[00:00:00] [00:01:00] 

[00:01:08] Hala Taha: Yeah fam, what does it take to turn personal adversity into a thriving career in business and media? Today, I'm excited to welcome Adam Schafer, co founder of Mind Pump Media and one of the co hosts of the popular Mind Pump podcast. Now, Adam Schaefer is an extraordinary entrepreneur. I ended up speaking with him for over an hour and 40 minutes.

[00:01:29] And I do this with anyone who I feel like just has so much information that I need to extract from my listeners. Adam definitely did not disappoint. He gave so much amazing information. And in part one of this episode, we're really focusing on his challenging childhood.

[00:01:45] He had so much adversity. His dad committed suicide when he was younger, his mom was in an abusive relationship, and he had a really traumatic childhood, but he didn't stay the victim. So he discusses how he Stopped playing [00:02:00] victim and drove towards success. We also discuss how he first started MindPump, which is just such an amazing organic story.

[00:02:08] In part two, we talk about the business of MindPump. How do they make their money? How do they deal having four business partners? How do they all work together? How do they think about social versus email versus podcasts? How do they acquire audiences? What is their marketing messaging like, and we even talk about sponsorships.

[00:02:26] So this is literally a masterclass for all my creator entrepreneurs out there for all my content creators and entrepreneurs, which is basically all of us. I'm so excited for this conversation. I think you guys are going to get so much value from it. Here's part one of my conversation with Adam Schafer. 

[00:02:42] welcome to young and profiting podcast. 

[00:02:45] Adam Schafer: Thank you. I'm excited to be here. 

[00:02:47] Hala Taha: I'm so excited for this conversation. I can't wait to pick your brain about fitness, about business. And when I was studying for this interview, I found out that you've been an entrepreneur for a really long time. You started a [00:03:00] lawn mowing business before you could even drive.

[00:03:03] And so I want to know where did this entrepreneurial spirit come from and why have you always been young and profiting? 

[00:03:11] Adam Schafer: I don't think it's a very sexy story because it was more out of, Necessity. I grew up in a home. I'm the oldest of five. My parents weren't very financially successful. Uh, we struggled, we moved around a lot.

[00:03:23] I lived in nine different homes growing up. And that was because many times we couldn't afford to live in that house or we're being evicted. And so. If I wanted something as a kid, I had to go get it. It wasn't like I grew up with like this fire to, Oh, I want to build a business when I get older. It was like, Hey, if I want those new sneakers that all my friends have, or the, the new starter jacket, you know, dating myself a bit there, like that was really cool.

[00:03:45] Like I better go find a way to make money and do that. And so. Being 15 years old, one of the things I could do was, uh, mow a lawn. You know, I was been mowing my lawn for a very long time. I know there was people that needed it. And the town I grew up in, there was [00:04:00] definitely one side of the tracks, which is where I lived.

[00:04:02] And then there was like the rich people that lived on the other side of the tracks and where the golf course was. And so my buddy and I, when we were, you know, 15 years old, I had our parents drop us off in the rich neighborhood and we made little flyers. That said A and J lawn mowing and we went door to door just knocking on people's door and asking them if they wanted their their lawns mode and it turned into not only mowing lawns, but we ended up being like a little handyman for anybody.

[00:04:28] And I mean, I did staining and painting and I mean, make fence post up. I mean, whatever they were willing worked were willing to give me, I was willing to take it. And so it started off with that and back then the idea of a and J lawn mowing service was so I would be in the front of the yellow pages, which I never even got to.

[00:04:47] But that was the thought process of what are we going to name this business? And it was, uh, was mildly successful. I mean, for my age and what I was doing, it was perfect. I worked the weekends. It gave me enough money in [00:05:00] my pocket to keep up with my friends that had wealthier parents and that could buy the sneakers and the stuff.

[00:05:05] And so that's really how it started for me. The next like venture or job that I did was working in a dairy. So I was a bovine mammary extraction technician, which is a fancy term for her. I milked cows, but I got to work for a couple that had built this business from the ground up and really got to peer into what I think is like a lot of real entrepreneurship and not the sexy side, the side that is hard work and no vacations and seven days a week, twice a day, you have to milk cows.

[00:05:39] And I got to know the family really well after four years of working there. And I actually was turned off by entrepreneurship once I found how little they made and how difficult it was for them to have success. They would be considered successful because they built their livelihood. They had a home and a family and fed their family, but they struggle and they, uh, worked really, really hard.

[00:05:59] And so [00:06:00] that kind of turned me off a little bit about entrepreneurship, man, this is going to be really easy. And it's not one of those things where you just start a business and you make a lot of money. And that's actually kind of how I was going to school for kinesiology, and I moved to San Jose to go finish my degree, moved in with my grandmother, and I walked across the street to go get a gym membership, and they saw that I was studying for kinesiology, kind of offered me a job on the spot.

[00:06:24] I was like, no, I'm not I'm not looking for a job. I'm actually coming over here just to finish school. He said, Oh, well you can work part time and you can actually go through our school and we can teach you and educate you and took a part time job as a personal trainer and actually started to fall in love with entrepreneurship again.

[00:06:41] Because even though I worked for a company, uh, building your business as a, as a personal trainer is very much so like building your own business. Now I had the. The beautiful luxury of a mega company that paid for advertising and marketing and kept the lead traffic and stuff like that coming through.

[00:06:56] And so it made building my business easier than it would have been by [00:07:00] myself. That was the real, the first real taste of leadership and building a business. I think that I ever really had, and that's what gave me the skills. I'd say that I started to put it into play later on in life was going to work for that company.

[00:07:14] And they did a really good job that time 24 hour fitness was a multi billion dollar company, largest health and fitness business in the world at the time. And they had all this data and analytics. Like, and so I worked up the, my way up as a trainer within a short period of time into management. And so by 21 years old, I was managing a team of 20 trainers that were all more educated, more experienced.

[00:07:39] And older than I was. And so I was kind of thrusted into this leadership role, running this business, uh, at a very young age, not really knowing what I'm doing, but passionate about it, loved it. And had a lot of tools from the company that we had all these daily production reports that came. And so I could, I learned about lead generation and conversion and [00:08:00] closing and all the things that really help you develop things as skills that you need to build a successful business.

[00:08:07] And so I really attribute a lot of my success today off of the school of hard knocks of working for a company like that. I was, I was really blessed. 

[00:08:16] Hala Taha: I love your story because first of all, I've realized that a lot of the most successful entrepreneurs are like you. You've been working since you were a young age.

[00:08:24] I was the same. I had a job since I was 13 years old. And so by the time I was in my twenties getting my first real job, I had so much more experience Then some of the other people, and I was able to like shine because I had sales skills from working at the mall. And even if my intentions for working was just like you to just have cool clothes, like everybody else, you learn so many skills doing that.

[00:08:46] I do want to kind of go back to your childhood a bit and dig into it because I know that you had a lot of adversity and I know that you had a lot of setbacks and other people. May have stayed a [00:09:00] victim for a very long time, but somehow you were able to kind of heal through a lot of the things that you went through, or maybe you didn't, and you poured yourself into work, but I want to hear about it.

[00:09:10] Tell us if you feel comfortable some of the things that happened in your childhood and then how you. We're able to not just be a victim for the rest of your life. 

