Fitness Business School – Pat’s Mistakes

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here and I wanted to take this episode and share some of my mistakes. So obviously there are a lot of those, so let’s get to it.

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The things that happen online are, are kind of amusing to me, right? Because everybody posts their highlight reel. Everybody shares the, the flattering pictures of themself with perfect lighting and, you know, everything’s choreographed and, you know, people don’t pull back the curtain very often on the, the struggles or the challenges or the mistakes, unless it’s just something that’s part of their what well crafted hero’s journey story. Right? They, they don’t do much of that. And I think that’s, that’s a problem, right? It makes us feel worse about ourselves because we’re like, man, these people have it all figured out and they never screw anything up. And I’m not that person. And I can’t do that. Or we compare ourselves to somebody’s highlight real instead of the totality of who they are and what their journey has looked like. And you know, I, I just think that that’s, it’s just not a, a great environment to, to learn from to use to inspire you to get better.

So I wanted to take some time on this episode to talk about a few of my screw ups, a few of my mistakes and not just in, you know, the typical kind of staged rags to Rich’s hero journey thing, but more of a, like, you know what, I came out the other side and it’s, it’s all worked out well, but I haven’t, you know, I, I, haven’t done an awesome job at everything throughout and, and, you know, you don’t have to, to do a plus work at all times throughout and make perfect decisions throughout to, to get to where you’re trying to go. So let’s see. What did, where, where do I wanna start? Because man, there’s so many of these I think the first miss stake that that comes to mind for me is I didn’t work hard on getting good at paid lead generation early on. I was always pretty good at guerrilla marketing. And I think that just stemmed from the fact that, you know, my time as a baseball coach, my time as a, you know, my, my first business just, you know, I mean, everything was done on shoestring. So I never really figured out paid lead generation early on.

And I think that if you can figure out how to get leads and do it in a way that you can be profitable within whatever your time horizon is like for me now, if I can get a lead and be profitable, 90 days later, I’m happy, but at certain points, maybe that was 14 or 30 days or whatever, but figuring out how to use paid lead generation sooner. I think would’ve accelerated my progress. I think all of us as business owners need to eventually make that part of our marketing mix. And I think it slowed down my progress for a while. I think the second one would be saying yes to way too many things. And honestly, this is probably, if I’m looking back at all the mistakes that I have made throughout the years, this, this is probably the biggest one. Because you know, you look at the upside of things and you, you know, we’re not objective, we get emotional and we say, well, Hey, I can make this work. Or we run rationalize why this is a good decision.

And, and we take on so much. I mean, there was a time that I was, you know, the CEO for like eight different businesses and a, a, a CMO for like four others. Like there’s no way I could have been good at those, all those job simultaneous no way. And honestly, the thought that I could compete with other people who were doing that with a hundred percent of their effort with, you know, 10% of mine is absurd. I, I mean, there’s no way I could have done that and put those businesses in the best possible spots. So saying yes to too many things. And that’s still something I think that I, that I probably battle with every day, because you know, the, the more wins you rack up, the more interesting opportunities come your way. And, you know, there are things now that, that might come across my plate that 10 years ago, would’ve been like a, a big yes. And now I, you know, I have to say no to it because it’d be a distraction. So, you know, I, I think that making no the default answer and understanding that no’s not always permanent. Sometimes it’s just not right now. It would’ve probably served me served me better.

Let’s see. Not, not saving and investing early enough, like always thinking that I would you know, that, that I would just reinvest in the business and cash out instead of understanding the magic of compound interest and putting money away from my kids sooner, putting money away for retirement sooner. I mean, I, I’ve had to put away four times as much to, to catch up as I would have if I would’ve done a good job with that sort of thing in my mid twenties with, you know, what, what was an appropriate amount for the income I was earning then now sure. We are in many ways our best investment, because we have a lot of control, but it, we shouldn’t be our only investment. We should diversify some and, and put money back into our business, but also be paying ourselves first, not just present sales for our current responsibilities bills, whatever, but future sales as well. Next one Drifting away from relationship building and networking outside of my own little bubble. There was a time when, you know, my network of companies that I was an owner co-owner in, we were doing, you know, about 10 live of Vince a year, the, these elite training workshops and franchise conferences and you know, and, and big, you know, IYCA summits on all these things and they, they were a lot, right? Like it would be a whole week of my, my life each time we would do it. It would be just consumed by this, if it were traveling to a different venue or you know, the piggybacking a couple meetings in one spot to, to kind of leverage the, the fact that would have, you know, people there, but the, the, the drawback I wasn’t getting out and talking to people who weren’t part of these things, I wasn’t going to other industry events. I wasn’t going out there and spending time networking.

