S1E19 · Lachlan Wallace (Interviewed by Jarryd Palser)

Hey guys, welcome to the Virtus Performance Podcast. This is your host, Lachlan Wallace. But no, I am no longer the host for today's episode, episode 19. The great man, Jared Pulsar, Moo Rook, as he's also known, is going to be hosting the podcast. So I'll gamble it straight over to him. My personal and business goal is to be just a little bit better every day. I believe everyone, especially normal people, have a story to tell. The Virtus podcast exists to help us all find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the journey and experiences of each of our guests.

Welcome to the Virtus Performance Podcast. Yes, the tables have been flipped today or the roles have been flipped. I'm your host, Jared Pulsar, and this is Virtus Performance Podcast number 19. I'm going to be in the hosting chair today and I'm going to interview or have a chat or a discussion with Lachlan Wallace. We've got a range of topics to talk about that we've tried to group them in terms of what I think will be beneficial for all the listeners out there. If someone does decide to listen, it might just be my mom and Lachlan's mom, but who knows?

In the stratosphere, who else is out there listening? I don't think my mom has an iPhone, so that's not really going to work for myself. Apparently, my dad listened to my last one, but I can't see that happening again. Anyway, I'm really nervous. Lachlan is here in the room too. He's really nervous. He told me before. This will be an interesting chat. Dangerous. Very dangerous. I started a podcast so I could talk to interesting people. I don't know if I'm that interesting, but we'll see what happens. That's what I said as well. I ended up speaking for an hour and a half.

We'll see how we go. We may as well get cracking in. The first topic I've got here is where did it all begin? School. School. What were you like at school? I was a pain in the ass, I think. Pain in the ass? No, I probably wasn't too bad. I was probably a little bit on the obnoxious side. You'll have to ask all my teachers. I actually ran into one today. I think I was a good-ish student. I was probably a little bit hyperactive and... Were you bored? I don't think I was bored. I love sport and love lunch times, kicking the footy and doing all that kind of stuff.

Primary school, it was a long time ago, so I don't remember all that well. I think I was a good student. I had a lot of mates in my classes and stuff. Everyone probably played up a little bit more than expected, but that's what kids do, I guess. Exactly. I see it firsthand every day. School is a brilliant time for a kid. Until you get to that year 10, 11, and 12 stage, when you start having to make decisions that are really going to impact your future. I always like to ask people this question. What did you do for work experience when you were at school?

Melbourne Storm. I worked with the development officer at year 10. I worked with the development officer at Ross, if you're listening. I can't remember his last name. He most definitely is. After the premiership win. Yeah, that's it. Development officer at Melbourne Storm. Up at Princess Park, or I can't remember what it was called back then. Spent a week travelling around to schools and running little clinics and things like that. Rugby clinics, which was interesting because I played football and had never played rugby. A friend of a friend hooked it up and was able to spend a little bit of time watching the boys train and stuff like that and getting involved in that.

That was probably my first foray into elite sport, was being able to see how that organisation runs. Obviously, did you enjoy that? Did you take anything away from that? That's probably transition into invertebrates or anything like that. Was that the seed for it all to begin? Probably not. I was playing footy and running and doing all that stuff since I was young, so I don't think it planted any seeds or anything, but it definitely showed me what that kind of environment was like. That was my first taste of that elite environment. But it was really

cool to see the impact the players had on kids and the impact just wearing that Melbourne Storm polo could have on all the, especially the northern suburbs schools. It was a really cool contrast to see at year 10, growing up in Caram Downs, moving to Pierstow, going to Frankston High. We're in a fairly undiverse culture down here. Very insular. Yeah, insular peninsula. So it was really, really cool to be able to go out and see the top end private schools and see how those kids behaved and how they interacted with their teachers and with us, and then to go to the northern suburbs or the rougher end of town.

Where rugby league and rugby union are really big sports. Exactly. To see how the kids interacted with us there, it was kind of like they were complete opposites. I remember the kids who were at the private schools, for lack of a better term, were very unathletic. They sucked. They could tell they were academic kids and the teachers, they would hang off everywhere. The teachers, they wouldn't stand a foot wrong. But there wasn't, in terms of the clinics we were running, there wasn't a lot of talent. And then you go to the northern suburbs and the rougher schools and the kids would do what they want to a point.

The teachers would try and keep a hold of them and try and keep them in line, but they'd kind of do what they want. But when it got to playing rugby and actually moving, there was a lot more talent on show and there was a lot more competitiveness and things like that. So that was kind of cool and that was interesting because it kind of teaches you a little bit about different upbringings to a point. It's a really small sample size, but I think it shows you that the kids that work at things and find that passion and that hunger to be better at something, it doesn't really matter where you're from.

The man at the moment, Dustin Martin, is probably the ultimate example of that. There was news of him leaving school when he was 14, 15, going to work with his dad and then given the opportunity to play senior football somewhere in Bendigo and then go through the pathway that way. So obviously, when kids find something they really want to work hard at, there is an outlet for them. That brings us to the next point, sport. And we just touched on it briefly then. Obviously, football was a big thing for you growing up. Any other sports that you participated in?

Yeah, I started playing football at Seafin Tigers in under nines. I think I was seven, so I played first year when I was seven. I played that for a couple of years and then I think Friends of Ours was starting last, so I had no idea what the last was when I was eight or nine. But yeah, I remember talking about it and one of the events we talked about was hurdles. And I had in my head that it was maybe like a 20 metre circle that used to run around. I remember that moment vividly when they were trying to explain to me what an athletics track was.

And in my head I remember picturing like a 20 metre circle with like two hurdles on either side that you had to run around and jump over. And that was an athletics track. And yeah, then kind of dived into athletics and was able to kind of pair up athletics and football for the best part of when I was growing up. Yeah, I think I started running or training properly for running when I was maybe eleven or twelve. My old coach Mike Davis would be able to tell me exactly when that was. What were your events? I started out just kind of doing everything I guess like all kids do and then 800s and 1500s were kind of my events.

Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, all that kind of thing. And then I remember as football started to become more important and would take up more time, you had to train a little bit more for football. Obviously running copped it and especially mid-season. I was doing a lot of cross country but then trying to play football the next day and things like that. And I struggled to be able to put it all in or fit it all in. So as running became less of a priority, football became more of a priority and my events dropped. So I

went from 15s and 8s and cross country to 8s and 4s and then to 4s and 4s and 2s and then I think by the time I finished up athletics in year 12 I was around in the, I think I did the 100 and 200, oh 100, I did the hurdles and I did 400 at state. I got back down to showrooms. Yeah I got back down and yeah I was a battler but tried hard and had lots of fun. I'm a huge advocate for athletics. I think it's one of the most brilliant sports out there and I don't think it really cops a fair run in multimedia and stuff like that.

And the argument I tend to use when they say oh it's such a boring sport, who wants to watch people run around a track or jumbo things. Well it's the basis or it's the cornerstone for everything that we do. If there wasn't athletics there wouldn't be any football or anything like that. It's all come from this kind of thing so hopefully athletics becomes more and more popular and we get some of the athletes from football that got that pathway. I know when I've got kids they'll be doing athletics. As soon as we hit 5 or 6 they'll be doing athletics if that's what they want.

Yeah exactly, they've got to enjoy it. Yeah exactly, exactly. I've got a list. I want them to be gymnasts, I want them to be weightlifters and I want them to be athletes and then they can pick football or something down the track. But I think athletics is really really important. It definitely taught me a lot about work ethic and a lot about, like I remember those nights where we used to run down at some ladders with my coach and I wouldn't want to go and Dad would be like we've got to go, we've got to go.

And you always go and you get it done and you feel better afterwards and you're with that group of people and like we don't see a lot of them anymore except for KP who I'm eternally indebted to. I met her in athletics, I met her running in that running group but all those guys we used to run with like we could chew each other's ears off forever whenever we do catch up. So yeah we made lifelong friends and yeah it teaches that ability to just grind it out and work hard and when you work hard you get results.

I remember around the 14s or 15s at the last I finally won a medal at State and I remember vividly I came third, I was like fifth and I don't know something just was able to grind it out and knock over a couple of people in the last lap. A couple of people I'd never beaten. I remember being so excited for the medal presentation that was like two hours after I kept doing laps of the oval and just walking laps and laps and laps and being really excited like when is it, when is it, when is it?

And I think that competitiveness probably came out in the lass and footy as well being able to compete for those that do know me I'm a little bit competitive. I like competing and I like winning which I don't think is a bad thing. I think it can be yeah it can get a little bit, I can probably be a bit obnoxious wanting to win all the time but I think it's probably helped me in a lot of different areas in my life. Yeah athletics I think some of the greatest sporting stories can be taken from that.

You look at Gabrielle Essie and Hicham Elbarouz and Egan Caffins Freeman and I'm a bit of a sports tragic so all those stories really resonate with me and they've all come from the athletics. It's so raw, it's so simple just start and finish. I think it's the most pure sport in the world because everyone has the opportunity to run or jump. Not everyone in the world can swim or have access to a swimming pool. It's probably the most participated in sport informally because people are running and moving the whole time and you're drawing upon the

huge talent for everyone in the world so if you look at the Olympics they have the most competitors in track and field no doubt for those kind of things. It's actually an amazing sport. I'll change gears here a little bit and we'll move to Virtus because I think we're going to spend a bit of time talking about that in the future here now. When did you develop this idea and how long did it take to get from meeting in cafes to what it is today? Yeah meeting in cafes, I spent a lot of time in cafes.

