

progress and then there's a month where you

14:53

make no progress or maybe you even fall back a

14:55

little bit and maybe have a hard month. And

14:57

you're like, man, like we're working our tails off,

14:59

you know, it's years into this. I just kind

15:01

of want to give up. but at one point we

15:03

just decided, it was actually my wife's

15:06

thought. She said, we just need, we

15:10

were dedicated to it, but we had

15:12

some extra money just kind of sitting around. And we

15:14

were like, really like scared to let it go.

15:16

We weren't totally organized. We

15:19

just went. And this is one of my biggest

15:21

tips is we just went all

15:23

in, laser focused. We are taking

15:26

every penny we can spare. And we

15:28

were putting it towards this debt. And as far as like

15:30

the exact mechanics we used what's called the debt

15:32

snowball. And so the debt snowball was , something

15:34

I also encourage people to

15:37

do either the debt snowball or something like it,

15:39

basically what you do is you're going to

15:41

take , you're gonna just list out all of your debts.

15:43

You're going to list out what they are,

15:45

you know, whether it's a visa credit card or a

15:47

car note, whatever it is, you list it out, you

15:49

list the total dollar amount, the

15:52

balance that's due, you list

15:54

the interest rate, you list

15:56

the , you know, when it's due, you list a

15:58

minimum payment that's due and then the

16:00

estimated payoff date. So I always encourage people to

16:02

just get that list together. Like even just doing that

16:05

and people, and actually I was just on another show

16:07

and somebody asked me like, when you did that, didn't it like

16:09

freak you out because you look, you did that. And you saw like

16:11

130 at the bottom. And

16:14

I was like, you know what, surprisingly, it

16:16

didn't do that. It actually gave me a little bit

16:18

of like comfort. Cause I'm like, I'm looking

16:20

at it. This is what we have to deal with. I'd

16:22

rather know what we're dealing with and just

16:25

be blind to it. And I was like, yeah,

16:27

you know what? This is a monster

16:29

of a goal,

16:31

but at least I know what I'm dealing with and we can start

16:33

taking action. So then basically you just list them out in the order you

16:36

want to pay them, you knock out that

16:39

lowest balance first, and then

16:41

you're taking the minimum payment that

16:43

you were paying towards that and

16:45

you lump it together and you start creating that snowball.

16:47

So then you're going to pay down the next one. And

16:49

it is powerful when you

16:52

focus on it. It doesn't work if you're trying

16:54

to do that, and you're trying to accomplish like six

16:56

other financial goals. You have to

16:58

be focused. But when you are, it works.

17:01

It's worked for me. It's worked for many clients. And

17:03

by the time I got to the end of it, it was a huge

17:05

amount. I don't remember exactly, but I want

17:07

to say it was like either six

17:10

or $8,000 payment towards that last debt. That's how big

17:12

that snowball got because I had so much,

17:14

and it was taking the

17:16

minimum payments plus whatever extra you have. So,

17:19

you know, you can, you know, maybe if you have a training

17:22

gym , maybe you run a special program, you

17:24

do a nutrition program. You try to make an extra thousand

17:26

bucks and you put that towards it. I was going around

17:28

doing seminars for 250 a pop,

17:30

and I was just throwing that towards the debt. I was,

17:33

you know , selling stuff. I was just doing whatever I

17:35

could , to make progress that.

17:37

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18:03

Do you think in the long run,

18:05

Billy, that that helped you like

18:07

learning that progress? Or maybe

18:09

just because it made you hungry to do these extra

18:11

things to create the revenue, to pay it off?

18:13

Yeah, that actually gives me a few thoughts. So number

18:16

one , going through that experience, 100%

18:18

helped me with the business , because

18:20

that was

18:22

all personal. There was a little bit of business

18:25

debt from previous business. But my

18:27

business has been debt free from the start. Other than that, it

18:29

was like some IRS payments

18:31

that I owed from a previous business. That's a whole nother

18:34

story with, you know, not having a

18:36

plan for taxes. I think we all go through

18:39

that at some point, it seems like.

