S3E08 · Lachlan Wallace (Part B): A Look Into the Future

- We are back, this is part two, our first part of season three of the bonus podcast. - There's not enough of me for one podcast, there's just more, we've got more to talk about. - Good job to the people for persisting. - Hey, people might be turning off already. - Your reward? More of Lachlan Wallace. So we'll just kick off immediately where we left off in the first part, part A, part I, part V. - Part one. - I'm pretty sure you did part A on one of the titles and part one in one of the others, so good from you for being consistent.

- Consistency. - I like it, just mixing it up, it's important. - We left the listeners on a bit of a cliffhanger, we were just about to dive into COVID. - Dive into COVID, yeah. - There's about 10 podcasts that you and Coop did during COVID in 2020. - So I'm not talking about COVID and Virtus anymore, it was fun, it was glorious, it was a beautiful part of our lives, but it's over, mostly, so we're done talking about it. So if you wanna know about what happened at Virtus during that time, the podcasts are there.

Just scroll down a little bit and you'll find it, but I think today, future, good things. - The future of Virtus, the future of Lachlan and his family, the girls, I guess starting with the future of Virtus, we'll briefly touch on that so we can leave that in the past and then move on and talk about bigger and better things. - Yeah, good. - Where do you see, what is your ultimate goal with the business and then yourself as a business owner? - It's a good question, it's a big question. - It's a loaded question. - Yeah, I want you to be happy, basically.

- Oh, thank you. - No, it's a question that-- - I already am, you've succeeded. Go home. - Yes. It's a question that I'm forever trying to answer and I don't think there'll ever be an answer. It's a fluid, like each of us as individuals, it's like it's a growth conversation, right? Like it's where do you want to be, you set a goal and you might reach it and like, for lack of a better term, I achieved and we achieved a lot of the goals we set for Virtus in our first three to five years.

We achieved them maybe a little bit quicker than we wanted and we achieved them in different ways and the goals switched and I don't think, something like Virtus that is now its own living breathing organism, I don't think it gives it justice to go, alright, here's our goal, here's the final piece. It's gonna be something that-- - It's sort of like what happens when you reach that then. - It's gonna be an evolution, it's gonna be something that continues to grow and evolve and something that I wanna, I mean, a really ambiguous goal is for it to keep growing and evolving without me needing to be a part of it, which it already is in different ways, which is brilliant.

If I disappeared off face of the earth tomorrow, I know that Virtus would be okay and that's a cool feeling. - Mitch and I run on the show anyway, so. - Seriously. Seriously, Banksy and Jazz are in charge mostly anyway, so. So yeah, I guess where we wanna take it, I'm not entirely sure. The short term, like, you know, business targets and things like that, like, perfect world probably, well, I guess my short term goal is for you, Mitch, Jazz, Mum, to be challenged but content with your roles and responsibilities at Virtus, so I'm not

using, intentionally not using the term busy as busy as you want, 'cause I don't necessarily want you to be busy, I want you to be, like, fulfilled and enjoying it, because the way I look at our business is, we're people business first, right, like, yes we coach, but we're in the people business. - Yeah, it's a relationship business. - People business is all around doing good things with good people and I think if you guys are happy, content, loving your work, then you're gonna come to work engaged and ready to help our members in whichever way they can, which then filters down and means that we have an engaged and committed community that are all leveling up together.

- Yeah, and that's sort of the work I'm doing with small businesses right now, like, we're trying to make workplaces happy and healthy places so that people wanna rock up and do their job and that's gonna have a ripple effect on them and their families. - Yeah, I've always loved the idea of a third home, so you have work, you have a home, and then there's another place that you go, and as a, one of the many, you know, goals or things that we wanna achieve is like, perfect world, we have like 150, 160 members,

four or five coaches that, you know, spread across the week and spend time doing the business to business partnership stuff and the internship and all those kind of things and for the majority of those members for this place to be their third home, I think that allows connection and it allows growth and it allows almost, I've said the, like, off the cuff, I've had a, like, a goal would be, like, to get to a certain membership number, which, you know, the number's arbitrary, doesn't matter, but basically then lock the doors and just let's level up to, let's level up, to keep leveling up together until, you know.

- Lock out. - We're not here anymore, just a lock in. - Yeah, lock in. - Lock in, lock out. You want to do a lock in, don't you? - No. - Yeah. - Yes. - We'll get there. - Darts. - Yes. - Scotch. - Yeah. - Yeah. - We'll probably go, hey, like, the girls are doing a trivia night in a couple weeks, you know, we'll do a men's night, we'll take, you know, the whole Virtus family out for dinner, we've got a golf day coming up, like, to be able to do those things

and it not be, like, oh, they're doing another event or, like, or us go, which we've done in the past, like, oh, no, we've got something else to organize, it's, like, how excited are we for this next thing? - Something people want to be at and want to be a part of, like, we've just had a couple of members join up in the past week and they've just seen the stuff we do on socials, the stuff, like, merchandise wise, they see the V around town and that's, like, yeah, want to be a part of that. - Yeah.

And I think, in a nutshell, building a community is, first and foremost, what we're trying to do. Like, our mission, which I get, is easy for a mission just to be words on the wall, like, we want to have a remarkable coaching experience that we deliver to our community, but, at the end of the day, like, coaching, education, community, like, they're our three pillars, they're the three things that allow us to show up to work, and, like, it doesn't feel like a work, like, for me, it doesn't feel like a workplace. - It's ridiculous that we pay to do it.

It's a rort. - It's a rort. But it's pretty dumb, right? That we have a space where people love to be and we get to go to a place that cool people want to be and where people want to hang out and, like, you know, like, we just, we literally just sit there and almost any hour, there's people that we just want to hang out with. - Yeah. Like, at the start of every shift, you're checking what if I say, "Oh, who do I get to hang out with tonight?" Or, "Who do I get to chat shit with?"