I think when I was going back to school like 10, 11, 12. Yeah you've talked about this in previous podcasts you've said obviously you've finished school, gone and done your Bachelor of Sport Science. Yeah it was a soft standard like love sport go to exercise sports science and I'll use the word passion. I'm passionate about sport and I'm passionate about competing and things like that but I didn't really know a lot about the fitness industry and about the industry I was going into. And that's kind of been the direction probably a lot of careers counsellors

have been pushing for kids that have been interested in sports is to go do, someone who still wanted to go to uni to go do a Bachelor in Sport Science or Exercise Science. I think it needs to be looked at a little bit because like you look at our cohort there'd be I don't reckon there'd be 10 still in the fitness industry of our whole exercise science cohort like but if 10 there wouldn't be many more and I think that's a bit of a transition course. It is a transition course which is fine because it

I think one of the best ways to figure out what you want to do is do something you don't like and it pushes you it'll push you in the right direction pretty quickly. But yeah did my cert 3 I wanted to have a year off after year 12. I remember not trying as hard as I probably should have in year 12. Yeah. I got a decent attempt I think it was around 80 or 79.95 or something along those lines. Put you in the top 20% of the state. Yeah but that was definitely a lot of

that was definitely off being somewhat intelligent and being able to to kind of bluff my way through it to a point rather than putting in as much hard work as I probably should have. Yeah. But yeah did got into what did I get into RMIT. Yep. Initially. Bandura. Yeah and so holy shit I don't want to drive to Bandura. No no I want to drive to Bandura from the peninsula. Exactly but I was probably I was tossing up whether I had a year off anyway but in my head I was always going to work or

do something and I'm like why not a PT course like I'd spent the last probably two years of high school on the way to footy training going to the gym with Kevlar like most days the great man. So yeah we we walked to the gym and look back now and we just fuck around for an hour and do bicep curls. Oh mate. I look back at some of the workouts and I'm just like what was I smoking like I do look at it I think we go upstairs we start with like tricep extensions and bench press and maybe some chin ups because I was good at chin ups because I weighed like 15 kilos.

Dripping work. Yeah I remember watching someone do deadlifts one day and I was like what the hell is that and yeah I was like that was the start of my journey my foray into fitness industry which is a lot of kids way of getting in which is fine yeah and there was definitely a lot of lack of I guess direction and know what I was doing it was like the older guys who were at school who'd also go to the gym you kind of learn off them and broke learned off them and I like I

think it's not the best way to learn but I think it's amazing way to learn because you just you learn by doing and you learn by by experiencing and did that for a while and thought hey a PT course sounds like a good idea jumped into that went down to Vic Fitness Academy with mum and signed up and three days a week for the ten months which after deciding that I wasn't going to study I ended up doing a PT course that I would spend more time doing that than I would have at uni. Pretty intense kind of.

Yeah well intense it was time consuming yeah like the three full days a week and I was still playing footy and stingrays and I was like oh I'll be able to balance those two pretty well like I just started driving and working in rebel sport as well so that was my week like done yeah that was my week my my year sorted it was it was a really good year I learned like I didn't learn as much in my PT course I couldn't probably similar to like I was always good at anatomy and physiology and understanding how the body works and things like that so I probably cruised through that fairly well.

I probably found that a lot of the PT stuff that was being covered probably covered in year 12 PE or something like that. Yeah it definitely was and I did all of the like extra health and PE and things like that classes at school so I was already fairly well versed and I was already training myself and playing footy and you pick up all these different things about how the body works and so I was able to cruise through that year as well make some make some good friends like we had a really cool group

that year and it was a lot of fun and yeah fun rather than learning was probably the big thing had some really good teachers who genuinely cared about us learning as well which I think you can get especially like I've taught at like Chisholm and things like that and I think with a lot of PT certs it kind of boomed after that where there were hundreds and hundreds of different PC or maybe hundreds of PT certs online and writers here and yeah I think people were just trying to get the certs done and our teachers

genuinely cared about us learning and I think that's something that I try and take into all my teachings and yeah did that for the year and I remember just before New Year's Eve that year in 2010 Andy Kiley one of the guys I played footy with shouted out grey man he posted that he was looking for a PT and I think I might even have been at Pyramid Rock it was like one morning at Pyramid Rock and I saw the Facebook post on my iPhone 1 back in the day I don't know what it was

but I remember seeing the Facebook post and then sending him a message and I said hey I've finished my PT cert and all that kind of stuff because it took us till December but we didn't finish till 20th of December or something I'd love to apply you go send me your resume come in for an interview I think it might have been a couple of weeks later he's the owner of a gym yeah he's so he ran Jets fitness saying warrants he was a manager manager there so 24 hour gym so that was where I

got my start I walked in for the interview I was super nervous and stuff and I like I knew Andy pretty well he kind of took me under my wing in my first couple of senior years under his wing first couple of senior years at Frankston YCW and yeah I remember sitting there for an interview and kind of real nervous and he kind of said alright well when you got start more or less to start I was like oh does that mean I've got it he's like yeah of course or something along that like I

remember being really simple like that I went home I was like yeah sweet I'm going to be a PT and yeah kind of I was I was pretty lucky to start at Jets and then under Andy because you know straight up off the bat most gyms will just charge a bunch of rent yeah and as a you know 19 year old kid you're like holy shit what do I do like don't have the capital behind you really exactly a little bit of savings from Rebel and like I was still working at Rebel so I was

probably lucky in that that aspect as well because I had Rebel not to fall back on but it was just comfortable like you always knew you had that money coming in yeah exactly the money was always coming in it wasn't what something I had to worry about and my mum and dad were always there to support and whatever I needed so it was yeah it was a very fortunate upbringing and things like that so I started at Jets and kind of got a big whack in the face in terms of what the fitness industry actually

was like and I remember starting and I think I did my mum might have been doing like a bunch of hours at Jets as just admin and things like that to start off rather than paying rent yeah I think that's I think that's how we started and then yeah it was just go find go find some people and one of the offer they had was when I started I had to offer free PTs so one free PT to every member yeah who was interested in one which was basically here's a pile of paper with all

our members start calling and cold calling yeah wow hey I'm the new PT at Jets I was wondering if you'd love to like to book in for a free session half an hour session just to get to know them and things like that and that was that was a start and like I've got memories of you know probably working harder than I've probably ever had before in terms of just giving something a shot like I've worked hard at Rebel but it was always a lot of fun yeah all the yeah all the stuff I'd done

like footy I'd worked really hard in the gym I'd work really hard but yeah it's a little bit different when it's work and you had no idea what you were doing and I remember just sitting in the car like for an hour before a lot of stingray sessions it then I'm just sitting there calling people calling people and like you get you call 30 people and you maybe get one session one yeah so yeah it was it was a grind it was it was very interesting I was having a similar conversation with Courtney who I

get a massage off of Norton Body & Sink and going down and it's amazing that like massage PT courses and these kind of things really good content wise but in terms of giving any depending on where you are give you the basic skeleton of what you really need to do it gives you a start gives you a start but in terms of people passion but as an individual you probably need skills in how to run a business marketing all this kind of thing that yeah probably not you have no intention of really wanting to do

but to be successful in your chosen field if you don't do it then you're gone it's one of those like to be a you need to be able to sell you need to be able to market you need to be able to and then at the end of the day when you've got someone you need to be able to coach and take care of them and get the best out of them so like what we do is pretty difficult in terms of you've got to wear a heap of different hats and the whole like running

a business thing PT is coming out of PT so now like yeah I can run a business and after seven years in the industry or whatever it's been you have no right to believe you should run a business and I know like when I started I think one of my mentors maybe a couple of years ago I'm sure I'll talk about plenty but he said something along lines of like people don't have the right to own a business you've got to earn the right to own a business and that yeah that's something that's definitely helped

me the last couple of years but yeah worked at Jets for maybe 18 months I think was able to get comfortable in terms of how many sessions I was doing and spending time around the gym and met a lot of really cool people and then you've told a story that a lot of the people you've met at Jeffs still train with you today yeah I think so my first couple of clients are my first five clients I think four of them still train with me it's amazing and one of them ended up joining the Navy

so he's not local anymore but yeah that was that core group of people have been incredibly loyal and incredibly supportive my whole journey and like I'm stoked that I've been able to pay them back with able to teach them as I've learned I've developed as I've grown because you know the stuff I used to do back in the day at Jets was not the best way to train and I'm sure I'll look back at what I'm doing now in five years and it'll be exactly the same thing but it's that growth and that improvement and

things like that so yeah they're all Virtus members now and they all spend a bit of time in Virtus which is super cool to be able to have that yeah that core group of people that have been with me the whole journey it's amazing yeah seven years seven years deep or six years deep at Jets so that was really cool so we're 18 months at Jets and then we're transitioning and something else yeah it started I think Andy was Andy had some stuff going on and I think yeah they were looking at maybe a change

of manager because Andy was moving on and I was kind of saw it as the time where I wanted to start it's kind of set up a little home gym during that 18 months working at Rebel and working at Jets I was able to put together some money to buy some equipment and I remember it started out would be no bigger than this office it would have been like probably two meters by three meters in this little bit and I'm like hey dad can I put a bench there and like it was generally like one

of those stocks in it's like crappy Celsius benches with a barbell and two dumbbells and that was it for the first little bit and then yeah just slowly started accumulating equipment it was on this old bit of boat carpet that sort of started at home and yeah it wouldn't be very big and just to give the listeners a perspective here we're in a room that you'd probably struggle to fit your average double bed in there wouldn't be much room like if the guys from the block come and walk in here there wouldn't be much more

than ones and twos floating around particularly from Neil and Darren I know Shayna who knows but yeah so we're in dad shed with a shitty old bench and I decided that like we were on a couple of acres and you know dad's dad's been incredible in the amount of support he's given me and mum as well but I'd say hey dad can I have that little bit extra space in the gym and he'd say nah and then like a day or two later I've learned this over the last couple of years I wish I'd learned

it when I was like eight or nine but you ask him something and he says no or he'll say nah don't be stupid or something along those lines and then a couple of days later he'll come to you and he'll be like alright here's how we're gonna do it so I'd say I'd fuck it up that corner and he'd be like nah and then he'd be like alright here's how we're gonna do it we'll move it to there and we'll have this we'll move this and I'll be like sweet and then we're on one side

