We all have big dreams and goals in our lives. There are a few reasons why most people never quite reach them. Many people will start with enthusiasm, only to get discouraged and stop once they meet resistance. Others never take the first step. These are the people you always hear, saying, “One day, I’ll start on my dreams.” It’s not that they are unequipped to chase their dreams. Most people never start because they are afraid. Afraid of failing, afraid of looking bad or uncertain about themselves because the path has not yet been explored. Some people are afraid of success because of the uncertainty that success brings. The majority have found their place of comfort and may never leave it. Fear is a dream killer, and doubt is fear’s closest cousin.
However, fear is also normal and can be used as your biggest asset if you will allow it. If your goals are big enough, you should feel a little bit of fear. If you are not afraid, you might want to reevaluate your vision, as your vision may not be big enough. Fears’ biggest enemy is progress, and once you get started, and progress follows, you will realize that your fears were mostly in your head.
For example, I have seen thousands of people walk into a health club with big fitness goals. Maybe they want to lose weight, maybe they want to gain weight, or maybe they just want to feel healthier. No matter what the goal is, we all have insecurities because we desire improvement and want better for ourselves. We all share those insecurities. Often, we allow our minds to take over, telling us how difficult that growth will be. It can sound like an impossible hill.
It’s easy to imagine ourselves being in great shape, or building a successful business. But it may be difficult to start because we know how much work it will take to achieve our goals. We all struggle with paralysis by analysis sometimes, and if we’re not careful, it can stop us from trying. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself to achieve your goals right away. Nothing significant was ever accomplished overnight.
One question I ask every person is, “how would you eat an elephant?”
The answer? One bite at a time.
Many people lose momentum because they are busy creating plans, timelines, and roadmaps that likely won’t be applicable three months from now. I like to call this “work avoidance” and it all comes back to the fear of starting. People would rather visualize themselves losing weight or starting that business, because it’s easier to fantasize about possibility instead of doing the work. Although there is an uncertain path, you can find certainty that you can predict if you push beyond your fears.
Further, what is the outcome if you never start? That answer is staring at you right now and grows every day. It’s called regret. Every day I think about the end of my life and the legacy I will leave behind for my children. What lessons do I want to leave with them? How do I want to show up in my life? How do I want them to remember me?
I am grateful for the hard work, the long hours, the tough breaks, and the setbacks. Why? Because it all led me to reach success, and I valued it so much more once I achieved it. On your journey, you will begin to understand that it is the progress and people you encounter along the way that makes success worth chasing. As you will find in this book, there is no such thing as an overnight success. There is only infinite progress on your journey towards success. It all starts with one step in the right direction.
Once you take the first step in the gym and turn on the treadmill for the first time, you start solidifying proof and trust with yourself. You are a hilltaker. I want you to understand your North star at this stage, which I will define as your big goal. What you must do is take the first step because fears’ biggest enemy is progress and momentum. Start by walking on the treadmill at 2.5 MPH for one mile. You shouldn’t worry about losing 100 pounds at the beginning of your journey. It’s the infinite, compounded progress that will eventually lead to climbing your impossible hill.
The next day you walk 1.25 miles, the next 1.5, and before you know it, showing up to the gym isn’t as scary as it was before. These new habits will get easier each day you do them, and you will continue to solidify your new identity.
At this stage, you might be worried about sprinting or lifting weights, but you’ve long passed your fear of going to the gym. These are the short-term mindsets and checkpoints that will help you create consistent progress. Progress is motivating, progress is inspiring, and progress breeds confidence. Beyond the growth you see in your body, your mind will grow equally. Every day, just by showing up, your mind begins to believe a little more. Belief is the key ingredient to hit your North star and the discipline to keep showing up will make sure you reach it.
If you are someone that struggles with confidence or getting started, ask yourself how you can trick your mind into believing that it’s possible. Maybe you are not confident in your new business yet but think about the part of your life where you are confident. For me, that was racquetball. When I took over my first fitness club, I had fitness experience from playing racquetball but had no management experience. However, I had the confidence to do it because I had spent my entire life succeeding on the racquetball court. Confidence comes through repetition, and I’m willing to bet you have that confidence somewhere in your life right now.
