How To Master Scaling Small Gyms With Will Hurst

Growing a business is never easy, and scaling one comes with even more challenges. In this episode, I sit down with Will Hurst, founder of Big Little Gyms, to explore how he transformed his early struggles with burnout and mismanagement into powerful lessons for leadership and growth. Will takes us through his journey—from building a $5 million landscaping business to reinventing himself after setbacks—and shares the insights that helped him create a thriving program for gym owners.

Together, we discuss how systems, mentorship, and resilience fuel success, and how prioritizing family and lifestyle doesn’t mean compromising profitability. Whether you’re running a gym, scaling a business, or leading a team, Will’s story offers actionable takeaways and inspiration to help you reach your goals.

Connect with Will Hurst:
 
 I’m inspired by Will Hurst’s incredible journey of leadership and entrepreneurship. Visit WillHurst.com to connect with him and explore how his systems and expertise can help you scale your business while prioritizing what matters most.

Books Mentioned:

• Good to Great by Jim Collins 

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Chapters

• 0:01 Leadership Beginnings
• 2:24 From Sales to Entrepreneurship
• 5:25 Lessons from Burnout
• 8:30 Reinvention and Resilience
• 12:41 Scaling Big Little Gyms
• 20:14 Balancing Family and Business
• 25:45 Leadership Lessons for Growth

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:00

It is an honor today to have Will Hurst on the podcast. Will is a seasoned gym owner with a decade of experience who has started, built and sold two gyms in different states, alongside multiple other successful ventures. He has refined his skill, set to excel in customer acquisition and in building solid businesses that thrive. Will is the mastermind behind Big Little Gems, a gym growth program offering done-for-you systems to help gyms generate more traffic, convert that traffic into leads, bring those leads through the door, turn them into members and retain them for the long haul. Will, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

Will Hurst: 0:44

I'm honored to be here. Thanks for having me. I was super honored to get the invite.

Intro/Outro: 0:49

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway coach, Dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway: 1:10

Well, I'd love to start with you sharing a little bit of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

Will Hurst: 1:17

Yeah, I mean, man, we can go way back to childhood if we needed to.

Will Hurst: 1:21

You know, being raised by a single mother, you know having to figure out life at a pretty young age, kind of be the man in the house from a pretty young age.

Will Hurst: 1:29

I would say that, you know, when I think of the word leadership, I think of having to stop step into that situation from a pretty young age and kind of, you know, I was oldest of six and so coming up in those years, you know kind of, I would say, a very working class, you know, middle, lower class situation where I was kind of forced to be on my own pretty early and also be a man earlier than most people are probably required to, um, and kind of be a leader for my brothers and sisters, right, um, and I still think to this day they kind of look up to me in that same regard. Um, but it wasn't necessarily a choice. It was kind of you know this is what you got to do, or you know you're going to kind of be um, relegated to the lowest common denominator of our society, if you don't. So it's kind of just stepping up in that regard um yeah, so kind of where it all started.

Will Hurst: 2:13

And then you know it's it, uh, you know it's 20, uh, 20 years old, and while a lot of kids are thinking about going to college, I'm already working right, I'm already figuring out what I want to do. Um, loved cars, so I always worked, always worked in the. You know, I grew up in Detroit and being around cars, it's always wanted to be around cars. So I had a great job selling, like a performance parts for cars at a, at a what's called a speed shop back in Detroit. So people with their old Camaros and Mustangs and you know fast cars would come see me and I'd help them build, inspect that car and sell them a big bundle of parts and, uh, help them find, you know, places that can install it for them or guide them on how they can install it or whatever the case might be. Um, so you know doing that. Um, obviously, like I eventually outgrew that and wanted to step into a career of some type, I had some buddies that moved west, packed everything up on my, my beat-up mustang moved west with nothing to my name when I was 20 years old, landed here on a buddy's couch. Had to be $1,000 to my name and it was pretty much like hey, just take care of the beer and you can sleep on the couch for a couple months. And that was kind of how that started.

Will Hurst: 3:18

Moving out west and I just saw a lot more opportunity than I did growing up in Detroit at the particular time which Detroit was getting a black eye in the media for just being a place that the big three had run away from and was leaving in shambles. So not a lot of opportunity for a young guy there. So it was stepping up for myself and saying let's go west and see what there is. And so I got a sales job in that path there, learned about building a book of business, got a sales job selling at a dealership actually because I love cars. So I went back to what I know. I didn't realize that that would be a big catalyst for me. I thought it would be something that would just patch the time until I figured out what I wanted to do, ended up being one of the highest awarded salesmen for General Motors for four years, had a great book of business, became a fleet and internet manager for that dealership. And that was in my early 20s, while my friends were still going to college, I was already making six figures and already had a career path carved out for me.