- Yeah. - And, like, helping with coaching, helping with something, but, for the most part, you're just hanging out. - Selfishly. - And making their day better. - Selfishly, as a coach and as a business owner and you guys as staff is, like, selfishly, we want that because it means we have fun and we get to go to work and have a good time. - See, I openly say I hate when the gym's quiet. I hate a quiet night. - I love a quiet night every now and again. It's a nice juxtaposition between the two, yeah.

Like, this morning was, like, I was, like, no one booked in and everyone rocked up and I was like, "What is happening?" But, like, you know, there's guys from footy, there's, like, people that are professionals, there's, you know, there's people from different walks of life all in the environment, chucking tin around, smiling, laughing, having a good time, listening to my brilliant playlists. - I was chatting to Schmitty the other night. - Shout out. - Great man. - Another shout out. He's probably five out of seven at the moment. - Can you talk about anyone else on this thing?

- He's just our favorite. He was saying, like, "I've never had this in any other gym where I could just go out to any person in the gym and talk to them, like, I won't name the gym." He's like, "I couldn't do it at that gym, like, it'd just be weird. You wouldn't talk to another person. You just go there and do your own thing." - Which is, it's a bit of a shame, to be honest, like, to not, and, like, people, the gym is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Some people, it's just their space where they whack their headphones on and they get their session done, they leave.

And for us, that's not what we're trying to build and that's not what we're trying to create and that's not what our members are helping us facilitate. Like, Virtus is a space where, like, it's a rule that's been on our wall since day dot is know everybody's name and know everybody's story. And as cliche and as, like, woo-woo as that is, it's just like, if you walk into a space and everyone knows your name, you immediately feel a part of it. And I think that in a world that is ultimately very connected but very disconnected

at the same time, having places you can go, third homes, workspaces, gyms, doesn't matter what it is, having places where you can be a part of something, a place that actively helps you be a better version of you, and allows you to connect with other people who are actively trying to be a better version of themselves, it just allows the whole community to connect, be a part of a tribe, feel like they're part of a movement or they're, you know, I like to think that people can walk in here and be having the worst day

and they can, you know, someone will put a smile on their face, it'll add some momentum to what they're doing, they can train, they can do the normal text, they can sit in the sauna, they can just hang around and talk shit. I've been here just over a year now, I couldn't count the amount of times someone's come in after a shitty day and they're left with a big smile on their face. Yeah, and like, there's been times where people have come in and their world is falling apart around them and, you know, family members

are sick and things are going wrong and I'll never forget a couple of years ago one of the guys that trained here for a few years, his grandpa died and he's like the only place I wanted to be was here. And I was like didn't anything, he's like no, I just want to be here and like that in a, you know, a simple example is what we're trying to build. And you know, I didn't want to talk about it but the COVID kind of like reinforced that people and place conversation is we want a place

where people want to be with people we want to be with and the business side of things is almost like, it's not, it's an afterthought and things are going well because you can focus on that. But it'll take care of itself if you create that, if you foster that people and place. Yeah, and it's journey before destination, it's like process before outcome, it's that conversation, it's what are the little things we can do to make the experience better and to add value to each person when they do come through the doors, like that's effectively our goal.

I guess when you're hooked back to the training experience as well, like success leaves clues and our strongest and most capable, our most capable members, they're the ones that are here like most days of the week, like your Shane's Goats, your cats, whatever, like, so if you can create a place where people want to come to, then they've already ticked off 80% of the barrier and that's just showing up. Yeah, and it's a James Clear-ism, James Clear-ism is just find a place where your desired behaviour is a normal behaviour and spend time in that place.

And I guess to, like in a nutshell, the growth for us and the growth for the business is just to do the things that allow this place to be a space where people want to be. Yes, we need to have memberships and yes, we need to be able to pay the bills and all those kind of things, but a lot of the additions that we're trying to make is like building out the allied health arm of the business and adding all the recovery tools and all of these kind of things. And yes, they, all of

these things help from a nuts and bolts technical recovery standpoint, but ultimately the real benefits are in the culture that it allows it to build and we attract people and like our system, the way our system works, right? We have our onboarding, people have to spend three hours with us and have to spend a bit of cash before they can actually be a member. You get a buy-in. Like that buy-in, that skin in the game, it builds, builds trust and willingness from both ends. It builds trust from us because we get to know, all right,

this person is committed to growth and committed to building a better version of themselves and it's, and this is like the thing that's come up in the past is like, well, there's nothing wrong with the version there you are now. And then there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, but our people are people who want to see improvement and want to see growth and you, it's kind of that balance between like being immensely proud and grateful for who you are and what you are and what you're capable of. But then having that little bit of dissatisfaction about going, I can do more, I can be more, I can be better.

It doesn't mean you're a piece of shit now. It means you're brilliant now, but Hey, more brilliance, like more goodness, nothing wrong with more brilliance. That's, that's, that's what we're here for. So yeah, I guess the, you know, the short term goal is just to keep cultivating that day in, day out, worry about, you know, the, the nitty gritty day to day. My goal as a business owner is to remove myself from that day to day, as much as possible. You've told me over the next 12 months, you want to empty your calendar essentially. Yeah. I'll go into my next question.

So we'll continue. Yeah. I want to have an empty calendar. Like in a nutshell, that's just a really good way of looking at it. I want to have an empty calendar. You know, outside the commitments of like football and, and those kinds of things. Basically the goal, my goal personally for next year is to have a year off coaching. I'll still do covers and still do onboards and all those kinds of things, but I want to have the capacity to both support. So I see my role going away from the day to day. So away

from like the sales and the membership stuff and the, and you know, the look like the yeah, the facility stuff, the operations basically and shifting more towards like the biggest strategy is like, all right, where are we heading? What are we building? How can I support you guys in those roles? And what that will allow me to do is it allows me to kind of like zoom out a little bit, you know, when you're real close to a thing and you're like, you know, this is, you're looking at the sky through a straw. Yeah. Pretty, yeah.