My confidence came from my racquetball experience because of the discipline, accountability, work ethic, and sacrifice it took
to succeed. I was committed and had put in so many dedicated hours; it was easy to feel confident on the court. That confidence also led me to quit school altogether and pursue my next venture.
I was a junior at St. Cloud State in Minnesota. Myself and my twin brother were playing racquetball professionally while attending school. One day, I made a decision that would change my life forever. I closed my textbook, looked at my brother, and said, “I quit.” My brother looked at me for a moment, then shut his textbook and said, “Well, I quit too.” That was how we rolled. We made decisions quickly, even if other people didn’t understand it. We had the confidence that we would figure it out, and we were always trying to one-up each other. That competitive nature has served me for my entire life.
We finished out the semester, living in the dorms while still playing racquetball. After the semester, we returned home to Minnesota. We still hadn’t told our parents that we quit school, and I still didn’t know what I would do with the rest of my life. I took a visit to our local health club to get some practice in, and I could tell the club was failing. It was easy to see that the club was poorly managed and that it wouldn’t be around much longer at this pace.
I decided to do something bold. I walked up to the owner and told him that if he ever wanted to turn the club around, he should give me a call. I had no experience running a health club, but I had the confidence that I could figure it out. After all, I had a successful popcorn stand when I was eight, and I had built a successful racquetball career. I knew the work ethic, discipline, and accountability that made me successful in racquetball would also make me successful in whatever I decided to do next.
Maybe it was false confidence at the time, but I had the belief that I could do it. Think back in your life, before people told you that you couldn’t. You were probably confident, courageous, and full of enthusiasm. You might not have known what you were doing yet, but you had an unstoppable fire for life. That’s where I was in my life, and that’s the fire I want to inspire you to rediscover.
Often in our lives, we let our failures put out our unstoppable fire. Maybe it was a coach that told you that you weren’t good enough. Maybe a teacher called you stupid. Perhaps it was your parents that taught you to play it safe in life. Somewhere along the way, we are taught to play it safe. We are taught that life is scary, and decisions should be made conservatively. I’m here to tell you that ignorance on fire will beat genius on ice every time.
I was just a kid from Willmar, Minnesota. A racquetball playing dropout with no degree. But you couldn’t tell me that I wasn’t going to be successful. I may have been ignorant at the time, but my ignorance was on fire, and I didn’t care about failing in front of my peers. In fact, I had convinced myself that the club would be successful the moment they called me back.
I didn’t hear back from the owner until a year later. The club had finally accepted my offer and presented a proposal to me with a whopping $16,000 a year salary and an incentive to turn the club around. The incentive was a promise. They told me if I could turn the club around, they would let me buy them out with the profits. That may not seem like much, but I had the confidence and belief in myself to turn the club around. I had also been thinking about the opportunity for an entire year and had a plan to make my goal a reality. I said yes and opened a bank account to invest a portion of the profits towards a note at the bank.
At that point, I knew exactly what my goal was. I was going to turn the club around and buy them out. Once I solidified that decision, I wasn’t going to let anything stand in my way. Now I’m going to teach you my process, which has become a foundation in the pillars of my success. I call this 3-step process The Hilltaker Method.
Step 1: Solidify Your Decision
This is where most people begin to stall because they begin to ask all of the “what if” questions. What if I fail? What if I can’t do it? Instead, you have to solidify your decision by understanding where you are going. I certainly didn’t intend to work at a health club my whole life. I was going to get laser-focused on building that one club and eventually create more clubs all over the country. I wasn’t afraid of what people thought. I didn’t care if people saw me starting from the bottom. I had nothing to lose and changed the questions I had to positive ones.
Where am I going? Why am I doing this? What if I can turn it around? What if I can be successful?