Will Hurst: 4:12

And then the 08 recession hit and naturally, anything to do with anything of a decent ticket value is those markets were cut in half for houses, cars, people, just A lot of people were struggling during that time, and so my book of business got cut in half for houses, cars, people just, you know, a lot of people were struggling during that time, and so my book of business got cut in half and I looked at that as to be the perfect jumping off point for going into business for myself. Right, I already thought about it. I kind of figured for a guy like myself not college, you know, without the credentials and things like that what's a path I could take to success? Right, and you know sales, entrepreneurship, marketing, those things seem to me like a world that, like it wasn't required that you have a certain set of you know credentials. You don't need to go down the institutional pathway to find your way in the higher rungs of society through those paths, right? So for me it was.

Will Hurst: 4:59

It was doing that Right, and so I got my first. I went from that business into my first foray in entrepreneurship, which was a landscape installation company I started here in Phoenix Arizona installing artificial grass lawns. We eventually built that company to $5 million a year and I learned all the wrong things to do around leadership through that business. It was a good company, it was successful, but I was so burnt out on it by the time year five came that I just didn't want to do it anymore and I didn't know that you could sell that kind of business and I don't know if anybody was buying those kinds of businesses at the time. I'm sure someone was. I was so burnt out. It was so past. Let's see if we can keep the wheels on this thing and find someone else who wants to buy it. So the sad part of the story is I just kind of dismantled and liquidated that business.

Will Hurst: 5:42

Good company, $5 million a year company Good in some ways, but not in some others. And for me it was really like I was just doing all the things. And when it came to hiring people and don't get me wrong, that world is difficult to hire people. For the kinds of guys we were hiring that would come and install landscaping for us, they were usually pretty rough around the edges too. But that being said, I was raised pretty blue collar myself, so I can't fault those guys. I probably just didn't know how to lead them. You know what I mean. I just didn't know how to lead them. I didn't know how to get people to get around a mission, didn't know how to quantify a mission around installing something like artificial grass and landscaping products. And so when I moved on from that business, I started my gyms, and the gyms really started as a side quest.

Will Hurst: 6:27

When I went multi-state with my landscape company, when I was in California, I found CrossFit. Those gyms were popping up at the time and I was like well, I had a buddy who was a CrossFit coach who said I'd love to start one of these gyms and move out west. So I paid back what someone did for me and I said, hey, man, come sleep on my couch. We'll start a gym together, I'll fund it. You gotta be the guy that runs it and it'll be a little side thing and really I just have my gym membership paid for it. So I was looking at it as it's like, okay, you know, I get a free gym membership out of it, I could get to own a gym. Um, you know, before long I realized that like he was really good at that fulfillment side of things, but he wasn't so good at that sales and marketing side. So I ended up up being like pretty busy in that company, um, and then, as we sold the other company, you know, uh, we left california entirely, sold that company to him, went back to arizona. You know, kind of another reset, another big reset, and uh, we ended up in arizona. I started the gym here and it was gonna be my primary thing. Okay, like clean start starting over, sold everything in california, liquidated everything. You know, didn't get what the business was probably worth, because I didn't know what I could sell it for. But I did walk away with something, all the assets that we acquired. I bought a house when I was there. I sold that. We left with enough to go start anew and start a gym and start a business and start that on top of what we learned from doing things wrong with that first company.

Will Hurst: 7:40

So I spent a lot of time and money in those following years like investing in my men and mentorship and leaders, you know, learning from other people. Going to events you know I was going to events four to six times a year to learn. I go to Tony Robbins, I go to, you know, whatever the popular thing in the marketing world was at the time and they'd always have people come up and speak on leadership and um, you know, and I learned some hard lessons in that business too, but luckily the guy and some mentorship and also like just really learning things the hard, doing their things the hard way and maturing, you know. You know, as far as much as I might want to beat myself up about not knowing things, I was also pretty young when I started that first company. I was mid, mid 20s, late 20s. A lot of times the way you do learn is through experience and through the hard knocks of it. That's right. So hopefully there's some young guys listening to this that can listen to guys like us talk and take bits and pieces and not have to go through it the hard way.