Brilliant. Brilliant analogy. I went to Greg and like had a bit of a sore neck and, and, and you know, I was like, Hey, can you just like crack my neck? And he spent what, 10 minutes, found the problem somewhere else, gave me a bit of a bit of local relief, but he said, Hey, we've got to fix this issue first. And I think when you're too close to a thing, and this goes for like anything in life, when you spend too much time right up front staring at it, you miss the rest of the rest of the picture and the rest of the organism and you miss the forest for the trees, great use of forest for the trees.

And you don't want to miss the forest for the trees. Like you want to be able to, like, if I look at our, our business now, I definitely spend way too much time in the trees. And that, that's partially, partially, that's significantly forced by the, the, the situation that the world has put us in the last couple of years. But it's also a choice because when you're stuck in the, stuck in the trees, it's like, it's safe and it's, and it's comfortable and it's like, the easiest thing I can do is just revert back to coaching.

Because as a business owner, the easiest thing I can do is revert back to coaching because I like it. It's what you know. I'm somewhat competent at it. It's what I know. I've been doing it for a long time. You kind of just fall back into that. But when we're talking about like our members wanting to come in for growth, for growth, the business needs to grow and evolve with them for us to be able to deliver the best coaching and education and community experience that we can. And me coaching might make the people on the floor better, but it doesn't make the business better longterm.

And you know, I'm, my ego's healthy enough to admit that I'm not our best coach. I have elements, elements of my coaching that's, that I, that I know is, is great. Yeah. Everyone brings something different to the table. Yeah. And like our members, a lot of our members that have been around for a long time don't need to hear more about more from me from a coaching perspective. So but seeing, giving you guys a space to grow and evolve into those roles and those different day to day things like, you know, seeing you grow into the partnerships stuff has been brilliant because partly I don't have to do it.

But the other part is like the business is growing in different and better ways than it would be if, if I went, all right, I'm going to take my eyes off the business day to day and I'm going to shift to the partnership stuff, then there's only so much one man can do. Yeah. And I, and I don't need to, or want to, or have a desire to do that. So it means that we don't grow in ways that we could because either someone, I don't put someone else in that position or I don't want to spend that time there.

Right. So seeing you do that, it's been brilliant seeing Mitch get back into the internships been brilliant really excited to get jazz for a good period of time after replacements and everything so that, you know, we can help build that like recovery, return to play, like rehab coaching, sighted rehab side of the business, I think is going to be huge. And just to have that, those capacities for growth to be able to go, Hey, here's an area we want to grow in. You know, we've obviously we're jumping back into the podcast, but being able to

produce content and create good quality content that people want to listen to and whether everyone's listening or not, I don't know, but people want to listen to that we enjoyed making. And that's almost in a nut, like in a nutshell, the best part of this, selfishly, we enjoy sitting down and having a chat. We enjoy going through these conversations and it kind of allows us to, you know, open that straw a little bit and look at the sky in different ways. And the, yeah, I see that growth coming from me stepping away from day to day initially and then going, all right, what do we want?

What do we need? Um, what our members want, what our members need? And then it's almost like, all right, well, what needs to happen to do that? So, um, yeah, I've got some plans, ideas, things that I want to explore next year that keeping it under the hat for now. Yeah, I think so. Um, I don't, I don't know what it's going to look like and the way my brain works is like go a hundred miles an hour at the one thing and forget about everything else. So I'm trying to take a controlled and measured approach into, into what that looks like.

Um, and do it in a way that I am, I give you guys enough leg rope that you can, can explore and do the things you want to do, but also be there to support at the same time. So it's just finding that balance. But in a nutshell, like Lucy's two and a half, she's three at the end of the year, Billy just turned one. Um, I kind of see the next four years as like family time. I'm not going to not work and I'm not going to stop building this, but there's an element of like, there are, like, and we're done, we don't have any more kids there.

They're only going to be this age once. Um, and I saw a stat the other day that was like, when your kids are 12, you spent like 80% of the time you'll spend with them, like for the rest of their life, the rest of your life. So by the time they're 12, you've spent 80% of the time you'll spend with your kids. And that kind of, I don't know, I guess you could like, if someone says that you're like, Oh yeah, that makes sense. But then when you think about it, you're like, Holy shit, that's like, that's most of it.

So a little clip of the imperfects podcast that someone shared the other day, just cherish each chapter of your life, which for you right now, like even though the kids are waking you up and you're feeling like shit and you're walking around like a zombie, like just cherish that because they're at such a good capacity is at like 50% of the moment. So if I haven't given, if anyone's like, lucky's a piece of shit at the moment, I apologize. But you're right, like, and you know, it's just spending time and, and interacting and connecting. Like,

Billy, Billy's just started walking and she's walking around the gym, like she lies is my space like I own this, I own this joint and like seeing her do that and seeing her interact with you guys and our members and seeing Lucy asked question upon question upon question. Why? Why? It's just like, it's phenomenal to see that, see that improvement, see that growth. It's like, so we see and we see our members grow each time they come in here, right. And it's like, it might be one of the girls this morning was like, I lifted four, like I was front squatting 40 kilos last week and I'm only at 32 and a half and it feels the same.

And I'm like, perfect learning experience, right? You don't have to have the same output to, to still exhibit growth, right? You showing up, you knocking this over, you understanding and it's almost that learning experience of you understanding that you're not going to be at your best every time, but you've just got to do it and do it as well as you can in that moment. And that's going to bring you forward so that it might be next week, it might be a month's time, it might be six weeks time that you hit 42 and a half or 45.

There's the growth. There's the, there's the, it's that proximity to failure is the stimulus that sometimes that'll quantifiably be a lower number. And that's why we use RPE, right, is right of perceived, um, yeah, it's, and that's why we utilise that so that people can work within their current capacities. Um, like the way I look at training is just the ability, ability to challenge yourself to grow your capacity, um, exhibit a stimulus, allow a response and then grow from there. And sometimes it takes longer and it's more painful than we want it to be. And this goes for like life.