When people are fearful, they usually turn to three options. Fight, flight, or freeze. You can take the hill and attack that fear through action. You can run away from your fear, or you can fail to make a decision at all. Most people run away from their fear or freeze when opportunities come their way. They listen to their mind, and all of those fears stop them from chasing their dreams.
In the past, you may have lacked the confidence or certainty to chase your dreams, but not anymore. You’ve made the commitment to keep showing up and take one step at a time towards your North star. A hilltaker shows up and decides, “this is who I am, and this is where I’m going.” Once you know your North star and take your first step towards it, you begin to solidify your new identity and build confidence with every step you take.
What is your North Star?
Your North star represents your unwavering purpose. Your mission and deepest desired outcome. Once you know what your North star is, every action moves you closer to that north star or further away from it. It also helps you remove fear from the equation. By understanding that my north star was to buy the club, I wasn’t worried about failing. At that point, the club was already failing, and I had college loan debt. I was worried about making sure it was a success. Failure was not an option.
Step 1 starts with solidifying who you are, what your North star is, and taking the first step towards it.
Think of your own North star right now and write it down.
Step 2: Clarify Your Vision
Once you have made the decision on your North star and what it is you are striving for, you have to decide what you are willing to sacrifice to achieve your goals. You have to get clear on what needs to be done and enroll yourself in your vision. Your decision will require discipline and starts by setting your own standards for how you want to show up.
On the first day when I walked into the club, my job was to make sure I shared my vision with everyone else at the club. I was 22 years old at the time, but I knew my job was to lead, mentor, and be an example for the employees at the club. The club was failing, but it wasn’t the employees’ fault. They never had anyone setting the example or pushing them to level up. Nobody expected much from them, and because the bar was set so low, most of the employees had no idea that the club was failing. There was no accountability in the business, starting with leadership. Most of them were showing up for a part-time gig and a paycheck at a health club.
It was up to me to set a new standard, but I knew I couldn’t be a dictator, or nobody would follow me. I had to take the lead and hope that people would follow me. I started off with a staff meeting. I let everyone know that the club was failing. I shared exactly why the club was failing and told them the place was a mess. We couldn’t show up like this anymore, or we would all be out of a job soon.
I had to set the standard that we were going to run things differently, and the easy fix was to start by cleaning the club. Immediately one of the employees raised her hand and said, “excuse me, we don’t clean here.” She wasn’t condescending; cleaning simply wasn’t in their job description at the time.
This was an opportunity to raise the standards on day one. When you are a hilltaker, you will have uncomfortable moments. She simply wasn’t aware of how much work and effort it would take to rebuild this failing club. For me, cleaning was a statement that we care about the club, and even though it wasn’t in her job description, we were willing to go the extra mile to raise our standards. She wasn’t willing to meet those standards, so I had to respond.
“That’s fine if you don’t clean, but you also don’t have a job here anymore,” pointing towards the door behind me.
It was a bold statement and not something I enjoy doing, but leadership means making difficult decisions sometimes. I wasn’t asking them to do anything that I wasn’t willing to do.
Remember, leadership is not a dictatorship. Leadership is a willingness to do whatever it takes. I learned those qualities from my father, who would stock shelves and bag groceries if that’s what was required.
I insisted, “I’ll take the bathrooms.” This was an important message because I wanted people to understand that I wasn’t above them. Sure, maybe I was in charge, but I was willing to roll up my sleeves and get dirty if it meant our club would be successful. Leadership is about getting people to walk on fire for you, which only happens if you are willing to lead by example. This was a lesson I had learned from my father. I was above nobody in the company, and no task was beneath me.
Remember, my goal was to make sure the club was successful, and I had to make sure everyone knew my vision.
After the meeting finished, I grabbed a mop and started cleaning the bathrooms. We immediately set a new standard for how the club would operate moving forward. My job was to set the standards and hope people would follow. Sure enough, they did, and the club began to turn around.
Once you have clarified your decision, you must decide what you are willing to sacrifice to reach your North star. Let’s talk about the word sacrifice because most people view it negatively. Sacrificing is an investment in what you really want–sacrificing what you want now for what you want most. Be willing to sacrifice average to chase great. I was investing every minute into making my dream a reality, and I was committed to reaching my North star.