of the shed and then eventually we got to the other side of the shed and had a corner and then the corner got a little bit further and then when I finally decided to leave Jets it was let's put up some walls and let's make it look look nice and professional and things like that and I think I had a rack that I bought like from Rebel and maybe through one of the companies that supplied Rebel and stuff like that we got to because it was a 20 meter shed we got to like maybe 8

meters in and there was a big roller door and Dad's like you're not going past the roller door not a chance and like three months later I think I think we got a bit a bunch of extra flooring and I just put it down there and he's like what are you doing don't go past the roller door like three days later he like comes in with like another 20 meters of flooring so he filled it all out so it was like 33 square meters at that point so we got to the point where it was

yeah 6 square meters to 10 to 20 to 30 kept chipping away kept chipping away and having the big back out we were able to use a bit of that to do some stuff outside and yeah basically while I was at uni the last couple of years at uni was basically just building up that gym and building up Lockies Build and Burn Personal Training which was the worst name in the world I don't know what the fuck I was thinking Lockies Build and Burn Personal Training cause we want to build muscle and burn fat right

yeah no I guess it no it's shit ass I think it was I think Dan Rasher came up with it and I was stoked with it for like five years so Dan I'm not having a go at you but fuck me what were you thinking so I probably need to go back a step so we talked about uni then as well so obviously we've gone CERT 3 and 4 of fitness to become a personal trainer in that year after finishing high school so that's 12 months so we're 19 then did you obviously defer to get

into uni or did you apply again so I deferred that year when I was doing my PT course and then reapplied hadn't had the course and was good to go if I wanted to reapply I think I was trying to get into Deakin and then I remember putting down ACU just as an extra one and so you were applying as a mature age student rather than relying on your ACU no I was still relying on my ATAR cause it was only a year out and I deferred I think I just had to reapply again but

it was with the year of experience cause I'd done the course and things like that so I just had to through VTAC I just had to put in what I was doing and things like that and managed to get into ACU which I had no idea where it was but I knew it was closer than Bundoora correct yeah a little bit more accessible by public training as well correct so yeah went in for orientation and got locked in there I think it's a brilliant little campus we take our year 12s out regularly on year 12

camp and find my time again and or if I would say if I was going to go back to uni I would definitely go back just the way it looks and yeah it was really good I think the thing that it lacks is that community feel that I guess a lot of the bigger unis have in terms of all the on campus stuff that they do I have a bunch of really close friends who went to Ballarat they went to Ballarat and they had that kind of whole community on campus cause they were living up

there so yeah I went to Ballarat and I totally understand that coming from you got a lot of people coming from all across Victoria to come and just study and you make up really good lifelong friends and stuff there people living on campus I was living just off campus but you kind of you have to otherwise you've got nothing else up there yeah and like I was disappointed I missed out on that to a point but we were able to kind of have our group of friends at ACU but it was a lot of you

know coach in the morning jump on the train or jump in the car go to the train go train up to uni be at uni for classes and then back on the train back to footy training or rebel or coaching or something and that was just that repeat repeat repeat Bachelor of Exercise Science was generally about 3 years 3 years yeah so in that time we're building or we're trying to build Lockies yeah so first year I was at Jets and then I was at home and just building that but building that and being pretty

comfortable working 2-3 shifts a week at Rebel and have a really good group at Rebel and yeah just doing that playing footy I was at Dandy Stingrays in 2010 and 11 yeah 10/11 so I was able to kind of balance all that which look back now like I never thought I worked hard but I probably did to a point because I was trying to fit so much stuff in and yeah testament to Mum and Dad for helping me get to all those things and do all those things and testament to KP for putting up with

me for that long because she's yeah she's been awesome support like especially at uni playing footy and working and that kind of stuff and trying to find time to see her and spend time together yeah it's been super tough at times but it comes up later we'll talk about it good she's always been there which is awesome and like yeah couldn't have done it without her and Mum and Dad especially but yeah that was pretty much it well when did we pull the trigger on Virtus because we're probably about at that stage of the journey

now yeah we so ACU was pretty important because it introduced me or reintroduced me to Jesse Bice who I spent I used to play footy against when we were growing up so I think his old man Tony coached interleague maybe in like under 12s or 11s or I can't remember but a long time ago I used to play footy against each other and maybe like second or third day of uni like I know that guy and yeah so we were like we were friends at uni and we spent a bit of time together but not

a heap nothing outside of uni and then once I finished we were kind of I remember the last year like the last couple of weeks everyone's like so what are we doing next year and I was like I fucked fine I had no idea I was like was your last year made up a lot of like a placement or anything like that no my last year I so I was told that I would be able to claim a bunch of my PT hours and yeah exactly because I was kind of in the industry already and

then maybe like two weeks before we were due to finish up and one of the course counselors or one of the one of the lecturers and I think we amazing human he goes oh we can't claim all your hours you're gonna have to do something else my gosh Jesse was working at a pace exercise physiology so I remember contacting them and they're like yep now come in for an interview and ended up doing maybe three weeks or two weeks straight or three weeks straight or something along those lines with a bunch of those guys right

like as uni finish and finish the day or the day before to finish all my hours put it all in jumped on a plane to South East Asia for six weeks post uni so so yeah manage to squeeze all of that into the end which is super cool so yeah got that done and then applied over this over that time I ended up applying for a master's of exercise physiology because the the boring part of me said you know what if I want to do performance stuff and I want to help people be faster and

bigger and stronger and all that kind of stuff and make them be healthier and happier part of me is like well the government doesn't pay you to do any of that makes you an exercise physiologist so I was like well it's probably a safe option yeah to to do that and then oh I can do the fun stuff on the side but like I remember having those thoughts and that was kind of my justification to to applying for it and the time I spent at PACE was awesome like you get to see all these different

populations that aren't necessarily healthy pops yeah so yeah did apply for that and got in and I think it might have been mid year or maybe a little bit earlier Jesse and I caught up and I was still coaching at home and he was still working at PACE and caught up and then we played a game of golf well we definitely played a game of golf I won played a game of golf at Mornington and kind of like well what do you want to do what do you want to do I don't know kind of

that and by the end of the game of golf it was well here are all the people we want to be like we want to maybe have a performance center yeah we just want we want to train people let's start talking about opening a gym so yeah that was where the coffee date started and we just spent yeah lots of time talking about people that have done it and people that are doing it what you wanted yeah people doing what we wanted and you know we hit on all the big ones all around the world

like Exos which I think were an athletic performance back then and Eric Cressy and Joe DeFranco and Mike Boyle and all those guys who are kind of figureheads in our industry and we kept coming back to Woodford in who were in Moorabbin so you know half an hour away and yeah it was we'd been watching their stuff a little bit online and been kind of been following them and you know just starting to open up the doors in terms of what the industry was like yeah so he's kind of changed big driving force in trying

to change the industry and like people will knock him and people will say that he's obnoxious and stuff like that but and he is I love you Woody but like he's a great yeah he's a great man he's been able to yeah like he's been able to change the way that our industry in terms of sport performance and and athletic developments kind of looked at in Australia and like he'll talk about it for days on end but we're way behind the U.S. the U.S. is I guess I think one of the reasons is because it's so all their sports are so strength and power based in the U.S.

basketball football baseball they're all yeah really high uh athlete demand in terms of strength and power you need that that side of training you need that um yeah you need that strength training and the and the jumping and the throwing and all that explosive is really important so I think it allows the understanding there from a grassroots level so you have kids you know 11 12 13 or lifting weights in over in the U.S. and they can power clean by the time they're 12 or 13 and you have people over here that can't deadlift when

they're 25 like it's it's it's it's so far disconnected it's not funny and because all of our main sports um are very running based that's been the the go-to this is this is how we try and be run hundreds go yeah exactly and like footy training when you're younger all right how are we gonna warm up let's go to do two laps like yeah and like I would bang on about it forever how wrong it is backwards it is but woody was the one that finally started pushing that to the general expression static stretching exactly

so you know and you got people that still do it man it's just yeah and it's and it's it's it's worked to a point yeah so it's really easy for people that like dinosaurs have been doing it for 20 30 40 years ago but it works yeah exactly but you know I'm of the belief that if it ain't broke don't fix it sure but if it's good why not be better like why don't we try and find that extra 5 10 20 percent be excellent exactly exactly we'll talk about it um but yeah woody was

amazing in in that respect and so yeah I think I think I sent him an email and asked him if I could have a chat to him about opening a gym and what it was like and stuff like that and Jesse had so this is still talking to Jesse and figuring out how we're gonna how we're gonna do it he'd done a week I think when I started my masters he'd done a week over in the US at a gym called desire and they um we asked him for advice as well um and they offered

us a license agreement to open one of those years over here and it was you know we pay x amount or x amount of consulting hours and and basically just help assistants doing everything and it'll be as I ran it and you know that kind of stuff and was kind of thinking about that and probably never really close to doing it but it was it was an opportunity and it was an opportunity that we never had before and um seems to be a common thread coming to all the gym guys you've spoken to in the

podcast before yeah America or going to America just for experience 100% is is it is like almost a stone in the journey or a stepping stone yeah in the journey for all these guys going to America or looking to America yeah it's definitely something like with the available information nowadays with YouTube and Facebook and everything it's you know if if young strength coaches don't look over the US you're probably doing something wrong yeah purely because it's one avenue of amazing information and yeah we I think I emailed Woody and said he said yep um give

me a call on this day and I was super busy with everything and completely forgot and like two weeks later I was like fuck I forgot school Woody like I remember being oh no and um then started seeing posts for his internship program and I was like well I may as well apply for that and then I sent Tiff an email who was running the internship program then and caught up with them and we had kind of an introduction kind of thing to it sat there and listened to Woody Yamaron for two or three hours

which he does very well might I add but yeah I remember that being the first kind of time I met him yep and everyone else left and there was kind of two or three was still there talking to him and I'm like I gotta ask him about this gym about desire about doing the doing this deal with them and figuring out what the best option for me is I want to open a gym what's the best way to do it everyone else left and I kind of everyone kind of left at the same time he

