20 Years to Life
Guys, I’m getting old . . .
This is my 12th year in business.
I started the gym at 25 years old, taking a 1-year leave of absence from my Ph.D. program in Neuroscience at Washington University in St. Louis. Before that I did my master’s at Georgia State University as a Neurophilosophy Fellow in the Brains & Behavior program; before that, undergrad at the University of Evansville, where I majored in Cognitive Science.
I’ve never worked for anybody else, never worked a “real job.”
I took a lot of beatings early on in business. Strength School was originally started by me and a friend. Six months in, he moved to Florida with his new girlfriend and sued me to pay extra for his half of the business. Not fun. I opened a second gym on the southside of Indy in 2016. I was ambitious but not ready for it and lost a bunch of money for a few years. Just as things were turning around there, Covid shut everything down in 2020. I had to close the southside gym to rebuild. And during all of that, the handful of trainers who worked for me started their own gym. Literally they all banded together and started their own gym. Have you heard of it? Probably not.
There is a line from the TV show, Billions, that is very fitting here. Bobby “Ax” Axelrod has a group of employees leave his business and start their own company. They’re trying to poach Ax’s clients. So he’s getting phone calls all day from his clients asking him why they should stay with him instead of going with the new guys who are cheaper. And Ax says:
“I taught them everything they know . . .
But I didn’t teach them everything I know.”
The former trainers of mine opened up and poached some of my clients - all of my worst clients at the time. I replaced those bad clients with new, amazing ones. Glorious.
Through all of those ups and downs, I’ve had a core group of fantastic clients who have remained dedicated and loyal and are still here to this day.
These are . . .
“The Top Ten”
And until they quit or die . . . or I die . . . they’ll never be replaced as Top 10.
Jeannie Tedrow - April 2015
Dianna Boyer - May 2015
Edwin Phillips - June 2015
Julie Hoppel - October 2015
Linda Ghumm - January 2017
Alicia Fouty - July 2017
Joe Gaunt - August 2017
Glen Koch - October 2017
Ryan Mathews - December 2017
Randy Gray - March 2018
Honorable mention at #11 . . . Anne Kominowski - July 2017 (she moved to Colorado in 2024 but still follows our workouts in the app)
When the gym reopened in June 2020 after the Covid shutdown, 10am client Edwin Phillips said,
“Shane, this is five years for me this month. Let’s do three more.”
And I said, “Why only three more years?”
Edwin replied, “No, three more 5 years. I’m going for 20.”
Well, here we are more than 50% of the way to Edwin’s goal of 20 years. Jeannie Tedrow and Dianna Boyer just hit 11 years and several others will soon.
Best clients in the world!