Um, but we see our members improve each day, improve and grow each session. Whereas they kind of miss it. They're almost like too close to the thing like I was speaking about before. They're looking at the sky through a straw. And I see Lucy and Billy do the same thing, like do the same growth level of growth every day is like the shit that they come up with and the stuff that they do. It's just like, how were you a potato like three weeks ago? Like just this morning last week, you're like, I swear Billy couldn't walk.

And then this morning she's like literally running around, she's running around like 15 metre part of the gym, just running from side to side and, and seeing that growth and seeing how quickly it happens. Like I want to be around for that and I want to see all of that and I want to, I don't want to get home from work after 14 hours in the office and KP say, Billy said her first words today or XYZ, first guitar solo, first guitar solo. Exactly. I missed it. I missed it. And like, I want to be there for all that stuff.

And I think, you know, like people are asking, how's everything going at the moment? It's like, things are brilliant, but they're hard. And there's like, almost like, I feel like I'm doing one too many things to adequately give as much of myself as I want. Like I'm trying to be the best dad I can be. I'm trying to be the best leader here I can be. I'm trying to be the best coach I can be. I'm trying to be the best footballer and, and, and later in that environment, I'm trying to be the best friend and brother and all those kinds of things.

And it's like, and it's a lot. It's the classic, got to fill your cup up so you can fill others. Yeah. And that's the thing I like doing all those things. I love them, but it's just like, it's almost like one too many things and things at the moment. I'm trying to lean into that season of, of just, I'm going to be full, things are going to be full at the moment. I'm going to get rest when I can. But if I want to experience each of these things and at the moment, I'm not willing to get, give any of those things up.

Yes. Like, what do you give up? Yeah. And like, you know, football will be finished in a month, hopefully with the result we want and that'll, that'll allow a little bit more space to breathe and, and to, and to spend time doing different things like, um, shout out to the great man, Geordie Vidal is like, whenever you catch up with Geordie, he brings you right back to like the now. I love seeing Geordie. I got a new car the other day and a few of the girls rocked up and they thought it was Geordie's car and they got really excited and it was just me.

He's a great man. And like, he'll, he'll just like shoot a message afterwards and be like, thanks, like thanks for sharing time and space. And like, if I can articulate my goal for the next four years, and I use four years as a timeframe because that's like when both of the girls will be at school, um, Lucy's asking the next year, man, if I could articulate anything like articulate down to like, distill it down to one thing, it'd be like, enjoy and appreciate time and space. Um, so that's, that's, that's my goal. You know, there's a really long answer to a really short question.

Yeah. Um, so we've spent almost half the podcast pumping up vertas and ourselves and how good the space we've created is. Yeah. I mean, selfishly, like, like we're the biggest fans, which is, you know, I guess what you want it to be. Yeah. Um, like we have a lot of raving fans in our community, which is brilliant. A lot of people that are part of it and have been part of it and things like that. And um, you know, the people are what make it so special. So like we can sit here and pump up

the space and the environment and the coaching style and the, and the system that we run with VGT and VAD and all of those kinds of things. But at the end of the day, the people that walk through the doors are what make it special. Um, you know, good people doing good things, again, words on the wall, but words on the wall because that's what fills us up. So thank you. Thank you very much. Before we move on to other things, you don't know I'm doing this, but you briefly touched on the staff and their roles before we actually get onto what I was planning.

Where do you see each of the staff and their roles over the next little period of time? Yeah, I, I mean this question, the caveat to the answer to this question is like, what do you guys want to do? Um, I, I guess my management style is pretty relaxed and it's not even a management style. Like leadership, whatever, whatever word you want to use, it doesn't matter. It's like I want to give you guys space to grow and space to explore good things and the things you want to do. So, so the answer to that question has got to be like things you actually want to do and things that actually fill you up.

And I get, there's part of work, there's always a part of work that you've got to do. It's just, you know, like getting up at 6am or 5.30am is not pleasant, but you do it. And no one, you know, loves vacuuming the floor during a shift or after a shift or no one loves cleaning things up or doing that, but it's part of what you do, right? Cause it makes the world, like it makes the world or makes your world makes right. Like if you look at everyone wants to make the world a better place, right?

And like that's, that was like my goal. Like that is silly, silly is my goal. That's everyone's goal is to make the world a better place. But if you just focus on making your world a better place and make the circle around you a better place, it makes the world a better place for everyone else. So yeah, there's always going to be stuff here you don't love doing and you don't want to do. That's a part and parcel of the job. We can't just delegate all of the shit jobs to everyone else. But yeah, I

want to find things that you guys love doing and you guys enjoy doing and, and even if you don't love doing it, like for example, your attitude or your, your response to like, Hey, let's do sales 12 months ago would have been what? Yeah. Oh, disgust. It's, it's yeah. Sales is yuck. It's yeah. It's manipulation. It's yeah. It's bullshit. It's not me. What's your response to like sales now? I'm catching up with Alex most weeks to do sales stuff and it's really enjoyable. I, I'd leave every meeting like pumped to like help him action the things that we've chatted about.

Yeah. And like it like my role is to then go, all right, well here are the 15 roles in the business or 15 responsibilities in the business that need to be covered by someone. I want to move away from it. Like who's willing to put their hand up or it's almost like, all right, well, who's role does this, is this best suited to or you know, which, which other task is this best paired up with? So, I mean, that's my, my kind of focus at the moment is like articulating each little bits and all the

little bits of pieces that I do in the business day to day and then kind of building them into roles that will allow you to shift towards like my, my, maybe might be those membership inquiries and sales side of things and might be, might be giving Mitch some more scope to explore the education side of things or it might be, you know, giving jazz time and effort and resources to build that, that return to play or return to life or return to sport rehab pathway that I don't think we're doing as well as we could.

Or it might be, you know, the, cause I guess when you've spent so long building a thing, you look at everything you do and you're like, we're doing it shit, we should be doing it better and there's growth for me to go, hey, it's working and we're actually doing a pretty good job and people are getting better and people are improving. So we're achieving our goals, but there's always, you can always do things better. It's to kind of like what was, what I was talking about before is not throwing out the baby with the bathwater and going, well, you're actually doing a good job, but you can also be better at the same time.