started walking up the stairs and I remember kind of going having that half second moment and I was like fuck do I ask yeah do I ask do I not ask and I kind of went hey Woody he goes yeah and I'm like can I ask you a couple of things and he's like yeah no worries and we came down and we had a good chat about it and I kind of asked him a bunch of questions about opening a gym and what do you think about this license agreement stuff he goes nah fuck that

that's bullshit like that was genuinely his response it was like kind of a little taken aback and he was like open a gym with me and I was like what like he just met me and stuff like that but I guess he could see the hunger and the passion and stuff like that so you've gone down the appropriate channels yeah yeah exactly and that was kind of one of the stepping stones and that and then he's like he caught my business manager I think CEO he was a CEO then Geordie and shout out to Geordie

and Tif as well and Mark and like those guys have been immense in my development and you know they kind of kind of fast track to to being an adult more or less and helping me develop on that path but called Geordie on the way I was on the way to Piers training I think called Geordie on the way hands free of course if you're listening mum always hands free called Geordie and kind of had a chat to him and like it was like five minutes after I'd spoken to Woody so I'm like I don't

know if this guy's gonna have anything I do who I am and I was like hey mate Christian would forget me a number we just had a chat about GM and he said he wanted me to speak to you and he's like yeah cool let's catch up for a meeting and again coffee dates then after that I called Jesse and I enrolled in the internship so that was kind of about to get started I called Jesse I'm like hey mate this just happened you got to come to this meeting as well and yeah we sat

down with Geordie and started talking about the possibility of opening a gym and we were we were talking about Mornington all the way back then and it was something that we wanted and then I think the first meeting with Geordie we sat down and we went well where's the best place to open it like the location was one of the first things we were talking about and we put all the census data in and looked at all the growth areas and where all the population was and Mornington is amazing because you look out and you

look out at Main Street you see the see the water and see the ocean but from a business point of view it's not that amazing because half of your kind of potential customers are starfish so you're like well if we're next to the beach then that radius of 20-30 k's where people might drive to come see us it's cut in half yeah so the initial thought was we'll always go up half as ocean exactly unless they're coming by boat correct correct which not many people do these days unless you open a gym in Venice first

internationally yeah so Casey ended up being the location we got stuck on stuck on and we're like well growth corridor like yeah what's happening here and yeah it kind of just set out of doing the internship but straight away and then Jesse was like well we're like well Jesse's gonna be in but I know like he probably should do the internship as well so go jump into that and met a bunch of amazing people and coaches and things like that and spending yeah spend a couple of months with Woody playing in the gym and playing

WCC Casey which is now which is even though we're not there it's pretty amazing to see that it's it still happened and things like that I'll get I'll get to that in a minute but yeah yeah just kind of dove into learning and was still playing footy and coaching myself and at Rebel a little bit I think I was down to the Sunday shift which was the most lucrative of the week so thank you to all my Rebel managers for keeping me on that Sunday shift for way longer than I should have yeah just just

dug into learning and planning and spent a lot of time at coffee shops and trying to be a sponge just trying to be sponge and just trying to learn and and yeah kind of opened my eyes to athletic development and how to train and started training myself a little bit differently and I started playing I was playing good footy anyway but my footy started improving and I was able to learn under all the strength guys and coaches at Collingwood but also under Woody and yeah and then yeah and then like straight away was able to

apply it with all my clients which I think was a big thing because I wasn't just getting information I was getting information and like 20 minutes later or half an hour later I was applying it you're going to be able to tweet that if you made a mistake exactly exactly and the opportunities that Woody and Tif and Geordie gave Jesse and I and all the other coaches to learn under the other coaches but also to learn under people like Mark Buckley and things like that was was immense because we were able to see Christian's way

of doing things and then other ways of doing things and then kind of like bridge a gap in the middle yeah and yeah went through that for a while and Casey I think yeah Casey had been kind of trying to find a location and we eventually finally found one and then it was like end of the year I don't remember what year we were up to now but end of the year and then we kind of I think we kind of signed the lease and everything and then they said yep we've been by March got

to March yep you've been by October and it was like oh shit yeah like this might have been 2014 so that's about six months extra it might even be 2015 actually yeah so so got pushed back six months yeah six months nothing in that time Jesse and I were spending heaps of time together playing the gym doing all this stuff learning it's awesome like it was a really cool kind of 12 months of just like fill the brain up as much as we can incubate incubator yeah exactly and yeah before we signed that lease we

started doing education courses so through Jordan Tif and stuff like that Woody was doing his education stuff and then they're like would you guys want to run a 12 week course and we're just like well shit yeah like we've never really taught before but we've done a little bit at Woodford and we're like yeah let's give it a go and we wrote our content and all the stuff that we've kind of been learning and from all the different areas that we've been learning it from and put it together and had to do our certs and

stuff and went sweet 12 weeks science and nutrition course let's let's get it running and I think it might have been October or November in 2014 or maybe yeah 2014 where we started that so 12 week courses I think our first one I don't know how it happened we had like 30 students or 25 students or something like that so it was amazing and yeah and for us like we get a way to find a big chunk of our buy in for Casey we get a big chance to teach and start developing that area of

what we do and then we're able to meet 25 up and coming coaches and people who just want to be happier and healthier and like a lot of whether it's the first one or the second one like a lot of the people that we've met along the way have stuck around you know like your Mike's and Mon's and your JUP and stuff like that they're all from those courses and we're able to meet a lot of people and get to know a lot of different people which was super cool. Probably the embryonic stage of what Virtus is like.

Yeah 100% like that want and drive to teach as well as train is one of the big things that makes Virtus different to a lot of other gyms I think and you know perfect world you can train yourself like that's what I want. Self managed athlete. Self managed athlete you've heard that term a little bit before and I've said a little bit before but yeah so did that course, course one went off without a hitch we were meant to get a bunch of funding from the government but obviously there we were like we were bottom

of the rung so there was it all had to be filtered down from there so that happened and then we went to course two and we had another 20 students and then we went to course three everything going off really well I think we went to course three and then what I mean middle of the year and then Casey got pushed back another six months so it was like yeah it was like holy shit this thing's not going to happen or is it going to happen and like there was this kind of purgatory period of

six months where we were doing our course like yeah we were doing the course and I was coaching and I was playing footy and doing all this stuff I wanted to do but like that drive and that hunger to open a gym was there and I was just like fuck this is something that's got to happen and Casey kept getting pushed back and pushed back and I remember like having genuine doubts about whether it was going to happen or not whether it was whether we were going to be okay and then then I think I

can't remember what it was but there was starting to be all those rumblings about the education stuff and like we were just providing the courses facilitating them joining TIFF and all those guys and Mark were facilitating it through another company and that big company that giant one went bust and kind of all our funding just vanished in mid-air so yeah we had you know once out of number we had a lot of money that was owed to us that never came and joining TIFF same deal like they lost out a big time as well and

that feeling like of like everything was kind of planning out and KP and I bought a block of land and like that money was a big part of the reason for doing it and it was just like holy shit what like what now like that feeling of hopelessness and yeah and there's been dramatic shifts away from that in that training provider or registered training RTOs kind of thing that made a big push to make it more a lot more regulated yeah it's definitely a lot of companies were obviously just rewarding the system yeah people were

signing up like we were hearing stories afterwards of people that were signing up students that didn't exist yeah getting funding for them and stuff like that and you know I think I look at it as a negative because we lost money and stuff like that and it did impact our the friendships and relationships we had with a few people for a fair chunk of the time and but at the end of the day and like some students never got certificates which still hurts a lot did but just timing wise like there were certain assessments that

we handed in that was too late when they went bust all that kind of stuff it's probably not super important but I guess the thing that we pushed is that our students learnt and they were every student that did our course was still able to get through the 12 or did the 12 weeks was able to learn the things we wanted to teach so yeah I guess for me certificates aren't worth much more than the piece of paper they've written pretty few don't actually apply it and understand it and things like that and that like

that's always been kind of the way I look at it regardless of all this stuff that's happened so yeah it was that that empty feeling of like we're cooked yeah we're going with betrayal and kind of disappointment and stuff that it could happen and it could happen to us and things like that so yeah it was one it was a weird time because we're like we don't know what to do with the Casey stuff we don't know what to do with Christian very much in limbo kind of yeah it's kind of went from being in

limbo to being like holy shit like Casey's still coming we don't have any money like put deposit in on the land and like all this stuff is happening and I think it was before the we lost all the funding and stuff but we were talking about opening a facility down here purely for education so that's what Virtus was kind of started out as we were we were going to work with Casey Jesse and I were going to work with Casey and then we were going to have a facility down here where we ran training courses

like we were doing and had a couple of coaches working out of it but we were going to be working at Casey and then we were going to be spending a little bit of time down here back and forth yeah so that was kind of already in the works and we were thinking about name one day and kind of excellence was the one thing we kept coming back to Jesse goes I think just I remember a struggle back from Moorabbin and Jesse kind of says what about excellence I'm like excellence excellence performance kind of sounds

a bit rubbish yeah and I agree it's true one of yeah one of us said what is it in Latin because we'd been talking about Latin words a couple of days earlier like we're looking at like areas of Spain like suburbs of Spain or whatever they call it over there of like areas in France like cool names that had a meaning and yeah came up as such excellence in Virtus excellence in Latin and Virtus came up like bam that was it like as soon as like for anyone out there trying to figure out a name

for a business or anything like that when you find it you know like if you don't love it don't stick to it so yeah that happened and we kind of started setting up here and I think it was all in the works here we hadn't found a factory yet we'd actually applied for a factory and then kind of got taken out from underneath our nose we literally were sending the documents back it was a sheer little one a couple of streets over so we're very fortunate we don't have it because yeah it wouldn't have been

anything like what Virtus is now but we were able to we're able to oh no sorry we applied for it and then a real estate agent called us and she was like really stressed I'm so sorry I'm like what are you talking about you're so sorry like we sent it all through and she's like oh my my partner's leased it to someone like literally 20 minutes before we'd sent off the forms so yeah it was kind of like not a slimy building oh mate devastation I like I hate saying things happen for a reason but

they really do like saving up with my like I don't know it's one it's a lot of examples but when I first was looking to buy a car I had we went up to Sydney to play gws for stingrays and I was picking up the car with dad the next day after I got back I get in the car at the airport dad goes can't pick up your car tomorrow like what's happened he's like oh they rode it off last night it's obviously one last joyride the car we were gonna buy and then cut and

like I remember when that happened I got home got like I was real shitty for like a day and then got on car sales for like four hours and eventually found the car I ended up driving for the last six years which I sold last week but yeah and same thing happened with Jim I remember the same thing happened with Casey as well the facility I ended up finding and the guys ended up settling on it was after we'd just lost one that we were hoping to get so yeah the when we lost this one