18:41

And , so it was a tremendous

18:43

lesson on the business side because I was able to prevent

18:46

going into debt on the business,

18:48

which I don't know if that would've happened had I not

18:50

gone through that. That was number one, number

18:52

two, it has given

18:54

me the ability, I think, to be

18:58

able to set and achieve financial goals and

19:00

it creates motivation and

19:03

momentum. And I think I actually heard this on

19:05

your podcast, Chris, where it's like, you set u

19:08

p a benchmark and now you need to do

19:10

the work to achieve it. Y ou k now? So I need to

19:12

make more money to pay down this debt. I

19:15

need to, you know, we operate d ebt f ree. So it's like, if

19:17

I need to buy this equipment, I need to save the

19:19

money. That creates like really

19:21

good habits, right? Because now you're doing the

19:23

work to get there and you just sort of create

19:26

this internal motivation to reach more goals. So I think

19:28

it did that. It

19:30

made me, t his is good and bad, but it made

19:33

me not, l ike g

19:35

ray. It made me like all in

19:37

on my goals. I think some people

19:40

that are carrying like a few thousand dollars of debt and

19:42

they're able to manage it, but they

19:44

don't, they never really learned the

19:47

lesson of really making progress. I

19:49

think going through that, being at that rock

19:51

bottom point, it really made

19:53

that flip for me, which I don't

19:55

know what would have happened if it wasn't

19:58

so bad. And then finally, I think what it

20:00

did for my marriage and my family, although

20:03

it was painful in the moment, I think that turned

20:05

out to be a big

20:07

advantage because it's like something my wife and

20:09

I can , you know, we bonded over it. You know, we

20:11

did this together. It was just her and

20:13

I in terms of at that point

20:15

in our lives. And it was just something that was

20:17

only, we would understand it with each other. And I think it

20:19

just brought us closer and now it's helped us as

20:21

we've worked towards other things.

20:24

And I really think that, you know , the best mentorship

20:26

comes from experience like this. So

20:29

when somebody seeks out your service, Billy, like,

20:31

what's the very first thing that you work on with them?

20:34

Well , we usually,

20:36

I usually like to get into just

20:38

like any other coach, you know, I'm going to ask

20:40

a bunch of questions. I'm going to find out what

20:44

their needs are, what their wants are, what are their biggest

20:49

pain points. But, once we

20:52

start like really getting into the actual steps

20:54

, we do something called just, what do

20:56

we call it? An inventory, creating an inventory. So we

20:59

just want to get a snapshot , same idea. It's like, if

21:01

you don't know where you are, it's like our

21:03

fitness clients, you know, most of us, we're doing some

21:05

kind of assessment, whether it's a movement screen

21:07

or a strength test, it's something as

21:10

we're starting with that person to, you know, where are

21:12

you starting from? If you want to lose weight,

21:14

all right, how much do you want to lose? Where

21:16

are you starting from? Same idea with the

21:18

finances. So let's look at it, let's put it out there.

21:20

You know, what's your , depends like, is it

21:22

net worth? Is it total debt?

21:25

Is it savings? You know, where are you

21:27

in your life? What are your goals?

21:29

And then once we get an idea of where they are,

21:32

we could start working on

21:34

, where they want to go and then start creating a plan

21:36

to get there.

21:37

Yeah, that's great, man. I got a question yhat's

21:39

come up in our higher level group. These are the tinkers

21:42

. There becomes

21:44

this point where you're earning more

21:46

money than you need to earn. You're

21:48

working only about as much as you want to,

21:51

you know, and a lot of them still choose to coach because they

21:53

just love it. So they might do an hour or two,

21:55

you know , a day. But how do you stay

21:57

motivated after that? Beyond

22:00

this point.

22:01

Yeah. I love that. That's

22:03

something I've dealt with a lot myself.

22:05

And I'll tell you a quick point to that

22:07

was when we made that last payment.