[00:09:18] Adam Schafer: I'm definitely not somebody who announces like this is what I went through because I, I'm, I don't believe in being a victim and feeling that way, right?

[00:09:27] You may feel that way, but that goes nowhere if I, if I focus on that. And I do think that that has a lot to do with the success of me as an adult was the childhood adversity. So my father, When I was seven years old, committed suicide, my mom then remarried into an abusive relationship, and then we obviously struggled financially also.

[00:09:47] So that was a typical day in my house was, uh, I've watched both my parents be hauled off by the cops many times. I was the oldest. So I was in the middle of a lot of that fighting and [00:10:00] went through that a lot of growing up. Now I look back now and feel blessed because of all that. And I don't, I wouldn't change a thing about my childhood as crazy as that it sounds, because I really do believe it is what laid the foundation for the skills that I built later on in life.

[00:10:17] And the main one of those being that. Entrepreneurship is hard and it's a lot of failure and you get beat up. And I didn't know this was my superpower until I started to get older and then was reflecting on like, what is it that I I'm, why am I doing better than a lot of these, but my peers, I think it was the resiliency that I had from all the adversity as a kid just gave me that.

[00:10:37] And the way I think I looked at it when I was 20 and I hit a hardship or a challenge. It was like, this is nothing compared to what I dealt as a nine year old and a 10 year old, 12 year old in my home. My home felt way scarier and more difficult getting through that. So I really think it's what gave me the skills and the practice of adversity [00:11:00] and working through it.

[00:11:01] When you're a kid and you live in that home, you don't have a lot of options. It's not like, If you work in a bad job or you do something you don't like as an adult, you go, ah, F it. I don't want to do this anymore. I move on, go somewhere else. I didn't choose the family that I was born into. And until you're 18 years old, you don't got a lot of options as, as a kid.

[00:11:19] And so I had to learn to work through it and deal with it. And it was no good staying home and crying and feeling sorry for myself. That definitely was not going to help me anywhere in life. And I think, and learned that quickly as a kid. And so that same attitude, I think I carried over into adulthood.

[00:11:36] So when, you know, I'm trying to build my business as a personal trainer and people are telling me no after no, after no, and it's, it's hard. And like, you have a deal you think you're gonna get through and then it doesn't go through. And you're working a client at five in the morning and another one at noon.

[00:11:49] And then another one at eight o'clock at night. And you're there all day just to make three hours worth of income. Those were all like hard things, but it didn't feel hard for me. That's life is hard. I [00:12:00] think I had accepted that life is difficult and it presents all these different challenges. And Hey, if it didn't kill me, I can get up tomorrow and do it again and figure a better way out.

[00:12:10] And so I think I was just built different. And I think that really served me in business because as you know, I mean, 80 percent of people fail and even the ones that are successful only make it a few years and then they fail. And then even fewer make it to like the big leagues and making millions of dollars.

[00:12:27] And so. When percentage in the chance of me doing well, it's very, very slim, but I felt that way from the start as a kid. Yeah, I think I had a chip on my shoulder and I was so excited as an adult to actually have control. I think when I was a kid going through those things, probably the thing that was the most traumatizing or challenging was that I was in this situation that I couldn't control.

[00:12:49] I woke up and went to school and did my thing every single day in a home that I had to be in. In fact, I didn't even know how much I wasn't in control until I ran away when I [00:13:00] was 17 years old and I ran away when I was 17 years old because My grandmother bought a car from me to help me get to my job that I used to go to at four o'clock in the morning before school and I was grounded for something.

[00:13:12] I think it was, I was late to coming home from a curfew or something one time and my parents grounded me and they took my wheels. They took the, they took the car, the family car that I had, uh, to away from me and my grandmother was pissed. My grandma, I cannot believe your parents did that and That's your job.

[00:13:27] And that's so irresponsible to do that to you. And of course, as a young teenage boy, I'm like, yeah, right. Grandma, right. And so I asked her, I said, Hey, I have, I've saved a little bit of money. Will you come down and, and co sign for a car for me to help me get to and from. So it's my car and my parents can't take it from me and I can go to my own job.

[00:13:43] Grandma said, yeah, absolutely. And she came down and she bought a car for me. And I came home with that car later on that day. And my parents looked at me and said, nah, you can't have that. It's not fair to your siblings, even though none of them were driving yet. You can't have that car. Either you leave and you keep your car or you give [00:14:00] your car back and you stay at this home.

[00:14:01] And as a cocky 17 year old, I said, okay, pack my bag and I'll go live in my car. And because that is a better situation. I thought it was a better situation, right? They called the cops on me and, uh, had me arrested. And I realized that when I'm under 18, I pretty much have no rights at all. And I remember the cop.

[00:14:21] Basically lecturing me and I'm crying and tell him, but I, I bought this and I paid for these things. And he says, son, until you were 18 years old, none of that shit is yours. In fact, your parents could light it on fire and there's not a damn thing that you can do about it. And that just hit me like a ton of bricks.

[00:14:36] Like, Oh my God, I have no rights. So I think when I got older and I actually had the power to control the situations I was in, it just, I don't know, nothing, nothing felt that hard to me, even the hardest of things that I went through in business. It's like no one's screaming and yelling and cops and tears.

[00:14:54] I mean, none of that was happening. It was like, yeah, sure. It's hard. I got to work longer or I got to get up earlier or I got to go through [00:15:00] 20 knows before I get one. Yes. But I think that I was just built different because of my childhood adversity. And of course, in my early teens and even early twenties, I probably harbored some.

[00:15:12] Animosity and resentment towards my parents as I got older and more mature. I realized, wow, they gave me a superpower. They didn't even realize they did by putting me through all that shit. And so my relationship with them today is incredible. I mean, I thank them and I love them for the drama and the adversity that we went through.

[00:15:28] And my biggest fear as a father today, I have a young son who's five years old. Is that he won't have as much adversity as you. So I talked to my wife all the time about. We've got to manufacture adversity in his life. It was so important to my development. I don't want my son to have it so easy. He doesn't build these great characteristics about him and he doesn't build that armor.

[00:15:49] We've got to find a way. And so as a father today that I fear not having enough adversity for my son, because I think it was so important to my development in as a leader and as an [00:16:00] entrepreneur, 

[00:16:00] Hala Taha: Something that I just want to stick on here and kind of call out is that we are the stories that we tell about ourselves, right?

[00:16:07] Another person might have been like, you know what? I'm weaker because of all this stuff that happens to me. I have a disadvantage. But you decide to kind of reframe your past and then put a positive spin on it. Hey, all this stuff did happen to me. I'm honest about it. I'm not denying the fact that all this stuff happened to me, but here's my like positive twist on it.

[00:16:28] And that's the story that you told yourself, which allowed you to just like move forward towards like a positive future. And I think that's really important. For anyone tuning in, like if something bad happened to you, try not to just tell the story in a way that keeps you weak. Try to figure out, okay, what about this is actually positive and how do I tell this story, not only to myself, but when I tell this story to other people, how do I say this in a way that doesn't position myself as a victim?

[00:16:56] And kind of sets me up for the future. 

[00:16:58] Adam Schafer: 100%. Whether [00:17:00] you think you can or can't, you're probably right. 