I was kind of like you know what no point sulking remembered the car thing and I was like let's just go and get the next one yeah there was nothing available absolutely nothing I remember calling a real estate agent Tom Crowder great man shout out shout out oh yeah there's gonna be heaps of shout outs today yeah I called him and I'm like you got anything like this what we're looking for this is the size I've got something a little bit bigger it's like I can't it's like 200 square meters it's in Mornington there's people

in there at the moment but I'm pretty sure that they want to find a tenant so it wasn't even listed or close to listed and yeah he's like John have a look and we went had a look and I'm like this could work there was it looks yuck and shitty what was it it was an ambulance depot right so so they basically just used it as little bit storage but then two cars would drive in every night sit there drive out so yeah it wasn't being used a lot much Doug who's our landlord shout out

he's been amazing especially at the start but yeah just in terms of getting and allowing us to do everything that we wanted to do and we were like well we're kind of ready to roll those in let us in and he's like oh you probably won't be able to move into I think it was like start of September or something but we'll be transitioning out as you transition in yeah and just before that all happens yeah I think we'd sort it out like August so we had a month or so just kind of start planning

and sorting all out we did a bunch of stuff with Geordie and things like that and Tiff and we're working out how that partnership would work down here and got to the point with Casey where I think got pushed back to the next April like for someone along I can't remember the date the boys ended up opening it but got pushed back to that and we were just like no money like no funds like I don't think we can do both of these and we ended up like pulling the pin like after after all the

funding stuff like that just kind of like it wasn't yeah it wasn't anything that anyone that we were directly involved with did or anything like that like it was just like for us we couldn't go through with Casey after after everything that had happened and yeah it's still probably a bit of a sour point and something that you know I've been able to reconnect with with a bunch of people and still a few to go but it's yeah it's one of those learning experiences that that hurts the time and still hurts but we like we

learn a lot off it so you know I'm not big on regretting things like that because it's yeah it's you learn you learn from it so yeah we pulled the pin on pulled the pin on WSSC Casey which still ended up going ahead and things like that which is awesome and yeah just kind of turned our focus to Virtus for life we need to do our own thing and we end up having the help of Tiff and Geordie and stuff and yeah I kind of remember the timelines in terms of when we actually did it

but about two years ago it was in the second birthday coming up yeah it was about two years ago when all that happened so it was a big couple of months and I'd yeah had the house sort of going and like we had to pay our second installment and stuff like that and that ended up getting pushback as well anyway red tape these red tapes are that'll be the headline of the podcast I think how red tape has made things awesome but yeah it's the open Virtus two years ago and had an amazing amount of

support and from all of our friends and family and people coming in and spending time on the tools and yeah grinding concrete and sanding walls and knocking down walls and painting building mezzanines and all that kind of stuff was it's yeah it's been an amazing amazing two years so yeah open Virtus in October of 2015 yeah started the OG crew was Jesse and I so we were directors so we yeah we thought of the idea for Virtus a year before that and like it what it ended up being was probably not what it's intended to

be but I think that's probably one of the best things about it yeah we spent a lot of time and I think people ask me when's the right time to open a gym I hear a lot of coaches and interns when's the right time to open a gym I've got two answers you'll never be ready so there's never a right time but at the same time you've got to do enough planning to to make sure that it works because yeah that whole everyone everyone's heard the every or most small businesses fail within the first three

one or three years so two thirds of the way there count down the days until we hopefully won't fail but yeah that and then that are happening and yeah Jesse and Sophie who'd done our course she jumped on in as a coach and who else cam cam cam was doing the internship at Virtus at Virtus at Woodford a couple of after us and being the guys who are opening Casey we go in there a bit lift and get to know everyone and do work and stuff like that so we never actually met him at Woodford

but he sent us a message on Facebook and said hey I've got to meet you guys and we went down the rocks and there's this tall bald weird looking dude who's an 11 out of 10 human who we met at the rocks and had lunch with him and just kind of hit it off straight away and I was just like knew straight away yeah we kind of knew straight away and that was still when when Casey was kind of on the on the card so we were like we want you to meet Casey with us

and he was PTing out of another gym down in Moorabbin and doing a little bit of Woodford and stuff like that and yeah he ended up coming across to Virtus with us and yeah I'm eternally grateful for him and Sophie and Jesse at the start because yeah it was it was four of us and then a lot more people that did a lot a lot more work that helped us kind of get it up and running right to start off with yeah Tif Geordie and Mark being three of them and Woody being a big one

as well and then we were trying to find another female coach and we we had one that wanted to jump on who'd never ended up working out wanted to do our own thing which is fine and then I think it might have been about a week before we opened we knew this coach Katie Dean who'd been doing some work out of Peak for the week and Mitch and guys at Peak were massive help for us at the start because that's where we used to run our courses for the first couple of courses so Katie was

working at Peak and had come in to build and burn to do a little bit of rehab on her hip back in the day and while Jesse and I was planning Casey and stuff he ended up moving all his PTs to to the Shed as well so so we used Rob Dogg Shed for a long period of time so much better business name she just called it Rob Dogg Shed I should have called it Rob Dogg Shed but we had like the Virtus stuff up in there and things like that and I've got yeah some

cool photos to show like the transformation of that to now of that space well that space from when I started in it to when we left it three by two and then to now yeah exactly and yeah Katie had come in a bit and I was kind of like like let's get her on board like I'd heard that she was doing exercise and and loved the rehab side of things and just sounded like like she was she was kind of the right fit and I hadn't actually met her until she came in for the first

time and and we were just you know talking about it and then maybe like a week later Jesse's like yeah Katie asked if she could work at Virtus so Katie poached herself more or less and kind of recruited herself and she's still here so it's it's been as much as I'm scared she's going to stab me one day or for being obnoxious and giving her the shit she's been awesome. We sent out a bit of a post last night on the Virtus fans if anyone got any questions for Lockie I think and your sisters were

bickering on on that said post and then Katie popped up and said who does he argue with the most who's like his sister but is not some kind of thing so I think that kind of sums up the conversation and the relationship. There's our relationship but yeah she's been awesome and yeah from that crew at the start it was me Cam, Jesse, Katie and Soph so we kind of got to got to work and coaching and trying to make the place what it is what it is and yeah and it was a it was a

long time ago like two years but that two years like so much has happened it's crazy fast forward yeah man fast forward like the amount of things that have changed and the amount of things that have happened and like it's all been it's all been for the positive because you know a lot of down days and shitty days. Like any job though. Yeah exactly exactly and you know nothing there's nothing necessarily special about us or anything like that so it's just we're just another group of people trying to trying to do our best. Trying to run a business.

Trying to run a business which is super duper hard but you know I could not be more fortunate for having Jesse at the start like he was there for the first 12 months and the 18 months before that we were able to plan for it and kind of get things up and running but yeah when we started running a business we realized that fuck we have no idea what we're doing yeah which is which was I guess probably what a lot of people would go through. I think the Snakehole boys kind of talked about that

in previous podcasts like exactly making it up as they go along pretty much pretty much and like all the accounting stuff and just all of the little things you don't think about when you're running a business like I remember Geordie showed us a profit and loss sheet like when we were talking about Casey and I was like fuck do I know what this is like I'm a coach I want to coach like I just want to teach people how to run faster and jump higher and all that and yeah we kind of set out October 2015 and building a brand and building a community of people and yeah it's a lot's happened since then.

Yeah absolutely. That was the longest answer anyone's ever given on anything. I don't even know like that was only my third question. I've got two pages I don't know what we're going to get. The question was what is Virtus? What is Virtus and what happened? How would it have been an amazing story though? Yeah it's been a roller coaster. I've had it where did it all begin I've got three dot points there that's all I've got to so far. Yeah well that's where it began and yeah that takes us to what 12 months ago or two years ago.

Yeah crazy man that's an amazing story I haven't heard it all from start to finish I've heard snippets of it of what actually happened. Yeah. But to get the full kind of picture or the full landscape of where it all started from and how it all came apart the whole story is amazing. The whole your lucky thing or the must be nice thing like we've heard it a few times and it's just like you have no idea. Yeah. And like that takes us to the point where we finally open and that's when all the real fun began.

Yeah that's right. And yeah it's been a wild ride. Yeah absolutely. We're still on. But Rome wasn't built in a day. That's true. They're still building it. They're still building it. It's an ongoing construction. That's correct. That's taken me back into that whole kind of question it's going to change the way maybe like the rest of this podcast around because I don't know how long we've been going through. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It might be a two part or three part. We can split it up. Yeah we might have to I think. We'll keep going.

We'll forge ahead anyway as they say. If anyone is still listening I'm not sure. I didn't take a breath. No. And you thought I talked a lot. Well we. Alright so I guess what I want to transition to now is probably what Virtus is now currently I guess and maybe the future as well. I've got a few questions that the Virtus family have provided us and what I want to have a chat about moving forward as well. I think the first question that I want to ask you is that what gets you out of bed every morning to come to Virtus?