It's not that you're not brilliant, but yeah, I look at our client journey or a member journey at the moment and go, well, there's not as many touch points as I'd like, there's not as much quality as I'd like, there's not as many check ins as I'd like, so how can we build that in? So I guess the roles and responsibilities side of things is like, I don't want to just throw you under the bus and go, hey, member journey, your job, good luck. It's like, all right, how come we as a team and we're

kind of just transitioning to a new meeting structure at the moment in terms of how we get the most out of our fortnightly catch ups, doing that in a way that both empowers you guys, makes you feel like it's building trust between us all as a team, but then like having all of us have the willingness to go, yeah, I want to be a part of this and I want to grow this and I want to contribute to this. Big part for me, a big part of being part of community, and this can be a

football club, it can be a gym, it can be a workplace, is walking in and knowing that it makes you better, but knowing that you have a responsibility to contribute to that thing to make it better as well. And then the days where you're a bit flat because you haven't slept or you have an idea of sausages in the morning or whatever it is, know that I'll be here to support you and give you a cuddle and lift you up and make you better. And then the days where I haven't slept and I'm grumpy and

haven't had my coffee and my neck's not working because I need to poo, whatever it is, in a nutshell, that was context of my point with Greg before, that you guys are going to help make me better and I'm going to be able to walk out of here a better version of myself. I am a piece of shit if I just roll out of bed and then like have to be a parent. So like I have to build things into my life that make me better off or make me a better version of me. So

it's like get up an hour earlier, even if you sacrifice sleep, get up earlier, connect with someone, do something that fills you up and then go be a parent. That's kind of how I look at it. Yeah, so I'm not entirely sure what your role looks like next year, but it'll be something that you want to do with a bit of growth room around stuff that you like. I'm not super confident and comfortable with that yet because my job will be to help you be, be a star at it, I guess, can't wait. What is, so still touching on the staff, what is your, you know, I'll put you on the spotty.

What is your favorite thing about each of the Virtus staff? Starting with Jazz. So jazz is just a ball of sunshine. She's just, she's incredibly intelligent and at the same time, which a lot of people are kind of one or the other, she's, and this is, you know, I haven't spent as much time with jazz as I'd like to, but that'll come, is she has the capacity to make you feel super important whilst also like you can just tell her brain's ticking over and she's like, how can I do this better? So her as a coach, like I think she's a phenomenal coach and I love the way her brain works.

Yeah, jazz just makes you want to smile. Gregory? Gregory. DJ Fizzy Rascal. I've known him for a long time and like we, when we met in like 2016, we had a handshake agreement and like, yeah, let's give it a go and we're still rolling off that and like, he's loyal, he's committed, he's, he's taught me an infinite amount. So he's incredibly intelligent, but just a wealth of knowledge. Yeah, he just, he makes a room better when he's in it. Whether it be like him taking a piss out of something or him getting his ass kicked

to FIFA or, or him fixing something like he's just, he's like the kind of person you want to grow up to be and be like, like, yeah, he's, he's revered in like the best way possible. And yeah, I just, I can't spend enough time with him. He's the man. Your mother. What's your mother's role for those? So mum's role and mum's role as grandma at the moment, which, which we're working on spending less time with my daughters and a little bit more time at Virtus because, you know, there's definitely a hole when she's not here.

Her role is effectively like customer member success is for her to be an extra, an extra touch point for all of our members outside of coaches. And I like, I guess the relationship everyone has with their coaches is, are all like unique and special and different, but I want to, I want us to have a non-coaching touch point for everyone to connect with and touch base with and things like just another, another support network for everyone. So yeah, her role is kind of going to be growing into that over the next couple of months. She's the most selfless person I know.

She's glorious. I love her so much and she does so much for those, everyone around her. She's probably our most consistent member for the last five years as well, which, which is phenomenal. And you know, the re the reasons I might get, you can get her on the podcast at some point, but her reasons around that are pretty cool just in terms of like her wanting to be strong and capable as she gets older. And yeah, she's just, she's a, she's a similar to Jazz, she just lights up the room and makes people better and cares too much about this place and me sometimes.

But she's like, she has just like always happy. Yeah. And like she does that and then, you know, has to refuel and, and, and refill her cup in her own time. And that's something that I'm immensely proud of how much better she's getting at that over the last couple of years. So yeah, she's awesome. She makes, she makes everyone better. Yeah. Like that people's energy is contagious. Like if someone, you know, when someone walks into the room and he sort of sort of like give you mate the look like this, this guy and like, you know, you can sense other people's energy and like, yeah, Jazz and your mom, like definitely their energy is very uplifting and contagious.

Yeah. Just, yeah. Always like never walks in with a smile on their face. Yeah. Who's left? Mitchell. Mitchell. I love Mitchell so much. He's such a fucking pain in the ass. Mitch is Mitch is like really, he's such an incredible coach and cares so much about the people around him. And there's so much of Mitch that I dislike about myself that I see in him that annoys me. Then I'm like, Hey, just talk more. Just like, just open up, just you know, just bleh, just vomit. And like we're very different people. We're very similar in

different ways and just know it, like knowing that our, like his role as head coach effectively at the moment, like knowing that our members are like, he's overseeing and looking after our members, it's like, it's like the safest thing in the world. Like I know that they're going to get looked after and I know that he's going to do everything he can to, to, you know, bring up, bring on as much value as possible for them, but give them the best experiences it can like, you know, the blokes making smoothies at 7am for the crew at the moment and, and everyone, everyone loves him.

Like he just has a way to connect with different people like that personality chameleon is so important. She's really good at it. And there's something I sometimes really struggle with. Like there are some people like not here, but like, you know, just in the world that really, you just struggle to click with, but we have members where he's like, I'm just not vibing and then it might take six months to get to know them a little bit better. Mitch should just vibe with 100% of people. That's definitely not true. He's definitely been somebody he hasn't loved in the past, but yeah, Mitch is, Mitch is a treasure.