[00:17:02] Hala Taha: another thing about your childhood is that you did have one positive influence and that was sports. So how did sports help you when so many parts of your childhood were kind of upside down?

[00:17:16] What did sports do for you? 

[00:17:18] Adam Schafer: The funny part is there's a little bit of parallel there too. What, what I loved about sports so much as far as what it taught me, Is because I wasn't very good, or at least I wasn't naturally really good. But what I quickly found out just like the work and the adversity thing.

[00:17:32] And I think the childhood thing played into me actually being pretty good in sports. I wouldn't think I don't think I was great. I definitely don't think I was gifted, but I quickly found to most people quit. Most people give up. Most people aren't going to get up at four o'clock in the morning and train and practice and most people are told they're not good or they have to ride the bench and then they just get like, and I was the opposite.

[00:17:53] I had this attitude of I can, I will, I'll figure it out. I had to scratch and claw for every playing [00:18:00] time minute that I wanted to, which yeah. I was that guy in practice that the rest of the teammates couldn't stand because I was running at full speed everything I had every single time I was on the court to prove to the coaches that I belonged or that I should play more.

[00:18:14] And, you know, and I did, I got to play, I got to play quite a bit. Now, I wasn't the star player ever. Maybe when I was really young, I was pretty good in soccer, but I don't think I ever felt that way. Like I was this great athlete. I loved competition. I love sports, both watching them and playing them. And so I wanted to, and that's where all my friends, all the kids that I wanted to hang out with and be friends, they all put, they were all athletes.

[00:18:38] They all played sports and I wanted to have friends. I want to know those things. And so, Hey, I've, if I wanted to fit in school, when you're younger, fitting in, in the sport group means you got to play, you got to be, and you got to play. All right. You got to be pretty good at it. And I was just willing to do the things that nobody else was willing to do.

[00:18:53] I was willing to work harder and get back up. And so it varies very similar. Those same [00:19:00] skill sets, uh, serve me there. And I think again, back to the adversity at home, having a hard practice or failing, uh, didn't seem like it was that scary or that bad. It was hard. But it didn't, it didn't deter me. It was just like, okay, this is, I'm going to have to work harder.

[00:19:15] I'm going to have to shoot more times. I'm gonna have to get up early. I have to work more days. I have to make more sacrifices in my life than the average kid that could probably play video games all day, pick up the ball and just go play. And he was better than everybody. I wasn't that kid. I had to put the work in.

[00:19:28] And so I really think that was another thing as a child again, not knowing it when you're going through it. I think at that time, it's more survival for me, right? I'm not. I wish I could say that I was that wise that I the way I'm articulating it right now. I knew. And so I was just no, I didn't. I was, I was just trying to survive.

[00:19:47] I just wanted to have, I just wanted to have friends. I just wanted to be good at what I did. And the stuff that I think I cried about and I had a really hard time with at home was way scarier and way different than these obstacles that I was being [00:20:00] presented in work and in sports. And so, yeah, I just, I leaned into that.

[00:20:04] And then I think as I started to get. Later in my teens, and obviously into adulthood, I started to recognize that that was my superpower, was that, okay, I have this level to me that most people don't want to go, and even though I'm not as talented, I'm not as smart, I can lean into that, and that's what I'm going to do.

[00:20:24] And so it started to slowly build this confidence. In me that, okay, like, yeah, this is going to be hard, but ain't nobody going to work as hard as I'm going to work at getting good at it or figuring it out. And that's a superpower and I'm going to lean into that. And so sports absolutely gave the same same skills or developed that same skill for me.

[00:20:47] 

[00:20:50] Now, I know that it took you a while to like fully feel [00:21:00] confident, even when you were a personal trainer and doing well and fit and everything like that. You still had insecurities from your childhood. What do you think eventually got you over that hump where you were like fully confident?

[00:21:12] Adam Schafer: You know, that's a good question because I was even confident when I was young, like fully confident where I didn't have the same level of confidence. I think, uh, insecurities were presented in different ways. Like there's always been things like I was insecure because I wasn't as smart as everybody else.

[00:21:27] I was a little insecure because I wasn't as an athlete. But quickly, I learned that if I put the extra work in that I could be as good as anybody else, if I were to do that. So I had physical insecurities, probably the longest. So I was very skinny growing up. Like you could see my rib cage, so skinny and I'm tall and I get taller and lanky.

[00:21:45] And so then I got teased like a lot of kids did in school. Again, none of that really. That didn't like hit me hard. Not like how some kids that can be traumatic for them. Again, like the stuff that I went through, that was way harder. So getting teased and a little bit, I went through, people [00:22:00] bullied me. I went through all that stuff, but I still didn't think that was that big of a deal, but it did cause a little bit of insecurity and it did drive me to fitness.

[00:22:07] It was just like, okay, again, I can solve this. I can figure this out. Like I'm skinny. People are making fun of me for that. Okay, well, what can I do? Oh, I can go to the gym and start lifting weights and build muscle. Oh, wow. This is really hard. Takes a long time. That's okay. That's my superpower leaning into that.

[00:22:23] It took a while before I think I started to build the confidence, uh, about what I looked like. I think that probably of all the things. That I was insecure about as a, as a kid, that one probably hung around the longest, which by the way, has probably what fed the, a lot of the success in the business that we're currently in right now.

[00:22:42] My co hosts openly talk about this too, right? We're very authentic and transparent and we lead with those things, right? So when we built the podcast, a lot of the conversations. We didn't share from a place of authority, like we're telling you what to do. It was more like a sharing from, [00:23:00] Hey, I too know what it's like to be insecure about our body.

[00:23:03] And it drove a lot of the behaviors and the mistakes that I made in my twenties. And here's what I've learned through that process. And I'm still learning through that process. So we really presented. Our information on the podcast from that, even though I had, we all had the national certs and education and experience to say to people, Hey, you should do this, don't do that.

[00:23:22] We didn't lead with that. We led with vulnerability and this is where we struggle. This is where we were weak. This is how I'm working on those things. I don't even know if I think we even did that strategically. I think it kind of organically happened and we, that's just kind of who all of us are character wise.

[00:23:40] I think we learned that as personal trainers. And so that conversation of being vulnerable with people, it really serves you as a personal trainer. Like if you, if you work with people and we've been doing this for over two decades where I work with people one on one and most people that hire you as a personal trainer.

[00:23:56] Are very insecure about their bodies. They're 40, 50 pounds [00:24:00] overweight, or they they're skinny or whatever it is, but most of them are insecure about how they look. And that's what initially drove them to try and fix that in the gym. And then, and then ultimately hire you. And then here you are this fit, young buff trainer, like that just makes them shell up even more.

[00:24:16] And so over trial and error, I realized like, man, I have to really, I have to be very vulnerable with these people and humanize myself because they think even though I don't think I'm some super, I'm a superhuman or what they think of you like that, or they see you like that, and they'll hold in a lot of this personal stuff and a lot of the stuff that's going on inside them, which you need to learn how to solve is a good trainer.