22:09

So this is even getting before what you would call the tinker

22:11

stage. So this is going back when we paid off that debt,

22:14

it was similar . It reminds me of that

22:16

because it was such a big goal. And,

22:19

you know, people ask me that must have felt awesome. Like

22:21

you paid off all that debt. That's crazy. And

22:24

I didn't feel like that, you know, that's kind

22:26

of embarrassing, right? Like I made that last payment

22:29

and like, maybe for like three seconds, like I felt

22:31

really good. And then it was like

22:33

where's the balloons? And where's all the bells and whistles.

22:36

Like, life is pretty much the same.

22:38

Right. We still have all of our other problems. And

22:40

now it's just kinda like onto the next thing. So I would just encourage

22:42

people, I've been

22:44

in that boat and it's, just

22:48

embracing the journey

22:50

and realizing that a big part of success

22:52

and especially financial

22:54

success, it's just sometimes it's just not

22:56

that exciting. You know, it's just doing

22:58

things consistently over time and getting

23:00

to the point where you have that

23:03

time freedom and, you know, finding

23:05

joy in whatever it is that brings you joy, whether it's

23:07

time with your family, whether it's starting

23:09

a side business, whether it's getting involved with

23:12

different investments. But you kind of find those things to do

23:14

to sort of keep you going, you know,

23:16

creating new goals. And then ultimately

23:19

it's about, you know, like for me, I have four

23:21

kids, so it's like, you know, what can I do?

23:23

I'm starting to get into investments with my ten-year-old.

23:26

And it's like, that's kind of exciting to me. It's

23:28

like, you know what? Because it's new to me. I've never

23:31

taught a ten-year-old about investing. So it was kind

23:33

of like a new goal in and of itself. So

23:35

I think things like that can keep you

23:38

motivated because for me, it's not about

23:40

the money, just like for a lot of people listening

23:42

are like , you don't really want, you know,

23:45

you only want so much stuff. Like, what is all that

23:47

stuff going to do for you at the end of the day, maybe you really

23:49

enjoy cars and that's all good, but

23:52

at some point, you know, it's like there's a little bit more

23:54

to it than that. And it's, you know, teaching

23:56

those kids, it's giving back, it's

23:58

really making an impact. It's really

24:01

, you know, maybe getting joy from giving,

24:03

whether it's your time or your money. But I

24:06

don't wanna , I don't want to just rush past

24:09

that point of I think

24:11

just kind of just accept that

24:14

it's a process and maybe

24:16

right now you're not feeling super

24:19

motivated cause you didn't just start a brand new gym

24:21

and you know , you just kind of, you've done really

24:23

well and your reward is now, you know , you

24:25

kind of get to do what you want, but if

24:27

you look at anybody who's been successful financially

24:30

in the long term, it's just been like this,

24:32

like plodding along, like, you know, even

24:34

Warren Buffet, it's been in the news a lot lately

24:37

where, you know, 99

24:39

point something percent of his net worth was achieved

24:41

after age 65 and even

24:43

more in recent years.

24:45

Why is that? Because he was investing since age 10

24:48

and you look at, you know, 55

24:50

years of getting to those,

24:52

you know, billions and billions and now

24:55

he's like 90 and it's

24:57

like, man, that's not going to

24:59

sell. That's not going to sell a ton of , you know,

25:01

books or tons of programs. Hey, invest,

25:04

you know, slowly and steadily for, you know, for decades

25:06

and decades and decades. But , we

25:08

all know that if you got to that tinker level, then you know that

25:11

it's a process and it takes time.

25:13

That's great, man. You know, another

25:15

question that comes up a lot in our tinker program

25:17

is what should I do with the money?

25:19

So I've got this money coming out of the gym.

25:21

Do I go open another gym? Do I

25:24

buy sports cars? Do I put it in index funds? Like,

25:27

what do you tell people to go all in

25:29

on their project, to diversify? What

25:31

advice do you have?