Will Hurst: 8:36

Because I'll say it was that period of coming back, moving back to Arizona, resetting. Yeah, I was learning, I was pouring a mentorship, but I went through some really tough mental health stuff during that period of time and it was almost like a reinvention of myself and like a shedding of the snake skin and it was a pretty painful shedding. It was. It was, it was pretty deep, it was pretty dark and a lot of it was, you know, stemming from. You know, almost like you know, leaving a pretty big business behind a big fall off a cliff to a new business that really just wasn't going to have that much ceiling.

Will Hurst: 9:07

The gyms they can be good businesses and the people that run them can make.

Will Hurst: 9:10

You can make six figures, you can make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year running a gym. But that's a big difference between that and stepping away from a $5 million a year company where you're clearing over a million dollars a year in profit. It's a big step down and, um, you know, naturally when you're early 20s and you have that kind of progress, you start to tell yourself the stories like maybe I'm the next steve jobs, maybe by the time I'm 30 I'll, you know, I'll be a hundred million dollar guy, because I figured this out at 24, you know. So here I was, you know, at about 30, and like it was the exact opposite situation, it was okay. No, we're like reinventing rele, trying to find our identity again. You know all these things, and so you know, there's that, and I'll pause because I don't know if I should. You know, I'm just kind of going here and I don't know if you have some questions about that point of the story, but it obviously keeps going to date and I'm happy to keep going.

Dr. William Attaway: 9:57

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think you are illustrating one of the primary reasons I started this show, will, which was to help people learn and understand that, just because you see somebody's highlight reel and you think that their journey is just up and to the right, it is never that way, and if we, through sharing our stories, can help somebody avoid some of the ditches that we drove into, isn't that worth sharing it? And I love the transparency and the authentic way that you're sharing the good and the bad and the ugly, as it were, so thank you for that.

Will Hurst: 12:05

Yeah, yeah, my pleasure, yeah it, uh, yeah, it's certainly I couldn't be who I am today, um, which I'm happy to keep going to kind of, you know, share, share the journey out of the, out of the trenches, um, but I think it's important to, like you said, like you know, uh, you know, I guess, lead with that, that like cause I, everybody, you know, trying to get to whatever like their Mount, picking the mountaintop is in regards to leadership and business, or whatever the thing might be, um, part of it is an identity thing along the way.

Dr. William Attaway: 12:35

Yes, um, that's that's exactly right yeah.

Will Hurst: 12:39

Skills are important, your environment is important, your behaviors are important, your skills and capabilities are important, but at the very top, near the top of the things you need to really figure out along the way is that identity as well, and that's what I struggled with a little bit.

Dr. William Attaway: 12:54

Absolutely yeah. So take us from the gym where you're running a successful gym now to big little gyms.

Will Hurst: 13:02

Yeah. So it was the latter part of the last decade and for me, between the gym side quest in California, moving back here running this gym, I'd been almost eight, nine years in by now and we did start to figure out things with the gym that we we built here and um. We had a gym that was 350 plus members which were like for this is like a crossfit style gym, like a group training gym. Um, for like a big box style gym, that's not very big, that's not a large number of members, but they're selling like more of like a cheaper rate discount membership. For us we're more of a premium model um. So 350 model members.

Will Hurst: 13:37

Anybody in the gym world would you know um would likely recognize that as like a pretty, pretty successful gym. Uh, especially knowing what I know now, having worked with over a thousand gyms, that was a really, really successful gym. It's very rare that anybody gets to that level with a single location, independently owned group fitness studio. Um. So you know, we ran that business and along the way, like along the way of um building that company, it was kind of like as social media during the 2010s, just kind of picking up pace every. It was kind of like social media during the 2010s, it was just kind of picking up pace. Every year it was just getting more and more adoption and more reach, and I just happened to be on the internet sharing a lot of what was working for me. I was in different groups. A lot of groups were the gym owners in the particular niche I was in, where we're asking for advice, and me having this more than a decade now business experience, of all the ups and downs, like it was very clear when they would ask the questions like, oh, this is someone who just hasn't, you know, doesn't, doesn't know business, right, like they just opened a gym because they're they're a coach and they want to train people. Um, so the reason a lot of people start businesses, right, passion, right, it's passion. But you, it's very clear that the questions are asking a very for someone who's been around the block a little bit, you know, regards to lead generation, sales, marketing, all these things you know, uh, it's stuff I could see that maybe they were lacking in. So I would just be helpful, right, for a couple years probably four or five years I would just be helpful. I'd be in those threads commenting, giving advice, um, letting people hack through my stuff. I would even jump on calls and do like consulting for free.