Don't tell him I said that. He won't be listening. No, he won't. He's he, yeah, Mitch is brilliant. I have as much time as he'll give me, which is not enough. He only gives me like two cuddles a year, but it's glorious when it happens. So yeah. Yeah, he's, it's been brilliant to see his growth over the years. Like, he started out like as an intern, like 2016 and was friends with my sisters. So I went to school with my sisters. So I just remember it was this like annoying little kid that I would have

been, I would have been pretty similar when I was at school and just Brian Bubbly and stuff and coaching changed him a little bit and got a bit grumpy there, but he's, yeah, he brings so much value to everyone and it's, he makes Virtus an infinitely better place. You all do. Do me. Do me. Pump you up. Pump you up. Um, you like, I think the best thing about you is just your hunger and desire to like be better and make the world better and make your world better and um, you do it in your own way, but you never, you never shut yourself off to like advice and suggestions and things like that.

So it might not, yeah, you, you were always like, all right, how can I do, how can I do this better? What do I need to do different? And you take everything else on board. So, um, yeah, you like, I don't know, I've got utmost respect for you for actually taking like, Hey, I want a job to moving your whole life, what, three hours away, four hours away from home, um, finding a place, you know, building the community, building out a part of the business that was probably neglected for a long period of time because it just wasn't a priority.

Um, yeah, and you seek out, you're just always seeking out growth. That's, that's, that's number one thing like, um, don't over, here's some advice, don't overdo it. I just, I reckon my 2017 2018 year was real similar, just like reading and listening and talking to as many people as possible. But yeah, like you take a pretty long game approach to it. So if I can keep doing it, cause you're doing well for a long time and also seriously. And yeah, and like, um, Oh, what's the, what's the quote? It's like, we want to do longterm things with longterm people.

And like our, as, as, and still talking about team, like our team, um, started out really small and then fluctuated and got bigger and they got smaller and kind of expanded and contracted a couple of times. And um, kind of the, the way I look at things now is like, we want to do longterm things with longterm people is, you know, I would love that. I would love it if, um, Mitch and Jazz weren't at saints and stuff as well, but like, that's what they want to do. So I'm, I'm going to always support, support that.

But perfect world, like over the next couple of years, everyone shifts to like a full time, full time role. And we're able to fill everyone's cup in terms of what they need and what they want from a growth and, and, um, and day to day interaction perspective to the point where like, everyone's just 100% in on this place and it's like, stay here forever. Um, you briefly touched on the team's grown and expanded and shrunk. You did, you told me you had like 15 coaches at one time, like what was it? No, we didn't have 15 coaches.

We have 15 was I think our max staff. So we had like, uh, Brookie was doing Pilates, um, which is brilliant, we'll get her back soon. Um, my O's yoga, uh, I think we maybe had a seven or eight or nine coaches or something at one point. Um, physio, Greg was here, mum was here, um, which was brilliant from a learning experience for me of going, all right, what kind of business do we actually want to run? Um, and I think I spoke about this in the last, in part a, part one, whichever one we're going with, um, around like actually figuring out what kind of business you want to have.

And like early on, the goal was like shoot for the stars, right? It was like, let's build, you know, the biggest, um, health function performance center that Southern hemisphere is saying, and one don't have millions of dollars singing into it to, to do that. But I was like, well, to do that, we need a big team and kind of, we grew the team before we grew the business and we just backwards, but it taught me so much and I'm so grateful for every individual that's come through these tours because they've made vertice better in their own way.

Um, but yeah, we had way too many staff who in your world from a mentor standpoint has really shaped your, I guess last few years. Um, so I think that's a business mentors. Yeah. So I kind of 20, we spoke about this the other day, but we dove pretty heavily into like the personal development of business development, things had a couple of business coaches that I learned, learn a heap off a lot, what I really wanted to unlock, what I really didn't want to do or didn't the way I didn't want to live, live my life or, or run the business.

Um, Shayna, say our consultancy has been brilliant over the last, I reckon a little over 12 months now. Um, like he's kinda, it's the right level of support. Like he, we have one call a month and um, it's just like an hour, an hour and a half of me just going like, but here's all the stuff that's happening and him going, all right, what about this? What about this? We kind of have a focus for each month and it just keeps me on the, on the accountability path. Um, so he's been brilliant. Um, I'm pretty

competent at like looking for help elsewhere in terms of like asking friends and family and asking other people who have done brilliant things, what their suggestions are on certain things like, um, having like, I love podcasts and, and I smashed YouTube so much lately, but just YouTube, just watching, um, talks with founders and talks with different people who are in different positions at different levels at different part times of the journey. Who are some of the larger like content creators and whatnot that you, um, Logan Galbraith at, um, at Juice, who I've had on the

podcast before, um, the way he runs these businesses is incredibly, um, I don't know if inspiring's the right word, but it makes me want to do more with Virtus or may or makes me want to connect more with Virtus. Um, there's probably not one particular thing I'd like, I'd like to try or one particular person. Um, I like to try and like pick and pick little bits and pieces. Like the way I look at it is like, there's no, there's no business like Virtus. Like there's lots of businesses have likeness to Virtus. There's no business

like Virtus and the way we build it and the way, like what our values are and, and what our, um, you know, unique differences are and like, yeah, there's no Virtus that has a you, there's no other Virtus that has a you and has a Mitch and et cetera, et cetera. So it's almost like just picking and choosing the things that I like and don't like from other businesses and go, all right, let's, let's talk about this here. Like, um, like, um, Athlete X in Perth male, um, get heaps of inspiration from him and what he does.