[00:24:38] And if I wasn't going to get that out of them, I too needed to be vulnerable. They needed to see that I too have struggled and have insecurities and didn't have it easy. And so I think I learned that skill as a person as developing my skills as a personal trainer. And I think you hear that in the podcast when we communicate to the masses, because that was how we talked to our clients was we had to [00:25:00] learn to, and I do think that this is what hurts even some of the smartest trainers that are out there on social media and on podcasts.

[00:25:08] Is the, when you come off as this authority where you, you know, all, and you're so smart and you're touting study after study to prove to people how much you know, you don't make that connection with those people. And if you want behavioral change to happen in a client, you've got to make a connection with them.

[00:25:24] And that is becomes more important. And how many studies you can regurgitate and we learn that as personal trainers. And so I think that part of me, like I'm always looking for my insecurities. I'm always looking for my vulnerability, not only to share and help, but also that's how I work through it. So working through it as being okay, confident and talking about these things that I, too, I'm weak in and, and together trying to solve that and coming from that perspective.

[00:25:49] And so, I mean, I don't think I've solved every insecurity, but the body one was probably the last one. And again, that's probably the communicating of that on the show is probably what has resonated with a lot of [00:26:00] people. 

[00:26:00] Hala Taha: I love that you've tied that into kind of the sales experience that you gained as a trainer.

[00:26:05] And we had another fitness expert turned entrepreneur, Alex Ramosi on the show. And it reminds me a lot of what he was telling me, how he learned about value, uh, creation and making sure that you're speaking in outcomes to sell your fitness clients. He learned about having to understand their challenges and their objections.

[00:26:26] And he learned about offering discounts and bundles and offer development. So he learned so much and then became this like incredible entrepreneur. I'd love to hear some of your experiences in terms of like sales. Even leadership and what you learned as a trainer that you've now brought into entrepreneurship.

[00:26:44] Adam Schafer: someone told me that when someone makes a decision to buy, it really comes down to two things, always value and price. 

[00:26:51] Everyone will have excuses. Oh, I can't afford it. Or I'm baking all these. That's all noise. It really comes down to how much they value that thing and what the price [00:27:00] is in relation to that thing. And that resonated so much with me because I, I began looking at every deal that I didn't close or every client that didn't resign as I didn't provide enough value.

[00:27:11] They decided that I wasn't worth that investment to them. And that falls on me. It's not because something came up financially or no, if I was so valuable, they would find a way to pay for it. And that was, that had been confirmed me to, I've watched clients take a heel lock out on their home just so they could pay for their personal training with me.

[00:27:32] Like when you figure that piece out again, reframing this, every time I went into any sort of sales deal of Adam, it always comes down to two things, value and price they didn't buy. Okay. I'm not going to listen to their excuse. It goes, it falls back on me that I didn't provide enough value. And it's literally how we built this was when we came out, like none of us had any sort of media experience.

[00:27:53] So none of us were like, Oh, we're going to be so great at podcasting and talking on YouTube. Like I was terrified of all that stuff. It's. [00:28:00] Definitely out of character for me. It's not something I wanted to do. I don't think it's natural at all. I still, to this day, can't stand making YouTube videos, even after doing it for over a decade, don't like it.

[00:28:09] What I do know is that my, or what my goal is, is to provide value. All I think about whenever we're creating content or whenever we're helping people is value, value, value. And if they don't become customers. I didn't find a way to provide enough value to that. Now that becomes a little more unique when you're talking about, you're communicating to a million people and like, how do you give them all value?

[00:28:30] Well, that's, you know, that's learning how to speak to each platform and content creation for your exact demographic or your target that you're going for. And there's, there's a little bit of a learning curve to that too, but it really comes down to providing value. And then always looking back at yourself for, I mean, just like the other stuff that we talked about, people are so quick to point the finger at the other people, right?

[00:28:51] The victim like, Oh, well, they can't afford it. Oh, they're not the right customer. Oh, it's like, no, we, none of us ever look at that like that. Like if something is not working in the business. Where we're [00:29:00] not being successful. And it's like, what are we doing? What are we not doing to give that customer enough value that they don't even hesitate to spend that.

[00:29:08] That's when we started the podcast, we actually had the product ready to sell. So maps, fitness products is the foundation of what scaled and built this business originally. That's what brought us into the millions of dollars was the digital programs that we sell online. And we had that before the podcast even started, but we agreed not to sell it.

[00:29:27] Until people were begging for something from us. We didn't want to go in and already try and monetize. It was like, let's go first, since we're not media guys, let's go first prove that we can provide so much value on this podcast that it organically grows. We didn't want to spend any money on advertising.

[00:29:44] We weren't trying to do all the Instagram, social media hacks. It was like lean into the value thing. Let's go put out something that is so valuable. That people are willing to share it. And then listen, if I can't prove that before I'm even trying to sell anything, I would be a fool to try and sell [00:30:00] something first.

[00:30:00] This is what I give advice to coaches and trainers that are trying to duplicate what we've done. It's like, you're already trying to think about the product or the thing you want to sell. You haven't even proven that people want to hear what you want to give them for free. Go prove to your audience first that you have something valuable enough that they'll listen or, and, or share with other people.

[00:30:19] Go solve that equation. Before you figure out your price point of your product or your thing you want to sell and allow them to dictate what product or what service you come up with. But that's the first, that's the first problem in this equation that you need to solve is can I provide enough value to a specific audience that they're going to listen?

[00:30:38] And what's beautiful in this day and age is that the entry to, or the level of entry or money to come into, uh, podcasting, YouTube, Instagram is so low. That anybody can do it. And so it's so nice that you don't have to invest all this money to try what you believe to be valuable, go do it and keep practicing it until they do that, [00:31:00] then once you start to prove that, okay, now you potentially have a business on your hand.

[00:31:04] And so what we waited for was over a year. We had done over 240 episodes already of podcast episodes, which is a lot. And I don't know how many hundreds of YouTube videos we'd already created by that time with the product just sitting there. And we kept telling each other, like, we're not going to sell.

[00:31:18] We're not going to sell until we feel like we have to, or we need to, or people are begging for it. And I remember the day, like yesterday, we came into the studio. This was our very first studio. We were in this little tiny 400 square foot room that we were renting. Not making any money. We're all still working full time and other jobs.

[00:31:35] We're hustling this on the side. We believe in it. The guys all come in and everybody had like a story to tell about somebody reaching out to them. So I think Sal was just like, dude, I got two DMS of people that are trying to just give me money. They're like, what can I buy from you? Because you guys have helped me so much.

[00:31:51] I'm like, oh, that's crazy. I've got an email. Patrion and do we have it because they want to give us money and support our cause, I don't even know what Patreon is. Justin, same thing. So all of [00:32:00] us were starting to get bombarded with people just trying to give us money. We had already given them so much free, valuable content that we were already starting to create this loyal fan base of people that are going like, man, I took that your advice and it changed my life and I lost all this weight and it helped my marriage.

[00:32:14] It was like. This stuff was starting to pour in and then we all looked at each other and said, Okay, I think it's time. I think it's time now to present to everybody that we have this digital fitness program to help them out. And it didn't sell thousands right away. We sold probably a couple hundred, which was really good for us.

[00:32:28] And then we were doing nothing before. And the thing that I think that resident or that stuck with me the most was Was that a good portion of those people bought it and said things like, I'm already following another program, but I just wanted to support what you guys are doing, or I don't even need it.