Every minute was spent in my club or promoting my club. Every day I was solidifying my decision on how the club would look, how it would operate, and how people felt when they walked in the front door. I wanted everyone in town to know where we were and what we were about. I was willing to do whatever it took because failure was not an option.
I still remember the early days of running the club. My commitment was tested, and it was the closest I ever got to giving up. Payroll was due the next day, and I’ll never forget the feeling of not having enough money to cover payroll. I was responsible for the employees’ livelihood, and if they didn’t get paid, I knew how much that would hurt their families. I couldn’t let that happen.
I remember breaking down to my mother, telling her that I didn’t know what to do. These are the gut check moments where you have to go back to your North star and remember why you are working so hard. I knew I would do anything to make sure I hit payroll. The next morning, a few member prospects came in to sign up for memberships, and they paid their yearly membership
in full. It was a blessing I will never forget. Fortunately, I was able to make payroll, and I was never put in that situation again.
Enrolling yourself and your team is only part of achieving your North star. Once you are committed, most people forget to tell the people closest to them. You should also enroll your family and people closest to you. If you are starting a new business and you
don’t share your vision with your significant other, don’t be surprised when they are upset because you are working until 10 pm every night. If you fail to enroll the people around you, they may end up resenting you in the long run.
If you are starting a new business, make sure your family and close friends understand your North star. Let them know what you are doing and why you are doing it. Remember, your job isn’t to convince them why you should do it. You have already made the decision that nothing will stop you from reaching your goals. Instead, enroll them by sharing your vision with them and ask for their support. Even if they don’t agree with you, clarifying your vision and enrolling your family will make your life a lot easier along your journey towards success.
Step 3: Apply Action
Once you understand your North star and clarify your vision, it’s time to apply action towards your North star. Applying action is an infinite progress game that never stops. Sometimes this starts with subtraction. Progress starts when you stop digging deeper holes and remove the sandbags that are holding you back.
To understand the metaphor, let me paint you a picture. You could have a hot air balloon on a perfect day and a full tank of fuel. You pull and pull, lighting a fire underneath the hot air balloon, but it still won’t fly. There was nothing wrong with the hot air balloon or the fuel. The problem was that you forgot to untie the sandbags keeping you on the ground.
That is also true in our lives and holds most people back from reaching their goals. For some, the sandbags may represent friends or family members that don’t support you. For a business startup, the sandbags could mean canceling Wednesday poker night with your friends or reducing unnecessary spending on the weekends. For some, that might mean trading the snacks in your freezer for the healthy body you want. Are you willing to sacrifice good to achieve greatness?
Once you cut your sandbags, whatever those might be, you are free to pursue your north star with unrelenting focus and infinite progress. You know exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it. You know who supports your vision and remove any obstacles in your path. Now, your sacrifice is part of the progress towards reaching your goals. It becomes less of a sacrifice and more of a time investment towards your North star.
Remember to align your North star with your passion because you will be taking steps towards your North star forever. Your North star isn’t a destination; it’s a direction. Success doesn’t happen overnight, and you will never be able to stop progressing. Make sure you are embarking on a journey worth pursuing.
Make sure your North star lights an unstoppable fire within you that can’t be put out, no matter what stands in your way.
This is your opportunity to start over. If you lacked the confidence, discipline, or commitment to quit looking back to the past, consider this your blank canvas. In the past, you didn’t have the vision or path to conquer the impossible hills in your life. Now you do, and if at any point in your journey you lose track, come back to these three steps.
- Solidify your decision: Make your decision and get started by taking the first step. Progress will help you solidify your identity that you are a hilltaker, reaffirming your belief that you can accomplish your goals. Progress creates confidence and turns fear into your biggest asset. When you create a belief in your mind by taking action, you are setting yourself up to succeed.