I started asking this question and I haven't actually thought about the answer to this one. This is a recurring theme of that moving forward. All the questions I'll ask. Yeah that's fair. Most of them I've got answers to. What gets me out of bed in the morning? I think just constant improvement and consistent improvement and for me one of my physios at footy asked me like why do you do what you do and run a business and coach and all that kind of stuff rather than just going to work for someone else and the answer

I gave him which I never really thought about until he asked that question was well I'm building something that's bigger than me and that's bigger than what I can provide. To build something. I want to build something. Build an empire. Not quite an empire. I want to build a community and build a group of people. The facility is only part of it but build a facility where people of all walks of life want to go to improve and I'm very hungry to always be better. Always be learning and be moving forward and things like that.

Lots of the frustration of KP sometimes because I'm never really satisfied with what I've got but I'm getting better at kind of taking a step back and taking a deep breath and enjoying what we have created over the last couple of years. But yeah just that hunger to improve and from a personal level probably be a role model for everyone that comes into the gym. I think that's something I've tried to focus on is putting myself in a position where all of everyone that comes into Virtus and all of my staff and all my friends

and family can look up to me in terms of what I'm doing and what I'm trying to do and what I'm trying to achieve and yeah the facility and community I'm trying to create. I think if I'm a role model for the people that matter most to me then I'm doing the right thing and I'm doing it for the right reasons. Like all I want to do and that where's Virtus going to go question that you're probably going to ask soon. All that comes back to is creating an environment where people can be happy and healthy and be better and improve and achieve the things that they want to achieve.

I want to help as a coach all we want to do is help people facilitate that and I'm sure I'm speaking for all of my staff. At the same time we are so hungry to make people better and achieve ourselves at the same time but it's to see people improve because that sense of achievement and you can see it on people's faces. Those little thank you messages that we get every now and again they're worth more than gold because they keep you going and like any job you have the shitty days and the crappy days

but I think your ability to take a step back and kind of have a look at what you have achieved kind of get you there like I set a bunch of goals like I set goals fairly regularly 12 months in at a time but then little ones. I set a couple of goals obviously when Jesse left in this or November October November last year whenever it was but then a couple more goals after we got through the summer period yeah and they're like six goals that were you know like get two rollers get two bikes

get a van have this many staff be doing this many hours and like I get so frustrated at lack of progress sometimes and then I found that goal setting sheet and everyone I ticked off in like four months and I didn't have a timeline on those goals and yeah it's one of those things that getting out of bed in the morning for me is one enjoying what I'm doing and enjoying being present and in the moment and not always looking ahead but at the same time trying to be better so two very conflicting answers but I think yeah and I'm going to give you like five answers to every question.

That's all right. That's okay. But yeah that's pretty much it. Yes so this question is probably more for me than anything. I'm the host with the most. A client's behavior or behaviors can really impact your performance as a coach or sabotage a group session. Yeah. If you could say three things to everyone that walks through the doors at Virtus that you can't necessarily project what would they be? In terms of helping everything run better. Yeah. In terms of them helping them. Helping themselves or something like that or because I know from time to time send

your face you can get frustrated with people in that situation but obviously when you are the coach and they're paying you you kind of almost have to like cop it on the chin and kind of thing. Yeah I think we've got three things that I wish clients knew. Number one you're responsible for every result you get or don't get as much as we're there as coaches to facilitate what we do. You are responsible for everything in terms of you need to take ownership for what you're putting in your mouth, what you're doing when you're not

at the gym, what you're doing when you're at the gym because going to the gym for some people who just want to be there and train that's fine that's enough for a lot of people but if you actually want to improve and want to adapt your body needs stress and needs stimulus. So if you just piss-fart around at the gym and assume that you've done your job. Expect it as well. Yeah and if you do that four times a week you've done four hours of 168. That's not a great percentage. But yeah and so it's just that you are responsible for absolutely everything you do and everything that happens to you.

Jocko Willink is kind of one of the guys I look up to but his book Extreme Ownership I've listened to it twice I'll probably still buy the hard copy because that just kind of nails that ownership down and it's something that's helped me over the last kind of few months however long it's been since it came out and I read it for the first time but it's that everything that happens to me as a coach is because of me and everything that happens to Burtis is because of me and it's my responsibility and I think

from a client's point of view and like everyone if you want to lose weight, put on muscle, change at all something's got to change and you've got to make sure that you're ticking all those boxes. Because of one hour workouts 4% of you had just roughly 4% of the day. What do you do on the other 96%? Yeah and it's the frustrating thing because people are so tunnel vision with all that kind of stuff. Is that because media kind of portrays that there's all these quick fixes? Yeah. That's a whole other podcast. Yeah I could just log back on that.

I could dribble for hours on quick fixes but yeah people still try and look for that even though I don't know there'd be some sort of psychological thing happening with quick fixes but anyway. Just that get out of the tunnel vision, look at everything in a holistic point of view, look full 360 in terms of what you're doing to yourself so you know sleep, stress, relaxation, you know challenging yourself during the day and actually putting yourself under stress is important and going for walks and yeah having that social side and that whole balance thing. I

don't like to term work-life balance I think it's just a life balance like it's just being able to do all the things and you know. Exercise is a small part of a really intrinsic puzzle. It's such a tiny part and I think the most frustrating thing for probably all you guys is, and for us as coaches, there's so much conflicting information that isn't necessarily right or wrong like it depends on the person, depends on the time of day and then like there's so many variables and yeah that's one of the frustrating things but. It's not just one puzzle each individual is their own unique puzzle.

Yeah and that's one of the hardest things in itself but if we follow the right protocol and tick the boxes so to speak you'll get to where you want to get to it just might take a long time. Second thing, be patient. I think yeah that ownership is really important but just be patient like people train for two three weeks and like I'm not changing. Well of course you're not changing because you've been doing a certain thing for a certain period of time, a long period of time and you've given yourself no time at all

to change like the way our body adapts to things can be so variable depending on you know like things outside your control like your weather like the food that's available to you and all these different things and yeah it's frustrating in terms of clients frustrations when they're not getting where they want to get to but they're not doing the things that they tell themselves they should do. So yeah and one of the things that we're looking to hopefully bring in over the next couple of months is kind of a way to properly hold accountability and

to kind of for lack of a better term call people out on their bullshit and what they're not doing what they say they're going to do. A lot of people would struggle with that conversation. Yeah but like I was talking to Jess who's one of our former interns will be coming on as a coach in November and we're talking about that exact subject and I was just like you know I want to personally do two yoga sessions a week or one yoga session and three strength sessions and go for a run and and eat this

food and do stuff like this and how good would it be if there was someone there keeping me accountable on top of just me and yeah we've just bought a bunch of diaries daily diaries that we've got to fill out because we're going to hold each other accountable to it so yeah and I think I think that's a big thing. And number three what's the question? Clients. What I wish that you. Yeah it's three things that you can't necessarily say to a client like in that in that kind of setting. So you've got ownership, patience.

I think it's it's really tough dealing with so many different people and dealing with not only just groups but one-on-ones and things like that like trying to have relationships with different people and different types of people it's really really difficult to give everyone what they want. You're only one. Especially in groups. Yeah. So in terms of the way the program's delivered, the help you get, things like that like some people just don't like they they know what they're doing they just want to train. Some people need you. Yeah I tell you often you crack the

shits but you tell other people off and they deal with it really well and everyone deals with things differently so that the group training that like I love for the community it creates and the vibe and the results that you get because of that social setting there's going to be drawbacks like everything so I think it's just a matter of understanding that coaching is hard and it's difficult it's what we do and we love doing it. Don't get me wrong we love doing it but yeah dealing with a lot of different people who are there

for all there for a different reason who all want slightly different things is difficult so yeah I think it's just be a little bit more patient. Yeah as a client I kind of look at you and I see some of the challenges that you face with that I face with similarly as a teacher in the classroom kind of thing. Yeah and the other thing I'm giving you for is we go through exactly the same things you go through so when we try and give you advice on you know staying consistent or Just general form. Or

just general form of the way you're moving like we've been there and we understand it like we're yeah one of the big things that we push is you can't give what you haven't got you can't share what you haven't experienced that's a Mark Buckley quote like we've experienced 99.9% of the things you guys are going through and although it may not be exactly the same we've got some insight so listen and ask questions. Yeah. There's five. I think we yeah. I'll sit there and answer your questions if you've got them like you might need to

chain me to the chair so I stop getting up and doing other things but like I'll sit there and answer anyone's question at any time of day like send me a text I might not get back to it for 24 hours but I'll try and answer your question as well as you can because we're like we do our job because we want to help. Yeah exactly. So yeah there's five. Next question. I think you mentioned patience to us anyway. Well there you go. Be real patient. Patience is a virtue. We've talked about this before a little bit you mentioned it before.

Personally I've been at Virtus for about 15 months now and I think. It's bliss. Yeah. Whoa. Bliss. Blissful. I lost my train of thought. So I think the main reason what makes Virtus what Virtus is to a lot of people is I believe the staff you have got and developed is what makes it. It's such an inclusive and supportive environment. How do you go about finding, how did you go about finding the staff here at Virtus currently and how do you manage to foster a culture that allows them to all prosper? That's a very good question.

That is a multi-layered question. Yeah. How did I get them? Yeah how do you get them? Obviously your internships, you've got a lot of your new up. Yeah since we started, since we started the gym with Jesse our big focus was continual growth, learning, all those kind of things so one of the things that we didn't necessarily have the available to us or if it was, it wasn't I guess properly advertised so that we could see it or we weren't in a position where we were able to understand the importance of having experience like that and be able to grab hold of it.