[00:32:43] I've been wanting to give you guys like that was like half of the people were just, they weren't buying it because they thought, you know, I think we're incredible program writers. I think that's part of our expertise. But what I realized was the power of community, building a relationship, staying authentic, all those things [00:33:00] really all came to full circle for me, and to see that in the digital world was a really powerful moment, like, oh, wow, like that is more important than even the product that you're going to deliver is can you build a relationship Yep.

[00:33:12] With your audience and your potential customers. That is so powerful that they, the value is here. So anything that you drop in there, price wise there, they were going to buy. That is really what set the tone because we made so many business mistakes and didn't know what we were doing in media for so long, we stumbled to all that success.

[00:33:30] But what we did know because we'd been building businesses, all of us, our whole lives was, Hey, we had value price thing. That was it. That was kind of like our North star was keep putting out stuff until it's so valuable that people are willing to spend X amount of dollars with us. And that was, that was the beginning.

[00:33:47] That was the beginning of the rocket ship. And then. It hasn't stopped for 10 years. It's been a ride. 

[00:33:52] Hala Taha: It makes me feel excited just hearing about it. And I feel like you guys approached it in such a smart way. The fact that you just gave and gave [00:34:00] value and it's the law of reciprocity. You give and you give and you give and people feel like they owe you.

[00:34:05] And to your point, people wanted to buy it even though they didn't need it. And the other thing is that the more value you give and the longer you wait, like I did the same thing. I'm like one of the top influencers on LinkedIn, and I waited like three years before I ever put out a course. And I just wanted to help people because I had no intention of even putting out a course, but eventually so many people ask you.

[00:34:25] And then you can make a bigger ask where other people put out a 30 course. I got to put out a 2, 000 course that people bought. And because they were clamoring for it, I didn't have to do much promotion. I put out a post and everybody bought, I put out some DMS, everybody bought. But then as time goes on, you need to get more creative with your lead gens and pulling in new audience members and warming them up.

[00:34:48] So I definitely want to talk to you about how you get customers now. But before we do that, what's the origin story? Like, first of all, how did you guys start mind pump? How did you meet your co hosts? 

[00:34:57] Adam Schafer: It's kind of wild because, the four of us [00:35:00] collectively didn't know each other. So Justin, okay, was, a kid that I hired straight out of college.

[00:35:05] This was when I told you I was managing trainers at the gym, 24 fitness. I hired him fresh out of college out of his kinesiology degree, to work for me as a personal trainer. And what's unique about our relationship was, we're so different. He represents a really important time in leadership for me.

[00:35:21] When I was still at that time in my career, looking for more me's, I thought the key would be, man, if I could just find 10 more of me, we're going to be hella successful. And so I was on, on this mission to find that. And he was like, not, it was nothing like, I mean, we were so different. He's very introverted, his style of training, his way, he communicates.

[00:35:39] But boy, we paired really well and he was really successful as being a pro and it really opened my eyes to maybe this is not what I want. Maybe I don't want to look for me. Maybe I need to look for people that fill the gaps and has strengths where my weaknesses are. Right. And so we're very different that way.

[00:35:54] So he quickly became my right hand man, my assistant. And he was for several years. And then he [00:36:00] went off to do other things, but we always remained in contact. We became good friends. And so, and he would always come knocking on my door every few years trying to get me to do something with him. He's, oh, Adam, I'm building this thing.

[00:36:09] I'm building this app, or I'm doing this business, come work with me. And I was always busy doing something myself. And then finally, this. Opportunity presented itself for us to develop this fitness app together. And I was kind of the finances behind it. He was the brains and the one who was coordinating like all of the designer app developer and all that stuff.

[00:36:26] And so we began kind of like actually intentionally working together to build this app. So we're kind of doing that on the side, communicating while we're all doing our own businesses. Sal is a, uh, a personal trainer has his own studio and Doug, our producer is a client of his. So he's training him. So at the same time, Justin and I, and now mind you, we don't all know each other at this time.

[00:36:47] We just, this is what we're doing in our lives at that time. And Sal and I, we have a lot of mutual friends and because we came from the same company, we all worked, but 24 fitness was huge, right? Thousands and thousands of employees. [00:37:00] So we had never met each other, but we had a lot of friends that would always talk to us mutual friends that, which we didn't find this out till later, by the way, this was something that we found out after we got connected was we had these friends that would be like, man, you got to meet Sal.

[00:37:13] Have you ever met Sal? You and him would just. You guys got to meet each other. You guys don't meet each other. You're great. You're great. And he would hear the same thing about me. And we didn't, and this was for like years before not knowing it. Now we were both top performers at 24 hour fitness. So I seen his name, right?

[00:37:27] So you in his rank, cause you get ranked and you just get trophies. And so if you were like a top producer, you won all the Hawaii trips and he'd done stuff like that. And so I'd seen him like in passing and like knew of his name on like the production report, but we never even had said hi to each other.

[00:37:42] So we didn't know each other. Him and Doug, his client, start working on a digital product. They start working on MAPS fitness products, which is a product I was telling you that we already had. The reason why we already had it was they built it before we even met. And Doug has a background in, he was a, he used to sell insurance and he was getting into digital marketing.

[00:37:59] He was [00:38:00] as a kind of a hobby, not like he was professional in it whatsoever. It was like a hobby. He was interested in the space. So he was, he had like the equipment and he had gone to some of the seminars and he had done stuff like that. He kept telling Sal like, man, you, you were made for this. You like, you should think about making a digital product.

[00:38:15] And Sal was like, okay, well I mean if you lead the way, 'cause Sal's like me, we can barely turn our computer on. So he is like, I'm good at communicating health and fitness, but I don't know anything about the, the digital marketing side at all. And Doug's like, well that's, I, I can do that. I'll do that for you.

[00:38:29] So they built that to together or were working on it. Justin and I are kind of working on this app. Sal and I have these mutual friends. We're talking about Sal finishes his digital product. And because so many people had told him about me and like my business acumen, he's like, you know what? And we had like passed each other on Facebook.

[00:38:45] One time we had just added each other on Facebook and we were following each other, he's slides into my DMS and it's like, Hey, blah, blah, blah, blah. Kind of reintroduces who he is. I'm like, yeah, I know who you are. And he's just like, I wanted to show you something. I've heard so much about you and your business [00:39:00] acumen.

[00:39:00] I want to know what you think about this product. And he sends me over kind of the sizzle reel to this digital product they make. And it was interesting because at that time we're building this app up and I know that Justin and I are about to finish this fitness app and I don't have anybody to sell it to.

[00:39:15] I don't have Instagram. I don't, I mean, I have Facebook, but it's like family, friends. I'm not doing anything on it, right? I'm not actively building a social media platform. And, but I realized that I'm going to have to move in that, in that direction at some point. He sends that over to me and I'm like, Oh, let's, let's meet.

[00:39:31] I'd like to talk to you. And I'm big, you know, one of the things I know we haven't talked about, but if I were to hang my hat on one of the most important things in being successful for me, it's been relationships. So I'm the guy, my wife still teased me to this day where no matter how busy I am, is that.