Um, Melbourne Strength Culture Boys, I love seeing what they're doing. Um, like I love watching, you know, like Lex Friedman podcasts and like absolutely nothing to do with strength conditioning, but just the way, like probably the most beneficial episode I've heard is him talking to Rick Rubin, music producer, and them just talking about enjoying music and slowing things down and, and, and allowing yourself to just like not change everything, but just like pay attention to it and going, all right, here's how things can be a little bit better. Um, yeah, there's, there's probably not one particular person, um, love reading.

So like Seth Godin and, and Ray Dalio, um, those kinds of guys, like I get inspiration for like Bo Miles, just backyard adventure, you know, making cool shit like, um, you know, it's easy to, to lean back on like the catch phrases and the sound bites and stuff. But anyone, good people doing good things is probably where it's at. I've heard that before. Um, it says good things on my shoes. Custom. I love it. Um, we're at the 46 minute mark. Another quick game before we wrap up. Yeah, go on. There's a bit of word association.

Yeah, go on. I've got five. Yep. You're going to give me the five members that come to your name when you hear each one. Yep. Then we're going to move on to the last 10 minutes of serious stuff. Excellent. First one, consistent, consistent. I mean, it's been said, cat Swan, bro. Um, Shane Scott would be up there. Das. Das. Um, a lot of love for that kid just shows up, gets work done, even when things aren't going super smoothly. Um, you know, you're going to get two sessions, two ripper sessions out of him every week. Plus he's footy, plus he's game.

So yeah. Das. So was it das cat or Shane? Oh, it's just working through the thoughts. I'm not probably not going to give you one person for each one. Oh, fair enough. Das would be the one at the moment. There's a lot of brilliant members that we got. Funny. Funny. Um, Phil English fucker makes me laugh. I love Phil English. Phil English is a really good man. I reckon he's unintentionally funny. I don't reckon he means it, but I fucking love it. I'm going to jump in here because Phil English is a fantastic man. The

other day, my car, the hire car, I was in Chad itself and he come out of his way from Mount Eliza to come and jumpstart my car. Um, brilliant man. Phil English. He's a good man. Noah Oliver is pretty funny as well. Noah Oliver is a clown. He's an absolute clown. It's basically that. But I love him. I've done it my phone on me, so I'm going off the top of my head. We got disciplined, disciplined, I mean, this phone consistent of synonyms. Yeah. Um, Alex Bose. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's a, I still remember the phone call I had with him.

We're in lockdown, lockdown last year, um, during the big one I think. And he's like, I just haven't done anything. And he's like, I'm a, I'm a, I sit at the computer and I'm at my desk all day. And I'm working from home. Um, what's his actual role title? Uh, I don't know. He's in sales. Yeah. Actual role title for a software company, but he, um, he, yeah, he just, he's the kind of person I got off the phone. I had a ripper conversation with him. I got a phone call. I'm like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not convinced that he'll do the things he said he would do.

And he's just like, I just need some way just to rock out and come and like very few people go from like doing nothing to just being all in. Yeah. And those people that do do that tend to last a month and they're out. So I mean, Al's been coming consistently, he's like, he's covered, covered a little bit. He went back to, uh, back home for a little bit, but he just rocks out and he does his job and he smiles and speed bumps and barriers that some people that might totally derail him and they'll cancel.

But he just keeps coming back. He keeps going. And like he, he's taught me a lot and like obviously you'd catch up with him and talk sales stuff and heaps. And one of the things that he told me early on was like, cause we, this is our job, right? We do this day to day and like someone like him or even like Dave Ryan who come in and are completely new to the gym, haven't really done anything ever is like, we, we assume people have prior knowledge in, in like, and it's subconscious a lot of the times we assume that I have prior knowledge.

And he said to me, he goes, Hey, I don't know this stuff. And he just like maybe week two in, I was just explaining something or I can, the rest of the VGT crew were all like seasoned campaigners and they knew what they were doing and they might not have trained here for a long time, but they trained for a long time. And he just goes, Hey, I don't need stuff. I need more help. And just the, the self-awareness, which I guess comes from being a little older and being a dad and being good at what, really good at what you do.

He's just, he's a wise, he's wise and he just kind of, he just said, um, I need, I need more help. And I mean, I've, I had interest and respect for him after our first conversation, but knowing that he was just like, I need help. Like there's, there's your one piece of advice if you need one for today is just like ask for help. If you, if you don't know, ask, there is a solution to every single problem you have, but if you don't ask for help, no one can help you. Excellent. You can't say jazz or your mum sunshine, sunshine.

Um, so many, I mean, short, short term, I'm pumping, laugh up. Oh, I love Laffa like, um, I re like, cause I train with him on Monday night and KP go, yeah, we have dinner afterwards. She goes, you love having Laffa back there. Yeah. I'm like, he's my boy. Like brilliant man. Yeah. Um, I mean like I've known Laffa since he was like, you know, running water for us in the seniors. Um, seeing his growth and development from a football perspective, but then just from a life perspective. Brilliant. So yeah, Laffa makes me happy. Yeah. I regretfully before he left, didn't spend much time with Laffa.

I think he left just as I started coaching here to go and play in the waffle. Um, but yeah, since he's been back, like fantastic man, I've caught up with him and trained a few times. He's um, he's a ripper. Yep. Beautiful. Uh, finally wise. Wise. You can't say yourself. I am not wise. I have no fucking clue what I'm doing. I'm just throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks. Um, members. Yep. Cool. Allie Miles. Nice. Just, yeah, we had a little chat today around like, uh, capacity and seasons and like having all

these things you want to do, but only having a certain amount that you have the capacity to do because you know, parent work, life stuff. Um, yeah, she gets it. Yeah. Awesome. We sort of covered this yesterday in the quick five 30, but just as we wrap up, what is one thing you can't say your answer before what is one thing you wish you could teach the world? Um, well, that's the help is pretty good. So just revert back to that as how, um, oh man, you start me. I don't know. Just like life. Life is about struggle.