25:33

I'm a big fan of, and it's just

25:35

how my mind works. I think that's part of it is like figuring

25:37

out how your mind works and the way

25:39

you operate, because we're all different. One

25:41

of the things that works well for me is I like

25:44

dealing with percentages. So

25:46

what I'll do is I'll just kind of create an , it could

25:48

be arbitrary. It could be just based on,

25:50

you know, how much effort you want to put into one

25:52

area versus another, but you might say,

25:55

but don't miss the point of you worked really hard

25:57

and you've earned this money. So don't miss the point

25:59

of enjoying that money. So you

26:02

might say, Hey, you know, any extra

26:04

profit that we have, I'm going to take, let's

26:06

say, you know , 50% of it

26:08

or, you know , 55% of it or 60%

26:10

of it. And I'm going to put it towards like these

26:13

personal goals that I have, you know, it could

26:16

be, you know , some fancy vacations, it

26:18

could be a

26:20

, you know, a material thing or other experience. But

26:22

I'm going to take the rest of this and yeah, I'm going to

26:25

put it towards investments. I'm going to put it

26:27

towards assets. I'm going to put it towards , the stock

26:29

market or I'm going to put it towards real estate or

26:31

I'm going to put it towards this side hustle that I'm working

26:34

on. So I just think it comes

26:36

down to really getting an

26:38

understanding of the vision you have

26:40

and what you want to do.

26:42

Like I have one guy who he's doing really

26:44

well, he's at that level you're talking about, and

26:47

he just doesn't want to have another

26:49

business. He doesn't want to get involved

26:51

with real estate. He just wants to

26:54

put his money in like low cost index funds

26:56

and let it grow. He still enjoys training.

26:58

He's kind of like the mayor of his facility and

27:01

he likes it. So he's got a good grasp of what

27:03

he wants to do and what he likes,

27:06

but then you have, you know,

27:08

another guy who is starting to get into like,

27:10

you know , Airbnbs and getting into that whole thing.

27:12

And that's great, but they're are different personalities.

27:14

And one guy is really

27:17

into that and he enjoys it and the other

27:19

guy doesn't want anything to do with it. So I think

27:21

we have to be careful of just doing

27:23

something because maybe somebody else is doing it. And I've I've

27:25

struggled with that. It's like, man, like that guy is doing it. Maybe I

27:27

should do that. Like, not

27:29

necessarily because everything we say yes

27:32

to , we're automatically saying no to

27:34

something else. So just kind of weighing

27:36

the downside versus the upside

27:38

and figuring out what you want to do, but I will

27:40

say that's a good problem.

27:41

It's a great problem for sure. You

27:44

know, but I definitely agree. Like it's very easy

27:46

to get distracted at this level. Especially

27:49

if you spend a long time working really

27:51

hard and not having any money, to suddenly

27:53

have it now, you're just tempted

27:55

to do everything.

27:57

Yeah. So let me add one thing there.

27:58

Because if this

28:01

saves one person, it'll be worth our time. There's

28:03

the difference between making money

28:05

and then keeping money. And I think that

28:07

could be a potential danger

28:09

or risk for somebody, you know, you work so

28:12

hard, you got to the point you're able to build up some

28:15

savings and then you took some

28:17

huge risk that just really wasn't worth it for

28:19

you. So it kind of, you know , make sure you're just weighing

28:21

that out. And if there is a risk,

28:23

make sure it's smart, make sure you're not just,

28:25

you know , throwing it into something that you know, who knows

28:27

what's going to happen. It's just a

28:30

different skill. I should say keeping money is

28:32

a different skill than making

28:34

money.

28:35

That's really insightful because

28:37

it is very, very tempting once

28:39

you've been successful at a gym or a personal

28:41

training studio or a yoga studio to

28:44

be like, I'm going to go open a coffee shop. And that is

28:46

like my constant temptation.

28:48

That's a really good example. Cause who says,

28:50

just because you're, you know, you're a gym owner, who

28:53

says you're going to be a great and maybe you

28:55

are, and maybe that's fine .

28:58

I'm not.

28:58

Exactly. That's good. I like that.