[00:39:46] I'll take a cup of coffee with somebody for a meeting for a potential new relationship. And I mean, I waste a lot of hours doing that a lot, but every once in a while it ends up being a mass. And so it was kind of one of those situations. I was busy doing this stuff, but [00:40:00] saw what he was doing. Interested.

[00:40:01] I'd heard enough people talk about grades. I'm like, I need to meet with this guy and let's just see. No expectations of what we're going to do. And he says, Hey, can I bring my, my buddy, Doug? And I'm like, sure. I wanted to bring my buddy, Justin. We'll all get together. So we all just first time meet each other.

[00:40:15] We get in my living room and we like, didn't shut up for like four hours. And it was like lots of passion and energy and. Talking about what we think is wrong with the space and where we think this whole digital media thing is going on. This is like 12 years ago. So we're talking about YouTube and Instagram and the podcast space and like all these things that we're paying attention to.

[00:40:34] And we're curious about, and we're all these brick and mortar business guys. And, but we're, we're curious about where social media is going and where the future of health and fit health and fitness is. And it was like, I don't know, like almost four hours of nonstop talking. My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, Katrina was in the kitchen and I didn't even know this, but she actually hit record and recorded a lot of the conversation.

[00:40:56] And after we were all done basically meeting each other and realizing, Oh, we all really [00:41:00] liked each other. She goes, that was an incredible conversation to listen to. And I was like, really? She's like, Oh my God, that was so interesting. And man, that was so good. And so we ended up meeting a second time. And the second time we met, Doug was the one who piped in and said, like, Hey, why don't we put this on a podcast?

[00:41:16] Let's the stuff that we're talking about together. Why don't we just put it out there and see if somebody wants to listen to it? The rest of us have no idea what that looks like. I'm like, do we have to get like a, a radio sponsor or like, how does that work? I know. And Doug's like, no, it's really easy.

[00:41:29] Like we can record it in our home. We could put it out there. Cost us virtually nothing to do it. All of us were like, okay. Let's go do it. Let's go put this out there. And again, this is, it was, it started on the foundation of it. My, my wife or my girlfriend or my wife or girlfriend at the time, my wife now was like, Oh, it was so incredibly awesome.

[00:41:47] We love the dynamic of the conversation. We know we had a lot of good information to provide people. One of the things we all agreed upon at that time, no disrespect to any of the OG trainers or fitness people that were blowing up back on social media, [00:42:00] but we really felt like. The most popular people on social media at that time really got there for not necessarily the right reasons.

[00:42:08] And what I mean by that, they were some of the, they were just first adopters. They were really attractive. They did a lot of the before and after and look how sexy I look type of stuff. And, or they were just cool or they really understood algorithms and how to hack. And so a lot of the. These young kids were making millions of dollars already on YouTube and Instagram.

[00:42:29] And we were going like, listen, I may not be as good looking or as talented as some of these kids that are at the top of the fitness space, but I definitely know the information I have to provide is way better. Cause I used to think like that too, when I was 24, but I've learned over decades of training people, like that's not the best way to communicate that.

[00:42:48] I've learned that already through being in the trenches for so long. And we all agreed that, Oh yeah, I can't believe this person and that person is doing so it's like, man, that's, that's not right. They should be saying this and say, Hey, let's go put it on a pocket. If we really [00:43:00] believe that we really believe we're that smart and we have that much better information without much more value to give than these people that are making millions of dollars, let's go prove it.

[00:43:07] And that was literally how we started. It was, let's put this podcast together. Let's go give all this information that we believe is better information than the top people in fitness were at that time. And just give it for free and prove that's as good and as valuable as we say it is. And that was the first litmus test to do we have a business?

[00:43:26] We didn't overcomplicate whose role is what, what's the partnership look like? What's the financial split, what we're going to sell yet? None of that. It was. We really believe the information we had to give to people was better than what was out there. And so let's go prove that first. And then we started recording the podcast and our strategy.

[00:43:45] The only strategy we had that time was kind of going back to my childhood. This is what I love about Justin and Sal. This is probably the thing that, and even Doug, we all have in common. We all kind of have that attitude of. We will outwork the next guy. Just, we will just [00:44:00] bury somebody in work ethic and we don't, none of us are cocky and think we're the most talented at anything, but we do believe that's a superpower that we all have.

[00:44:07] So that was a very important thing that connected all of us. And so that was the strategy was like. Let's just drop podcasts every day. You let's just put out so much and just keep reinventing ourselves as it comes back. Oh, only 10 people listen. What do they like about that? Oh, wow. This one got 20 people listening.

[00:44:24] What are we doing? What do we do different than that? And then unpacking it and going, okay, they want more of this. Or what are we doing? And then reading the comments and not getting offended by all the negative stuff that you're going to attract when you first start and instead going like, and listening like, wow, a lot of people.

[00:44:38] I think this is a terrible idea. So why are we continuing to do it? Let's shift this way. And so that was like really the impetus of the podcast was just the four of us getting together, having belief that we had more valuable information to give. And then starting with the business plan of let's go prove it.

[00:44:55] Let's go see if we can give so much free, valuable content that it grows. [00:45:00] And I think when we knew that was, I don't remember how many episodes deep we were, but it was for sure in the first eight weeks, because in the first eight weeks of podcasting, you have an opportunity to fall in the, what's called the new and noteworthy category, the first eight weeks.

[00:45:15] And in the first eight weeks, you were only competing against other people that are in their first eight weeks. And it gives you an opportunity on iTunes to get populated right there on the front screen. If you can just, and that we also saw that as a huge advantage. We, Doug had read this, he knew that going into it.

[00:45:30] We're like, okay, let's go. We're like, we're only, we're not competing against the Joe Rogan who's been there forever. We're competing against other people are starting right now. And we believed in ourselves and our work ethic and then what we had to give was like, let's go do that. And I remember when we reached, you know, number one and knew a noteworthy and we were there for several weeks of the first eight weeks.

[00:45:47] And that really catapulted the first initial wave. Of people that paired with what I was doing at orange theory Which is a whole nother side story we can get into sometime is like I was out there on the [00:46:00] ground Getting a building community in person. That was what I was like. I know I can control that I didn't know if I could control the new and noteworthy thing and get popular on social media But I knew I was good at what I did and I could build community in person And if I could just get a few hundred people in my community in person, I would have a couple hundred listeners that would listen to my podcast and then maybe we could grow from there.

[00:46:21] So I was kind of simultaneously also doing that. And so I think the combination of. We were actually doing okay on the podcast and got ranked a new and noteworthy combined with what I was doing in person with community really gave us the first foundation of the first few hundred or thousand listeners.

[00:46:38] It just snowballed. 

[00:46:39] 

[00:46:43] So I started as an entrepreneur. Now I have a business that's about to hit eight figures next year. I run Yap Media. It's a social agency. I have a podcast network.

[00:46:56] Hala Taha: It's the number one business podcast network. When I first started my [00:47:00] business, I was a hundred percent owner and it was great. I had a team, but it gets to the point. Lonely. And now you just met one of my business partners, Jason. He's got 20 percent of the business and he's my best friend. And it is so much more fun.

[00:47:14] And like, just work is so much more fun. It's so much better to like have somebody to lean on. And so what is your advice to people who are kind of like holding their equity to their belt and just, they don't have a partner. Like what's your, what's your perspective on that? 