But so we started our internship program like three weeks after we started. So every 12 weeks we have an internship program where we have you know two to ten interns come in and learn office and things like that and it's undergoing a bit of a remodel at the moment but it's been an amazing opportunity to learn off young coaches and young people and some older people which has been really cool and yeah identify how we can be better as gym owners and as coaches and yeah and ultimately find staff so we've been able to hire

Bailey Kenta out of there, he was a coach for I think almost 12 months and yeah he was an incredible guy and someone that we still keep in contact with and love him lots if he's listening, hey Bailey. Shout out. Yeah we're able to. Lead a battle. Exactly, shout out battle, I might get one. We're able to hire, so he's no longer with us but like I said Cam and Katie kind of poked themselves more or less. Mitchie, he finished our, so he did our internship, did one of our 12 week courses so we revisited

the 12 week courses but just did it at a fee for service so that there wasn't any government reaming down the track but so Mitchie did both of those and like he was just, he reminded me a lot of kind of myself in terms of he was hungry to learn and he was in a lovely sport and he's just a good dude. Death time I said that. Mitchie and I listened to him for the last two months. Yeah he finished up you know internship and was kind of thinking about what he was going to do

and he asked for a job and I'm like dude we don't have one, I'm so sorry like there's just no work for you at the moment. And then yeah maybe a week or two went by and I was just like, I remember saying to Jesse I'm like we can't let this kid go like yeah he's awesome and so I ended up giving him a bunch of, a couple of my hours, my group coaching hours and he started off just as a group coach and yeah he's been incredible. He spent more time there than you almost though I think.

Wouldn't have thought so, wouldn't have thought so. He's there a lot, he's there, Mitch is awesome and I think the reason why we've been able to grow that culture, to jump around with the question a little bit is that we're all present a lot of the time, you know Katie's got, doing her Masters in Vexile Physiology and Ash is doing her Masters of Physio and Mitch is just finishing up uni but everyone when they, like we want to be at work and we want to be in the facility. That's good advice. Yeah we want to

be hanging out, we want to be talking shit and playing basketball and kicking the footy and learning and doing PDs and things like that so yeah it's been, that's kind of I think the reason why we've got such a good culture with our staff. Like for me as I guess the leader I want to, I want it to be a fun environment. There's no point in doing anything if you don't enjoy it so yeah if my staff aren't enjoying what they're doing then they should be doing something else which there's, you're not going to enjoy every minute but you're ultimately going to be able to come to work and smile and have fun because you love what you do.

How did people like Brooke and Greg and Ash come along? I used to play footy with Rhys, Brooke's much much better half. As we sit in his facility right now with God's podcast. Yeah he did give me an office downstairs in his factory so shout out because he's upstairs. Ding dong. Yeah so I had met Brooke at, had met Brooke at footy, a couple footy functions, sat high and stuff and Common Folk was one of the places that I have frequented every day of my life for the last two years. Shout out. Ding dong. Yeah

and saw her at Common Folk a couple of times and I remember speaking to her about Pilates and I'm like hey let's have a chat about you doing Pilates and Virtus and yeah that she kind of jumped on there. Loves it. Yeah. Amazing woman. Yeah amazing amazing woman, amazing family with little Jed and Ryan. Yeah I was stoked that we were able to support them in a little way and give them an outlet and somewhere a safe place where everyone loves them. Yeah absolutely. And somewhere they can spend their time and a community they can get around and they can get around them so yeah Brooke's been Brooke's been amazing.

Who else? Ash. Ash used to massage Jessie and then we'll we got upstairs done we were looking for a mile and answered the call. Ash answered the call and jumped in and yeah she's been amazing as well she's kind of a she's reminds me of Mitch a lot as well. Who reminds me of me? Nah so yeah Ash's like her hunger to grow and be better and improve is huge. And I guess it's the same with all our stuff. Everyone wants to improve and wants to be better and yeah that helps with the environment so yeah she's awesome she's doing a Masters of Physio at the moment.

I actually had a couple of beers one night I was with her and Jack and I may have signed a napkin that said she owns 49% of Virtus so hopefully that never comes out. I think it's plus for you. I'm going to have to steal it I'll let Cosmo eat it but yeah and then Greg same deal looking for physio and hadn't really looked properly. Did you find the Batman symbol in the scarf? Pretty much pretty much yeah we're kind of lucky in terms of a lot of the stuff that we've ended up with it's

been like one Facebook post or talking to one person or something like that but yeah with Greg I always wanted to play footy in Darwin over the summer and one of the coaches up there Rick Nolan had called me a couple of times and knew our local coach pretty well and he called me and I was like "Lemay I'd love to go." It was like middle of the year and I was like I'm just open business we're almost a year in I don't think I'll be able to make it happen this year and he said "Oh what are you doing?"

He started talking about work and Jim he said "Oh one of the guys who used to be a physio up here has just moved back down to Frankston South after being away for 10 years and he's looking for some way to work out of him." I was like "Oh yeah sure give me my number and give me a call." I didn't hear anything for a couple of weeks and in my head I was like "Ah it's just another physio." And we were kind of really it was really important to us that we found a physio

that understood the importance of performance training and what we do as well as just someone who wants to math like there's a lot of physios out there a lot of amazing physios but there's a bunch of physios that will just massage and say see you next week kind of thing. We want someone who could diagnose, treat and then get people back as well as we can so yeah. Greg called a couple weeks later and he called me and I'm like "Come in for a chat" and came in went upstairs talked to him for about half an hour and left and I'm like "I love that guy."

Sign him up. He's the best sign him up. And then yeah we'd been we'd actually read a couple of his articles a few weeks earlier without realizing and Cam's like "Is that Greg Day?" And I'm like "Yeah do you know him?" So yeah that happens that's that started Cam's love affair with Greg which is still going strong. Yeah so yeah Greg's been amazing in terms of like he's just taken us to another level I guess someone that's worked in elite sport and world sport for so long and so many different environments to be able to and so many teachers worldwide someone like that to come into our facility where we're all hungry to get better it's been incredible.

And then you keep adding pieces to the puzzle. Yeah it's basically just adding adding people to Maddie's. Yeah adding people to fill the holes like we I guess end goal for Virtus I don't know what it looks like and I'm sure you asked that question I'll answer it more but I want I want the whole health and health fitness performance continuum that you've kind of got from a GP to a high-end performance coach I want to cover it in one facility. Holistic. Because then you have that communication from from one side to the other rather than it being a physio that doesn't talk to a sports coach or doesn't talk to a GP.

Yeah exactly and it just it just makes the result better for the client down the track yeah Maddie Borg posted on Instagram once and then she sent me a message and yeah she's been awesome she kind of fits into that well fits into that look having a positive relationship with food kind of management we were looking at and Katie Dean was was very nasty when I told her we were getting a dietitian she's like make sure you get a good one make sure you get a weight neutral one make sure you get all this and I'm like would you like sit on the interview she's like yeah I'll probably sit on the interview.

Yeah so Maddie and Katie hit it off pretty much straight away so that was that job done and and and Maddie Tilly was a product of our internship program as well and yeah she she's currently over in Europe and hopefully she's thinking about what she wants to do and whether this is what she wants to do because we're having that chat when she gets back which would be which would be awesome to help her get wherever she's she wants to go and yeah I think that's that's the team as well. Coop's pretty fresh and Mum

as well so Mum's a funny one because she came to me and after she went and visited my sister in the UK and she was like I need to talk to you about my goals and about what I'm doing and stuff and I'm like oh yeah sure like it's probably something we'd never really spoken about properly. Yeah I think I'm zapping having fun. Yeah it's something like I have with all you guys all the time and I love that conversation because it's like where are you where do you want to get to you hate it

yeah and it's like how are we going to get there like let's actually do things that's why the diary is going to be so good for you yeah and we sat down with Mum and she's like what do you want to do she's like I want to travel I'm like why she's like because I want to travel and I'm like okay well you want to travel what do you need to travel she's like oh I need some more hours I think I need to get another job and I'm like well how many hours are you

doing at the moment she's like not many and I'm like well do you enjoy what you're doing she's like yeah it's alright I enjoy it like well I need someone to do some admin hours do you want to come work with work with us and she's like oh yeah I don't know like I'd love to but I don't like that was that apprehension yeah and yeah it's been an awesome decision on my part and an awesome decision of Mum to say yes because it's give her that extra bunch of hours to save some money for

travel but also she looks after the gym like her Mum does which is amazing yeah which has probably dropped our cleaning standards a little bit because she'll just do it but we're getting it's one of my things to talk about at the meeting on Thursday because we've all dropped off a little bit but yeah she's been awesome doing some admin stuff and cleaning and helping with that and then Coop went to uni with Jesse and I which has been pretty cool and which is pretty cool and then we it's gone a bit of a different

route yeah we got on really well when we were at uni and we'd go dinner and stuff down our way because he was he's a mentaliser boy or somewhere around there and after uni he him and his lovely better half Sal decided to jump on a plane and go over to the UK for a couple of years so he spent two years doing some work at a couple of gyms and doing some marketing stuff and now he's back and he's doing business degree so there's someone else who's yeah everyone's continually learning so he's jumped on

to help out with some coaching and a bunch of marketing stuff which is good because one of the bits of advice one of the mentors gave me once was if you suck at something get someone else to do it yeah so I like to I suck at delegating and I like to do everything myself because I like things done my way but I'm getting better at handballing things off and getting the right people in to do the right thing so yeah that's I hope I haven't missed anyone that's the right I think we've got everyone