And then someone, I think there was a book I was reading about Buddhism and it was talking about like it was bringing parallels to life is like surfing is where you spend the majority of your time riding, like paddling out vast majority of serving is just paddling and I don't surf. So I'm talking out of my ass here, but as vast majority is paddling and then there's the wave selection and then you, you might get on the wave and get dumped or you might, it might be a shit wave or it might be the ride

of your life, but you've got to go through anything you do, you've got to go through the paddling and you've got to go through the sitting there waiting and assessing what's going on before you pull the trigger. And then it might, it might blow up in your face or it might, might be brilliant, but like you don't get to experience the brilliance unless you've gone through the other stuff. That's a fantastic analogy. I have not heard that one. That's brilliant. Um, so yeah, goes like know that if things are tough and for a lot of

people that have really been in the last couple of years, like if things are tough and you're struggling and you feel like you've got no capacity to do anything, just know that things will get better. But you've got to go through the, yeah, you've got to go through the bullshit first to kind of come out the other side. Brilliant. Who in your world are you most proud of? Oh, KP. Just like she's, so we, we got engaged in 2019 in Jan. We had our engagement party like maybe all, maybe April that, that year, 2019. And found out she was pregnant like a week or two after that.

And since then, and I'm proud of her, I was proud of her at that point before we found out all that stuff. Like love her to bits. She's she's wonderful, but since then, like this is what, April, 2019. So where are we? August 20, 23 years later. Well over three years later, she, her body hasn't been her own, if that makes sense. So like she's been either growing the girls, feeding the girls, um, being mum to the girls since then, being a teacher and being a friend and you know, being a, being a wife now

get around her, um, seeing her growth and her, the challenges she comes in, like having to paddle a lot and having to sit there for the waves a lot and not getting to ride many waves over the last three years. Um, it's brilliant. It's just persistence. It's um, just showing up and doing her best. Um, and yeah, she's such a wonderful mum to the girls. So um, yeah, she's, she's first one. Um, proud of you guys and proud of our members, um, proud of Lucy and Billy for like, like nothing, there's nothing cooler than seeing like your daughter, like stand up, fall over.

And then, and this is something like we can learn from kids is there is Billy will fall over is like, might like whack her head or something. She'll cry for a second. She'll stand up and she'll try again. And there's no like, well, I failed, so I'm done. Um, I keep having a crack at the cool shit cause you know, eventually you'll find that way. So yeah, I can segue going back into it. Hey, yeah. This is usually our first question that we ask and I've just realized on both part A and B, I forgot to ask what gets you out of bed in the morning?

What gets me out of bed in the morning? Coffee and um, I used to hate when people answered like that. Um, I don't know. I think it's, I think it's probably a, a desire to do an experience. Um, which I know is very vague and doesn't really tell you anything, but I think like, I don't know, life's so fucking weird. Like every now and again, I just have moments where I'm just like, what the fuck are we doing? Like we literally like if, just think about your existence, right? Everything is made up. I'm sitting in

a room that is built with plaster because that's the best option we have right now that has plywood walls that are screwed in with a, with a power drill that someone designed that like we're in, we're sitting in this, we're in a court that is as paved roads and drains and like we're doing it in a suburb of a, you know, of a wider region that there's cities and there's, and there's cars that drive this combustion and like conversations like that. It fucking cool. Like ungodly. Yeah, but this is it. Right. And it's so important to think of how like in just batshit crazy and insane our existence is.

Yeah. Like every time I cross the West gate bridge, it's like, how do you build a bridge? And we get like engineering and technology and years ago there's nothing around and you know, yeah, but just the fact that, that, um, that we can, I can have that thought of that. I can have cognizant thought that allows me to go, well, why, why is this? And you know, this is maybe the human, I mean the, it's the curse of, of being human is that we'll never know the answer to all of these questions and I'm okay with that.

I can surrender to that. But to think that I think it's a Joe Rogan quote that we're on it where we're monkeys that learned how to read on a spaceship without a roof hurtling through infinity. And you know, you can add a whole lot of superlatives to that, to that idea, but just that. And that we're like, time is infinitely expanding, which fucking blows my mind anyway. I don't know. I don't understand any of that knowing that and knowing that, you know, people are worried about what's on social media and, and, oh man, I don't know.

And we're here for such a finite amount of time. Like I think I spoke about it last week, 4,000 weeks, um, is a book I'm reading at the moment called, um, time management for mortals. We speak about this podcast. We did not. All right. So, uh, I've, I've already built, I've already ruined it, but how many weeks do you think we live for? The average human lives for? Oh, I'm going to be about 4,000. Yeah. It's fucking spot on. So if we lived to 80, we live for 4,000 weeks, right? And like if you ask people that question without them knowing the answers, I've ruined this.

But most people will be like, uh, 40,000 like without actually have, without actually sitting there doing the mass, they think it's a lot more. So the book I'm reading at the moment is called, I think it's called 4,000 weeks, time management for mortals. And it's basically like rather than trying to be more productive and trying to fill your time with jobs and with to do lists and with things, it's like figure out what really fills you up and figure out what you really enjoy and figure out what really makes the world a better place and do that.

Um, and I guess that probably circles around a little bit more, a little bit to, um, what my goals are for the next four years is time and space and enjoy seeing the girls grow up because we never get this time again. Um, life will be, life is the longest thing we do yet. It'll be over before we know it. Um, and you know, as far as we know, there's nothing afterwards. So best we find things that we love and do the thing, do those things with people we love and do it in a way that makes the world a better place.

Otherwise, what's the point? And none of it matters. Lucy jumped on the podcast. What's the meaning of life? And she goes, nothing. Yeah. Nailed it. Could not have nailed it anymore. So absolutely nailed it. That's a brilliant spot to fit. Like I could do another hour podcast right now talking about all that cooked stuff. We were just talking about before about time and space. Maybe we'll get a bottle of whiskey and do one and not record it or record it, but then not send it to anyone. We'll just do it. Never to say the one thing we didn't do at the end of the last podcast, press the a good, what color?

See you later. We're all upside down. Yellow, yellow when you're ready. Is that it? That is it. Phenomenal. Yellow button. Have a good day.