[00:47:30] Adam Schafer: Yeah, this is an interesting conversation because I would tell you that my advice normally is the people is don't get a partnership Don't do it And I think a lot of that is because I recognize how blessed I am to have met three other guys That align so much with each other.

[00:47:48] It's probably the most interesting thing about this I mean we haven't got into all the things that That we've built, but we've got multiple seven, eight figure businesses. We invest in real [00:48:00] estate together. We own 15 homes together, even partnership. We have angel investing together. We have a stock portfolio together and we are evenly split on everything.

[00:48:08] We do think Sal wrote a book. He was published by Hachette and wrote a book. I made royalties from that book. I didn't spend a single minute doing anything to do that book. But I make, I do business coaching for people on the side on my own time at home with that. I give, I give that portion to my, my, it goes right into the pot.

[00:48:27] We have just agreed that everything we build and we do together is an equal four way split, no matter what time and effort each guy puts into. And that is freaking, freaking awesome. Very, very unique and very, very special. And I'm very, very blessed that we have that. A lot of that has to do with ego. And this is the other thing that probably connects us really well.

[00:48:47] We all have that kind of work ethic thing. And the other thing is that we all met each other at a place in our life where we had the opportunity to all be leaders and to work with teams long enough to know, like the power of [00:49:00] team over the individual. And we all are so competitive that we want to win more than any of us care about any sort of individual accolades or who gets the credit or who gets more money or a split that way.

[00:49:13] And ultimately we know if we, if we position, we knew if we positioned ourself that way in the business like that, that we would have abundance everywhere and everybody in the business makes way more money than I think they ever dreamed or thought they would make. And so it's easy now, like at this point, it's like, The revenue has got to places where.

[00:49:32] Everybody's so comfortable and stuff like that. It's not, it's actually not that big of a deal, but early on that was really unique and special to have four, four guys like that. And I think it's different. It's so we talk about it a lot that it's, it's marriage. I honestly think that. I think my marriage is easier than my business partnership.

[00:49:49] I think being in a business, because you love that person, right? You love that person. You're attracted to that person. You sleep together every day. Like you chose that person to do life with. Like, so I actually think marriage is [00:50:00] easier than business partnerships. I think business partnerships are like a lot of people get into them because they see like, Oh, you're talented in this.

[00:50:06] I'm talented in that. We would make a good team. Let's go build this business. But it's like being married. So you better have, you better be on the same page and a lot more than just, Oh, you have that skill. I have this skill and that makes a good, a good business idea. I'd know. You need to court people. If you're going to, if you're going to go into business with someone, you need to court them as if you were going to marry them, because it gets, I think, arguably more ugly when you get hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars involved and you have this split, I mean, that really puts an added pressure to the relationship, aside from you got to work with them, you have to steer a company or companies towards these core values.

[00:50:44] Do all of your core values aligned as your ideologies align? Like. These things all really matter in partnership. And so that's the only way I ever recommend it to someone is if you feel like you've really vetted the person, you're potentially going to go partnership, like you were going to marry them and you [00:51:00] could be okay with living with them for the rest of your life.

[00:51:03] I just think that's so important. And I think we are such a, we're such a bad example of, I think. For individual partners. I mean, name me another company where you know that. Where there's an even 25 split in all aspects of all investments of all businesses that were like an anomaly. So I never give people that advice of like, Oh, try and find three other dudes that you're into, like.

[00:51:24] That's probably, I mean, this is like, we all, we believe that there's something greater going on besides us, that we weren't in control of this. It was very serendipitous the way it all played out. And so the advice I normally give is that do not underestimate the stress and the challenge of partnership.

[00:51:42] And so if you're going to do a partnership, you need to vet that person as if you were going to be marrying that person, because you are, you're marrying them in business. And let me tell you, we have all out fights. In fact, we just had one two days ago and I should read the text to you. And I said, I said [00:52:00] back to the guys, because there was two different things that we got into in the same morning.

[00:52:05] Like it was like, it wasn't even 10 o'clock and we had already like fought each other, were yelling at each other back and forth. And I sent a text later on that night. Oh, here we go. I was just reflecting on today and how much I love you guys from the jump, getting frustrated at Doug to fighting with Sal over copy on a landing page.

[00:52:23] Makes me chuckle out loud. There's no one else in the world I'd rather fight with. It's very special. We can do that in a day and never break stride in our mission. Pretty fucking cool. And that is like, we have this ability to, I mean, get into it, like really get into it, but egos never involved. It's never, I'm fighting with Sal because I want to be more right.

[00:52:42] I believe with all of my heart, this is the right direction for the business. And if he's fighting with me, it's not ego for him either. He believes this is the right direction for the business. And it's ultimately not about us. That's the secret sauce to that dynamic of being able to fight like that where it's [00:53:00] healthy.

[00:53:00] It's not about ego It's not about being more I don't care about being more right I care about what's best for the business and if i'm passionate about it, and I believe i'm right I'm gonna fight to that and we encourage that and we encourage that with our team, too Like, listen, just because I'm the boss, if you think I'm wrong about something that we should do, and you passionately feel that, you better speak up, you better step to me, you better argue with me, and bring your best argument, and I want you to do that, because that's where the best stuff comes out, and then whatever we decide on, and agree on, we all decide, so if Sal and I are getting into about the copy, and we're both passionate, and we're like, and we decide, okay, We're going to try your way and we'll see.

[00:53:37] I'm not sitting back now measuring, Oh, was it, was it bad? And mine was more, see, I told you I was no, it's now my idea. If we decide to go with your idea, I no longer look at it as my idea. It's our idea. We're all, and I'm all bought it and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you're right, or we're right in that situation, because ultimately it's about winning as a team.

[00:53:57] And that's what we care about. That's special. [00:54:00] It's so special to find one other person that's like that, much less three other people that are like that. And we have that in this team where, and nobody, none of us to like, I think it's unique when you get into this space where media and kind of the attention and fame comes like none of us want that.

[00:54:18] Like one of the things that we were all, we were all very reluctant, resistant to the fame part of this. It's like. None of us are thirsty for that. None of us want that. And so it's kind of neat that nobody wants to be the guy. Nobody cares to say like, I did this or blah, blah, blah, or want to be in the front, front of everything like that.

[00:54:36] We're both are all like, ah, do you want to do it? I don't want to do it. You do it. We have that kind of attitude with the, with the limelight too. And I think that's so important. Like nobody is thirsty. For the attention from anybody at all. It's ultimately about the business winning. And if you're the right guy or girl for the job in that situation, I don't care where you rank in superiority or whatever.

[00:54:57] It's like you're the right guy or girl for the job. [00:55:00] Go do it. Go get it done. Go make it happen. And so that's That's special. That's unique. I don't think it happens to a lot of people. And so I think most people are probably better off building a business themselves and having like kind of full control of relationships and partnership with that.

[00:55:14] But if you do, it's a very special thing. Cause then now you have four of us that became another super power is that we can divide and conquer. But it took a while to learn that too, though, because early on, you know, we were so tight, we were so close and there wasn't a lot going on. When we were only had a few thousand listeners, we had one product.