Will Hurst: 14:58

I was genuinely not trying to be a guru in the space. I was trying to just be helpful and be of value, because I had my gym and I had my things and I didn't know what was going to be next. But I certainly In my mind I had this idea that being the guru in the space is that's not something I want to do. I don't want to be that guy, but I guess I was chosen Because before too long, that's not something I want to do. I don't want to be that guy, right, but I guess I was chosen. I guess Right, um, because before too long, people started, like I said, asking me to jump on calls and before too long I'm like okay, I got to start valuing this time and people were like, okay, cool, how much can we pay you for this advice and for you know your models and your ways of doing things?

Will Hurst: 15:33

Oh, and you know I'm like okay, cool, like yeah, I probably could, because I've done a lot of like I've done built a lot of websites, I've built a lot of funnels, I built a lot of you know, follow up systems and things like that and models, and I was like, yeah, I probably could replicate this for you and your gym. And so I built a little before it was big, a little gyms. I had a little company called Metcon is a term we use in the CrossFit world for what we call a workout, and so it just resonated with that audience Metcon marketing. And it was like a traditional marketing agency. You pay us to build a website, we pay one flat fee and we build a website and you pay us the remaining balance of that or whatever the retainer is, and then you own your website and go on.

Will Hurst: 16:19

And we did that kind of model traditional marketing agency model for about a year and I just was like this is not the way to do it, giving the creative control to the gym owner themselves that doesn't really know sales and marketing and doesn't really know what works. And I got hung up to dry on a lot of invoices. So there's people that just wouldn't pay the other half of it because you know I would tell them like, hey, you paid me to build you what works, I'm building you what works, but they, they wanted to, they, they just they would be like, well, actually I want it to look this way. I'm like, well, if you do that, it's going to change the outcomes, right, if we changed the look of what you're paying for, which is the result, and it was really really tough with being positioned as a traditional marketing agency. So we paused, that, we stopped, and I don't know how I got I can't remember how I got pulled back into it, but I think it might've been more of the same thing People just trying to figure out what we're doing and how we can be helpful and we rolled out big little gems and it really was more of a model where it's like you're coming on adopting our model, versus like you trying to tell us what you think is going to work. At the end of the day, we're the experts. If you're paying us as experts, then we're going to build this. In a way, it's more just a positioning shift. I think is what it was Maybe some of the branding helps too versus being positioned as a traditional web agency and being more of like a program and a model in the system. So in that model, the system, they got a lot of the same things we did at MedCon marketing, but they also got the processes and levers to pull around sales, marketing, marketing, sales, sorry, sales process how to sit down and do a consultative sale with a new prospect walking in the door instead of competing on price, competing on value, right.

Will Hurst: 17:58

So when we started the company, you know, I knew we could be successful at it, but I, you know, it really just kind of took off, and I think it was also because tools and technologies came along that allowed us to scale some of the things we do for our clients much, much quicker. Um, so like we and we were early on that by a couple of years Um, you know, so like our offering, offering there's nothing like it for a solid couple years and it still really isn't even now. But there's some people that have obviously competitors in the space eventually catch on. What do you do? They start to try to bend their offers to kind of take some of your market share. But by the time that came along, we were a brand you know what I mean. Like people started to know blg in the space and our little niche and um, as a result, people would always just look at those competitors trying to knock us off and say, oh, you're just trying to be them. They're the OD at this thing right, the system of this process, this way of doing things. So it's kind of where we've grown. I mean we're a multiple, multiple, multiple, seven-figure company now Probably be at eight figures before too long if we keep on the track that we're on. It's kind of our target and our goal and that kind of leads us to current day, right, and I'm happy to go into the leadership things as it regards to that company too. Yeah, please, okay, cool, yeah.

Will Hurst: 19:08

So what I've learned with this company this originally this was a kind of a lifestyle business. When I started it in 2019, I kind of said, okay, cool, I want to build a business with maybe me and an assistant. We can make a million bucks a year revenue, pay my assistant, pay for my products. You know I make a nice multiple six-figure. You know income and it's something that I can. You know, ride my mic, ride my mountain bike on. I can take my mountain bike for a ride on a wednesday afternoon if I feel like it.