And just staying connected with other people who weren’t in that kind of little bubble. And, you know, that was the first thing I did when I sold my steak. And all of that was I went on the, what I called the, the Pat’s traveling road show and flew to Colorado and flew to California and flew to Florida, and just sat down and visited with people and, and networked with people. And, you know, was really genuinely interested in what they were doing. And it, it was critical. And, and frankly, it’s something that, you know, I I’ve got to, to make part of my life at all times now, because, you know, we’re, you know, the, the cliche saying your net worth is your network is a cliche because there’s a lot of truth in it. If you are not out there building relationships, you’re really limiting the growth opportunities. The, the, you know, the enjoyment, the fulfillment, the upside that you have in, in this professional kind of landscape that you’re in. Next one, not following my gut soon enough when I knew it was time to change. And there are two times that that really stick out, but probably two or three others that, that, you know, know there, there was enough of a hint I should have acted on where I just stayed too long. You know, I, I knew that that part of my professional life had run its course, and I was just afraid to move to the next step to the unknown, you know, and I’d rationalize it saying, man, I put so much of myself into this past thing, whether it be, you know, my time as a college baseball coach or building my company that involved the franchises and all that stuff in both cases, you know, I should have moved on probably 12 months sooner.

And there have been a few other cases that, that the same, would’ve been true, that I should’ve just moved away a little sooner. And, you know, and if I’d have followed my gut, I would’ve gotten a little more of a head start on that next step. And I, would’ve also probably left before. You know, the things would get more tumultuous and and a lot of the, you know, the, the unpleasant memories in both instances, all, all like almost happened in those last little windows.

So trust in my gut and moving a little sooner you know, the, the next one would be allowing myself to get pulled away from, from my strengths and doing things that were not in, you know, some people call it a zone of genius. I’m not sure I have a zone of genius, but a zone of better than average, maybe I and, you know, and spending time on, you know, people talk about, Hey, spend time on your a hundred dollars an hour tasks, not your $10 an hour tasks. I mean, for me, it’s just doing more of the things I’m better at. I get fulfillment from that. I’m energized by doing and finding other people who get that same kind of fulfillment and energy of doing the things that compliment what I’m doing and letting them do their stuff and be in their zone of genius. That is critical for me. And, and, you know, a lot of times, you know, you don’t need to take on a business partner to do that. You don’t need to give up equity in a business to do that, but there are people out there that you can, you know, hire in a contractual way to do it. You can hire people on an ongoing basis and make them team members, but let people do the things they’re great at you do the things you’re great at, and you’re gonna go faster and you’re gonna go further. And I think that, I mean, when I do that, when I stick to those kind of guardrails, man business is so much more fun.

And then let’s see, we’ll, we’ll go through a couple more. I think one would be focusing on bigger and not better. And that doesn’t mean that I didn’t want growth and I still don’t want growth. I, I want more of the right growth. And a lot of times I think people get caught up in vanity metrics and it could in a micro sense, how many likes a, a social media post got in a macro sense, only looking at top line numbers and or, or number of locations or number of clients, instead of thinking about profit and fulfillment and, you know, making sure that the people that are involved, both clients and team members are getting the results, the outcomes that they want and, and working with more of the right people. You know, it’s really easy to, to measure yourself by the vanity metrics because frankly that’s the highlight real stuff, right? Nobody ever asks, Hey, what is your percentage of profit? Nobody asks about on social media, they’re, they’re quick to say, well, I’ve got so many clients. They don’t say, well, how many of your clients are doing awesome? You know, so focusing on better versus bigger, I think is something that I you know, that, that I am really, really adhering to now. And I would encourage you to probably do the same. And then I, I think is just spreading my self too thin, right? Businesses become bloated if you don’t police that and pair off things.

And so when you do that, you get spread thin because you’re doing too many things to just keep all the balls in the air. And the, the problem is, is spreading myself too thin means that I’m spending less time doing the things that, that are most important to me personally and professionally. And, and I’ve, you know, I, I mean, I I’ve done that any number of times, and there’s so many things that can lead to spreading yourself too thin, right. It, it’s not just, Hey, my to-do list got too long and I didn’t prioritize. It may mean that you took on things that took a lot of your mental energy, you know, working with the wrong people. And so now you’re are mind, even if you are not at work, your mind is still at work because you’re worried about that. It may mean taking on projects that are low ROI projects, because you’re unwilling to say no. You know, you have that fear of missing out, but let let’s face it. Fewer things better is critical. Like it is in many ways kind of the key to success. In fact, if you spread your stuff too thin, you’re essentially just settling for things being okay, you know, it’s, you can’t ever have something that’s ideal. That’s, that’s great that that’s truly fulfilling.

If you are spread too thin, you’re gonna get burned out. You’re, you’re, you’re gonna miss out on investing as much of your time and energy and the most important things. And, you know, learn, learn from my mistakes here. So, you know, let’s face it, I know better with all this stuff. And so many other mistakes that I’ve made now, that doesn’t mean that I still don’t have to course correct occasionally and, and, you know, and, and tighten things up. I still get, you know, drawn by interesting opportunity used that just, they may be great, but they may not be great for me right now. There are a lot of those things that, that are still challenges for me, but I know better. And, and hopefully because of some of the mistakes I’ve made, you can know better too, because you can build your ideal business. You can build a truly wonderful business, but it’s not gonna happen without being clear about what you want and avoiding some of those mistakes, or at least addressing them quickly. You know, otherwise it’s just gonna slow you down. So hopefully you know, hopefully me being able to, to, to dig myself outta some of the holes that I’ve created for myself along the way, and still have a great business that you know is doing enough, that you’re listening to this podcast. Hopefully that’s an inspiration for you to, to, to know that if you’ve hit bumps in the road along the way, they’re definitely permanent detours. They’re just something that you know, it is just something you have to navigate to, to get to where you want.

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