I'm looking at you just there at the moment that's the team at the moment we've got Anna with yoga as well Anna's on to do yoga and we've been friends for probably longer for a long time so we used to go camp down at Rosebud a couple of campsites away for a lot of years so yeah she's awesome she's come on yoga and she's introducing me to chakras and praying and chanting and all that kind of stuff no I'm kidding I'm kidding yoga has been something that I've started a little bit more now that she's

there and I love it so I think it's something that everyone should do in some way yeah and yes Jess will be on in a couple of in a month or so I just find like for an establishment or for a business to have so many people involved and all be wanting to move towards the same directions it's quite a it's quite a skill that you've developed and been able to foster into your into your workers as well because they're involved in the business they're on the ground they're doing VGT they're interacting on a daily

basis with with the clients that come through your door and I think having that ability to share that kind of experience with the staff at Virtus even yourself too it was what makes it a really amazing place yeah I think from a business point of view I'm probably not running it in terms of the best way to make money and the best way to be super financially successful but I think the way we're running it with everyone kind of having a say and having responsibility helps with that culture and helps with what Virtus ultimately is

which at the end of the day that's all that really matters yeah this question's from KP oh shit yeah it's an interesting question because I always forget that a lot of the people that are at Virtus are a lot younger than what I am you're only 25 some yeah they did my research well luckily math teacher yeah so being such as being a small business owner like you are trying to run a business at a youngish age of 25 where most other people are still probably trying to find their feet in the world what's the

hardest part of that like as it being a business owner at the age of 25 I'm 30 you know I don't think I'd be able to have the skills to necessarily be able to say that yeah I understand that I don't think I'd be confident enough to pull the tree up not particularly as a 25 year old if I think back to my personal experiences I'd come out of uni three years into teaching I wasn't ready to start a business then not that I'm in that field but yeah so what's the hardest part I think

the hardest part might have covered it in yeah it's the hardest part and then probably the best part and the most challenging part is having to wear so many different hats yeah we talked about delegation before yeah delegation something that like that's like my one goal for the next six months or one of my goals for the next six months is to improve my delegation skills so that everyone has more responsibility and do all those things so people management for the for one party is probably the hardest thing I'm sure any business owner would probably

pick that as one of the first ones like from my staff point of view like 12, 13 staff now it's amazing I've got 12, 13 staff who I have to understand what their wants and their needs and things like that on a daily basis and provide it to them that's probably one of the hardest hardest things and then on top of that you've got all of the clients and people that come into Virtus and for all those different different staff members so I guess every staff member remember if you looked at like a family tree

you've got all your staff members and then off those staff members you've got all their clients and trying to like I want to know everyone's name and know everyone's story like it's one of the rules on our wall but trying to maintain relationships with all those people whilst also looking after myself and looking after KP and my family and things like that that's probably the hardest part yeah that balance side of things is something that I don't like the word balance because like work life I think I already said that but if you love what

you do it's not work it's just life so yeah the balance is the hardest part and I'm trying to identify what's most important and what I should be spending my time on but also looking after myself as well do you consider yourself a leader yeah yeah I do and I think like I'm very fortunate that I've been involved in a lot of successful teams and groups growing up especially football teams and and being involved in that club environment so like I guess I've I was captain a little bit in juniors and things like that so

having that leadership from a young age I have three younger sisters so probably consider myself a little bit yeah I probably consider myself a leader and I think I struggle with that kind of concept like I'm in this targeted program at work which is a middle leaders program and the question always comes back to me like yeah like what's I do you think how do you can I say every time I have a chat with my mentor about this thing I just I still can't get my head around to consider myself a leader it just

doesn't sit well with me yeah I think it's probably connotations of the term leader yeah absolutely a good leader knows when to lead and knows when to be led I think so being able to make those decisions and and do those things and yeah yeah like I'm a leader but yeah I'm a leader who's just trying to do his best and like that's the end of the day I'm no different to any of you guys like I'm just I'm just another guy who's yeah at work and trying to run into his best and trying to

run a business yeah so yeah a bit of a joke there guys so before I jump into the into the goals question which is kind of gained a bit of traction Mitch Mitchie Rose sent me a 13th hour kind of question I think it was a really interesting one and probably gonna probably recap on some of the stuff I've just been talking about I've been spending the time talking about yeah if you had a reset or a redo button what is one aspect of your business development you would do differently if you had your time

again yeah good for me Mitch yeah I think it was it was a good question to ask little shit um reset button yeah if you could do something again or if you had your time again would you do anything differently maybe if we broke it yeah um I don't know I don't know if it's bad reflection in wanting to say no no I don't think it is I think because the whole story you described to me earlier just showed that there was so many sliding doors moments and you've taken aspects of every moment of that

journey you've taken them aboard and you've been able to create what you have created yeah I think I think there's no real thing like big thing I'd change I would have dealt with I guess staff leaving and things like that differently I would have been saying that like I only would have been able to deal with it differently having known the outcome yeah like I think I'm one of those people that's fairly easy to read and I'm feel fairly open book like if someone asks me a question I'll answer it yeah so I probably was

a little bit naive in terms of dealing with a few few issues that we had and stuff like that I'm like I just want to create the best environment for people and I want the best for people and yeah it's a couple of things that probably didn't go the way I'd assumed they were gonna go you say things and do things that you expect someone to perceive a certain way and they perceive it the complete opposite way and it gets yeah and it doesn't take into context but they just perceive it differently the way you

meant it and creates a whole kind of white washer program snowball the problems but everything that's happened from a from a business point of view has happened for the positive in the long run yeah that whole things happen for a reason thing like all the struggles makes you enjoy the times where things are going well all of the shitty things that happen although shitty at the time teach you things about your time you were speaking about it last week on the podcast like kind of you don't know what happy is if you can't experience it

yeah exactly exactly yeah there's nothing I necessarily change I yeah I don't think there is like I'm getting better at self-reflection and dealing with how I perceive things and what I can do to improve and and all that kind of stuff so yeah I don't think I've changed anything I think I'd I'd like to give myself more time for me but I yeah I kind of fight with that every day yeah that's that's me too yeah I struggle with that big time yeah I think that's part of being an adult yeah yeah no no I

don't think about all day but I generally don't think that I'd change anything in terms of like big business things yeah and that's probably that's probably a good position to be anything that there's nothing here that I really want to change everything seemed to be it's just it's just learning experiences and it's just opportunities to be better yeah that's yeah it generally just comes back to that make a mistake was you covered on the chin you move forward yeah like as much as it sucks making mistakes they're the best things that can happen in small

business because yeah you it doesn't necessarily happen again if it doesn't if it happens again it doesn't happen the same way and you just learn from it you look at it from a sporting lens most coaches will say you learn more from the loss than you do from a win 100% so I guess if you can change that into a business sense what I'll probably make it a bit easier for you the question that I want to take the conversation into now is and this is what gained the most traction on the Facebook post last

night is what are the goals of Virtus in the future and I've broken this down because obviously being a big a goal setter yourself you probably have business goals so whether you see Virtus in 12 months there may be three years and maybe five years if you thought that far ahead so the way like the way I set goals is I try and keep things kind of front of mind in terms of what I want to do it now so the what I'm kind of looking at at the moment I know I set my 12

months goals from a business point of view but I don't see any longer than that okay I have an idea in my head and for anyone who watched ABC goals I went through with Greg and it was one of the podcasts I've set my ABC goals most of my B goals are things I want to get in the next 12 months so to put into perspective the C goal the thing that scares me is excites me is having Virtus just on a bigger scale but on a scale that allows us to do everything we want

to do while still maintaining the community yeah and you talked about maintaining community before is there a point where if you wanted to do that could you potentially have too many clients yeah definitely yeah so I think I want to sorry to hijack the question that's all right that's all right so my 12 month goals are all around getting our current facility and current coaches and everything to capacity which creates a lot of issues because you know we're not a huge facility and we've got group training we got one-on-one training and a bunch of coaches

we've got you know my own physio Pilates yoga dietetics all using two rooms it's good now that I've got this office down the road thank you I think that one makes a race yeah thanks policy it was your idea so like Maddie can come down here and use this and things like that so that that'll be something that we'll look to utilize and yeah the goals for the next 12 months are just to get it super busy and to keep building the brand and keep keep getting people better really really simply but yeah that eventually

whether it's next end of next year or the year after the year after we probably have to move facilities or do something along those lines which like I love where we're at I love our facility I wish we could do everything in there because just like the aesthetics of what the inside looks like and having the big park at the back is incredible like so yeah finding a finding facility that we're able to hit help as many people as we can while still maintaining the community like it's it's hard one yeah because it's a body

facet or a holistic approach is there going to be a space available to yeah like I'd love to have you know a doc and a psych and you almost need a classroom a classroom a bunch of offices for consultations and stuff like yeah the dream I guess facility it exists I just don't know what it looks like yeah like even today I was like I look up commercial real estate every now and again just to see what's out there and just to kind of get ideas and stuff like that I think I'd still stay in

the morning staying more into it I love the Peninsula like yeah it's just especially days like today where the sun's out you can just look outside and take a deep deep breath and smile and kind of forget living in your whole life like you kind of don't realize how lucky you are we're so lucky we're so lucky yeah we live in a very amazing part of the world but yeah just to simplify the answer whether it's going to I want it to get bigger but I need it to be busier first so I can have

money to pay for something bigger yeah from a business point of view but yeah it's just a you know all of the things that we do I want to be able to help as many people as we can yeah whether it like I want to get back into education so that's something that we're looking at at the moment yeah I think that's a I think that's a market that you guys could yeah particularly hit a lot of yeah whether it's like PT third three and four certs or whether it's maybe we have that and an

upskill for PTs or like we do a little bit of school stuff at the moment I've done stuff to you guys yeah and that's something that I think that's where the market is if you can pitch that to the right level I think that that's the potential to really be not only enriching for you but for a lot of students and definitely and teachers as well yeah I think teachers need to know a lot of this information as well yeah and we've like I've spoken to you about it before but being able to improve performance

is one side of what we do but being able to improve like the knowledge of health well-being and and that yeah that holistic approach is is so imperative because performance doesn't have to be athletic no exactly say you perform at work pay perform at home yeah this kind of thing that's why we've got a human performance because it doesn't matter what you want to achieve like if you want to perform like that's what we do so yeah that's where I want to take it what it looks like I don't know um but if there's any

uh billionaires out there that want to fund funded projects I've got a couple of ideas this is a shout out ding ding uh yeah so I don't know it's uh I just want it to be the best possible environment for people to come and I want it to be yeah because we're like we're an escape from for a lot of people um from the shitty things that are happening and and like we're aware of that so I think it's creating an environment that is supportive and that that is uh yeah somewhere that people love being

and I think we're getting there I think there's a lot of things that we need to improve on and change and stuff like that but we're getting there um yeah to all the vertice humans that are listening I'll never stop trying to make it better yeah yeah that's it otherwise I'll keep talking that's it um how long do we want to keep going or do you want us I don't really need to go to the toilet everyone have you brag uh come back and we'll pitch it (music fades)