29:01

Yeah. And , you know, even from some

29:03

of the mentors that I've had, who had very boring businesses,

29:05

you know, maybe they started like a garbage company

29:07

or something. And then

29:10

they sold it and they're really wealthy and then

29:12

they become bored. And

29:14

so, you know, a lot of the less disciplined

29:16

ones would say, what do I want to do next? Well, I'm

29:18

really interested in coffee. I'm going to go

29:21

start a coffee house. But what these really

29:23

disciplined mentors do is they'll say I'm going to start

29:25

another garbage business, sanitation

29:28

business. Cause I know how to do that. It would be

29:30

dumb of me to go learn everything. So I'm going

29:32

to go start it. We're going to grow faster than I did the

29:34

first time. I'm probably going to sell it again.

29:36

So yeah, I've been

29:38

listening to more of this type of advice recently,

29:41

Billy. And I think like what you're saying there is super

29:43

important. It's harder to keep money

29:45

that is to make money.

29:47

I think a lot of us that are kind of wired

29:49

as entrepreneurs, we kind of, we want to monetize

29:51

everything. It's like , I love

29:53

to read books. So maybe I'll open a bookstore, you

29:55

know, it's like sometimes it's just, you know, just kind of

29:57

stay in your lane and stick to your strengths. And I've

29:59

had that like with jujitsu, so I've done jujitsu my whole life.

30:02

And you know , I can't tell you how many times I thought about like if I

30:04

had my own jujitsu school, but it's like, yeah, that just

30:06

creates so much more stuff.

30:08

And it's like, is it worth it?

30:10

Yeah. And you'll probably wind up hating jujitsu.

30:12

That's the big fear. I definitely get that.

30:15

OK, man. So , tell us about your program,

30:18

gym owners, fitpros they call you

30:20

up? What happens?

30:22

Yeah. So I'm more of

30:24

the style of coach that,

30:27

you know, kind of just believe that, you

30:29

know, the people that contacted me,

30:31

they're motivated. They

30:33

want to make a change. They

30:35

have what it takes. So all I'm going to do

30:38

is I'm just gonna give them

30:41

perspective. I am going to share my

30:43

experience. I'm gonna ask

30:46

questions to really get them

30:48

to discover their next steps. I'm gonna

30:51

provide accountability behind that. And we're going to try

30:53

to work through these different

30:55

stages, you know , depending on where they're at, you know, I've worked with

30:57

people who are heavily in debt, I've

30:59

worked with people that are more in that tinker phase that

31:02

you're talking about. It's

31:04

going to be a different strategy for

31:06

each person, but it's just going to be, you know, meeting them

31:08

where they're at and , giving

31:10

them action steps and accountability

31:12

to get them to their goal.

31:15

That's fantastic, man. How do people reach

31:18

you or find your program?

31:19

So I think the best way, if

31:21

anybody just wants to kind of like hear more, check

31:24

out more of the content. I'd love for you to check out

31:26

the podcast. It's your fitness money coach podcast.

31:29

And then if you want to contact me directly, I think

31:31

social media is fine. Like Facebook it's,

31:33

Billy Hofacker or William, my given name, Hofacker. You

31:37

can catch me there. I mean, the website is yourfitnessmoneycoach

31:39

.com . So any of those

31:42

would be great.

31:42

That's great Billy. Hey man. Thanks for coming on. I

31:45

think you've given us a lot of value and there's a

31:47

few specific tools that people can take away

31:49

from this. We'll put that link in the

31:51

show notes for everybody and

31:53

yeah, keep doing it, man. Keep making

31:55

fitpros more successful. Thank you,

31:58

Chris. Thanks for your encouragement and consider

32:00

an honor to be on your show and just appreciate

32:02

all that you're doing as well.

32:06

Thanks for listening to, Two-Brain video. If you aren't

32:08

in the gym owners, United group on Facebook,

32:10

this is my personal invitation to

32:12

join. It's the only public Facebook group

32:14

that I participate in. And I mean there

32:16

all the time with tips, tactics, and free

32:18

resources, I'd love to network with

32:20

you and help you grow your business. Join gym owners

32:23

United on Facebook.

32:30

[inaudible] .