[00:55:31] So it was like every, every decision in the business was all four of us talking, everything we did. I think it was about year three when we were really starting to like catch our stride and revenue was really cranking by that time. We started to realize what are we doing? Why are we trust each other like family by this time?

[00:55:51] And we're making decisions together and it is literally hurting us. What we thought might've been our superpower in the past, where you have four great minds collectively [00:56:00] arguing over ideas, then we decide and go. Now it was slowing us down. Now it was getting to a point where it was bogging the business.

[00:56:05] We had too many things going on. That we need to let go of stuff. And so that probably presented a, probably a year transition of challenge for us. Wasn't okay. Now that we've got this place where we were all married together, we all like each other, we all see, Oh, the benefits of all four of us arguing and debate.

[00:56:22] Okay. That's great. But now how's it also hurting us? Oh shit. It's slowing us down when we need to make decisions and speed is very important, I think, in, in, in business, right. To go test your ideas. And if we have to meet. Every time we want to try something or do something in the business this big, this is, this is killing us.

[00:56:39] And so it took about a year to like everyone kind of fall into their actual. In fact, by that time we still hadn't decided our positions. Like we had never sat down and had a formal meeting of Adam, you're going to be the CEO. Sal, you're going to be the CMO. Justin, you're going to be the CTO. Like that didn't happen until like year four.

[00:56:57] And we had already been, I remember we're cranking in the millions of [00:57:00] dollars and we don't even have a structure. We don't even have a structure to who's in what position, but I really didn't think it was that necessary until it real, until we had so many different revenue streams and departments and building a staff underneath us, then it presented itself and we realized that it was a bit of growing pains for about a year and then everybody kind of naturally fell into these positions.

[00:57:21] And because we have that solid foundation, the relationship marriage is part of like No, and this is, I think this is so important in a marriage. Like if your marriage is not going to last very long, if you are constantly measuring what you bring to the table, to what they bring to the table and the time you spent on a thing compared to that, like that marriage ain't going nowhere, if you're you and your wife are arguing over who did more of what.

[00:57:42] That's quick recipe for that relationship. And the same thing goes in business. So I can't sit there and go like, I worked seven days this week and I didn't get any breaks. This, that, and Justin, all you did was that one day you like, yeah, nobody. Nobody even measures that. It's like, you're the best at that.

[00:57:57] You like doing that, lean into that, go handle [00:58:00] that. Like you like doing that. You're the best of that. Go handle that. Oh, that stuff. You're terrible at, don't even worry about it. I got it. Like that's how everything kind of unfolded and the positions that everybody in is we, we fell into the things that were our strengths and we doubled down on it and the things that we recognize that we're weaknesses in each other.

[00:58:15] We, we let go of those things. 

[00:58:17] Hala Taha: So your example of partnerships, like you just said, very unusual. You don't really recommend it. You feel like it was just like a magical serendipitous thing. I'll give a quick example to the listeners of how I found my business partners, right? So I have one girl, Kate, who has 10%, Jason is 20%.

[00:58:34] Kate started as an intern when I first started my company. She was basically a volunteer who worked for free for a couple of years. And then she was by far like, For her age, especially, she was just such a rockstar. And it was so obvious that she was special. And I, she got to work for me and basically became a mini me.

[00:58:53] So she ended up getting 10 percent of the business as one of my business partners. Jason was an aqua hire. He had his own [00:59:00] production company. I couldn't focus on production anymore. So I brought him in, he turned the whole team around. He ended up, he was already entrepreneurial. He was an entrepreneur. And after like two years of working together, I then decided to put him on a vesting agreement.

[00:59:15] So it's not just like, boom. Oh, I met you at a coffee shop. Want to do a 50 50 split? Like, you know, it's not that you've got to really get to know somebody and decide, like, do I want to work with this person maybe forever? Until I retire, 

[00:59:29] Adam Schafer: you courted them, you courted them for two years before you even consider doing that.

[00:59:34] I mean, that to me, that's so important. Like if that's why it's like, it's not fair for me to tell people don't do it. But I think a lot of people think it's going to be easier. I think the, the fear, cause it's scary, right? Most people fail. And so nobody wants to fail and nobody wants to fail all by themselves.

[00:59:49] And so I think most people make the decision of a partnership. Out of this fear of failing by themselves. And then, so they just search for somebody, Oh, this person can bring, it's like, that's the wrong reason [01:00:00] to do it. I think that's what you got to be very careful of. But I'm, I think that's a great strategy.

[01:00:04] I mean, we've done that now where because there's so many different businesses and revenue streams, we've had people that just like that have been started off as an intern. Work their way up to a position, work their way up to a leadership position. Now get 10 percent of a revenue stream. Like, so you've had, we've had people in the business where we've brought in kind of an equity split or a rev split on some things because they've earned that right to be, you know, more than just an employee.

[01:00:29] And we really want to do that for most people. But I think that looking for that right out the gates, I think that's the mistake that most people make with when it comes to like partnerships. So totally agree. 

[01:00:38] Hala Taha: Well, yap gang, that's the end of part one of my conversation with Adam Schaefer. There were so many pieces of his story and his entrepreneurial journey that really resonated with me. And the first was the value of starting to work at a young age. You've really got to get those reps in [01:01:00] early when you're in your teens and twenties.

[01:01:03] And a lot of us may not be in our teens and 20s anymore, but if you are, don't underestimate the value of working in retail or service jobs. You might be surprised about how many skills you take later with you in life. And you may not be getting paid a lot now, but those skills will pay you a lot later from those experiences.

[01:01:24] And next, I really loved his thoughts about the importance of adversity and what you do with that adversity. Like Adam, you might have had a challenging childhood, but you can choose whether you let that experience be destructive or empowering. You can reframe your past and embrace the stronger, more resilient version of yourself that emerged from it.

[01:01:45] And finally, it was so inspiring to hear how it was Adam's insecurities and his vulnerabilities and his willingness to confront them that really vaulted him ahead as a trainer, an entrepreneur, and as a content creator. His own [01:02:00] insecurity about his body and self image drove his expertise forward, and it also made it easier for him to relate to his clients as a trainer and later as an entrepreneur.

[01:02:09] Whether or not you have muscles as big as Adam's, If you don't showcase your vulnerabilities as well, your clients or audience may only see your polished version, and that will make it harder to connect with them. But there's something else that Adam told me that was so eye opening. It's what he and his MindPump co founders leaned into that really catapulted their business forward.

[01:02:32] And we'll get into all that juicy stuff in part two of our conversation. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting Podcast. If you listened, learned, and profited from this conversation with the super fit Adam Schafer, then please share this episode with your friends and family. And if you enjoyed this show and you learned something, then drop us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, CastBox, Player FM.

[01:02:55] Wherever you listen to this show, I love to hear from you and your reviews mean [01:03:00] so much to me. And if you want to watch our podcast as videos, my YouTube channel is growing really fast. My videos have been going viral lately and it's really fun to witness it all. If you want to check us out on YouTube, you can go to Young and Profiting on YouTube.

[01:03:14] You can also find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn, just search my name. It's Hala Taha. I gotta say thanks to my Yap production team. You guys are amazing. Thank you for all that you do. This is your host, Hala Taha, aka the podcast princess, signing off.