- Clarify your vision: What is your North star? What are you willing to accept from yourself and others? What are you willing to sacrifice? How can you enroll others in your north star so that they support you? Clarify your vision by enrolling yourself first. Establish the direction for achieving your North star. Once you know exactly where you are going, enroll the people in your life that matter the most.
- Apply Action: Start by removing sandbags and obstacles holding back your progress. Once you remove those obstacles, move forward with the idea of infinite progress. When you start creating progress towards your goals, that progress never stops, which is why it’s so important to choose a North star that you are passionate about. To create progress, you must create movement by taking steps forward-one step at a time towards your goal. Progress creates movement, and movement leads to inspiration because you can see yourself getting closer to that vision. Applying action and setting milestones along the way to track your progress will help you remain motivated on the journey to reach the top of your impossible hill.
Most people never stay focused long enough to gain traction toward their goals. Anytime you encounter an impossible hill in your life, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Most people never start because they look at step 10 before they take step 1. Many end up going from idea to idea without ever accomplishing their true North star. Think about your goals long term and decide that you are going to master that industry, no matter how long it may take.
In 5 years, I took the business from losing $200K per year to making $250K per year. It didn’t happen overnight, and it took perspective to understand how long it would take to reach my goals. Be patient and give yourself enough time to master your skills and gain traction within each position. That might mean you take a position in the industry of your choice so that you can learn on the job.
If you are passionate about hospitality and eventually want to own a chain of hotels, you might want to start working at the
front desk. You will learn how to develop customer service skills and the daily operations of running a hotel. You might not be passionate about the position, but show management that you are willing to sacrifice in the short term for your vision. When you go through the interview process, let them know that your eventual goal is to run your own hotel, and you are willing to do the work to gain that valuable experience. By starting at the bottom and working your way up, you will give yourself the best possible opportunity to be successful when you do own a hotel in the future.
Start by visualizing what you want, create an action plan, set realistic timelines, and goals to keep you moving. Some people spend their entire lives, jumping from one position to another.
They look back and realize that they never spent enough time in any position to become great.
If that sounds like you, it’s not your fault. Until now, you may not have understood the commitment and sacrifice that is necessary to reach these impossible hills. If you don’t believe you can reach your goal, why would you ever start? The hilltaker method starts with the belief that you can accomplish your dreams.
My goal is to inspire you to create an unstoppable fire and reclaim your certainty through small actions each and every day. Taking the hill of your dreams starts with a decision. It begins by saying “I AM A HILL TAKER AND NOTHING WILL STAND IN MY WAY”. Find that confidence and passion that once lived inside you and convince yourself that it is truly possible because
it is.
You don’t have to do it all in one day, one month, or one year. As you will see in future chapters, Snap Fitness was an idea that didn’t even begin until I had 20 years of experience running health clubs. It all started with a North star and a solidified decision. I was going to create health clubs all over the United States, and it didn’t matter how long it took or what got in my way. I was committed, and I was willing to sacrifice each day to make sure I could eventually reach that goal.
Once I solidified my decision, I took my first step when I took over my first club. I clarified my big vision with myself, the staff, and my family because I knew exactly where I was going. Once everyone in my life was on board, I applied consistent action each and every day. Again, this meant having the discipline to understand where I wanted to go and sacrificing everything else.
On weekends, instead of playing golf or spending time with my friends, I would load up the water coolers and head to the local soccer fields. I spent all day rolling around the cooler, handing out waters and Mr. Freeze pops to the parents at the field. I would pass out waters and 2-week free memberships to our club because I knew I would do whatever it took to drive business into my club.
Everything you hope to accomplish in life will take time. Try to avoid the trap of quitting too soon. Instead, find what you are passionate about and decide that you are going to master it, no matter how long it takes. Clarify where you want to go and commit to sacrificing what you want now, for what you want most. Finally, apply action by taking one step at a time towards your North star and create milestones to keep you motivated. Progress will always give you the perspective on how far you have come on your journey and will keep you inspired to keep moving forward, even when times are difficult. Success is a byproduct of discipline, commitment, and accountability towards your dreams.