Will Hurst: 19:30

Me and my wife can get up and travel and do this from anywhere, because when you open your, when I open my gyms, they're brick and mortar, so like we had to be there all the time and we had staff. Eventually at one point we were able to take some trips and all that, but we always had to come back to the thing. It was always. You know, there's always like, okay, like it's there, like we can't ignore it for too long, even if we have the really good management in place and, don't get me wrong, the leadership skills came in handy with the gym to to get management to, you know, make sure things are moving along. Communication was great, but it's a brick and mortar right.

Will Hurst: 19:55

So when we built the next business big little gyms it was for our own lifestyle. Obviously, as it grew and it scaled and started doubling year over year, we're like, okay, like it's not really a lifestyle company anymore. This is really kind of a growth company, like you know, and this is a company that we probably can make an exit with. If we keep going on the path, especially since we're tech enabled, especially since, like, we have really good recurring revenues and our clients are on a subscription model, you know, a lot of bigger players in the space will probably want to acquire us for too long. That's not necessarily like our main reason for being or anything like that, but, like you know. At the end of the day, there's only three ways you're going to go out of business, and I'm only interested in one of them.

Dr. William Attaway: 20:31

And that's all.

Will Hurst: 20:32

I'm not interested in the other two. Are you die owning it or you go bankrupt? I go bankrupt. I'm not really interested in either of those two things. I'm interested in the acquisition play of build a really good business and let someone else, at a certain inflection point, when the time is right, take the thing on and run with the ball because you built a really good business. So with that in mind, we started to think a lot more about leadership with this business and being a consulting slash tech, saas hybrid model, like you're working remotely with teams, you know profits are usually really really good, so you can pay people really really well, which helps, which, I will say, makes leadership a whole lot easier. If you can pay people well, they listen a whole lot better.

Will Hurst: 21:11

When we had our gyms, we were kind of always trying to, you know, slot in like what can we afford versus what the market, what people want to be paid, and, being a small business, we can only go so far. So we did really have to build mission at the gyms to like get people to come along for the ride at the prices you can pay. And I'll definitely say, you know, in this world it definitely is a little bit easier when you can start someone at like a hundred K. You know what I mean. Like they're going to be like what's the mission again? Okay, let's. At the same time, you could also get yourself stuck in the rut of hiring based on talent, and then the people because they know that they're talented, they know they can get the same job someplace else. They also, for the same reasons, they could also not listen and also not take well to leadership or not come along for the mission. So I definitely think, having some processes in play and you know, I think it also just being again part of your identity to be a good leader because I'd say it's my primary gig now for Big Little Gems.

Will Hurst: 22:05

You know, like as the business has grown in the early days it was like Will wore the sales hat. Will wore the marketing hat. Will wore the operation, all the operational hats. You know the tech support, all these things. Will wore the onboarding and fulfillment hats. And I wore the finance hat too. Right, like all the financial decisions behind my company how we're going to invest our money and reinvest into things. What do we spend that money on. You know, I had to wear all those hats.

Will Hurst: 22:27

Now, as we've grown, we've hired people in almost all those departments, except for, maybe, finance. I'd still say I primarily oversee finance for our company because you got to be really big before you really want to be paying the big cfo money out there to someone. And right, you know like, and honestly it's something I enjoy, so, like, I don't mind, like you know, making the strategic moves financially for our business and then I wear the ceo hat. But all those other, all those other ones have been been filled and as we've grown, the team, like you got to maintain cohesion. You got to maintain uh, the vision is really the most important thing for a leader in a growth company of, like, what are we doing next?

Will Hurst: 23:03

And like, for example, right now we're actually at an inflection point where, like you know, we've we've been approached by private equity companies that have shown interest to us. Some of them have gotten pretty far down the conversation and it's given us enough information to know what they're looking for. But it's also forced us to take harder looks at everything that we're doing and also see what the inflection points are and how we're going to break through to that next level and what I've learned about all my businesses along the way no matter if they're big or small or whatever, is that we've had a business that's doubled year over year. That's not normal. And if you hit a product market fit just right and you have a really good offer, you can keep doing that. But eventually you'll get to a point where it starts to kind of taper right.

Will Hurst: 23:46

And at those points continuing to double a business at that rate takes some pretty wholesale shifts in the company. That's right. It's not just being incrementally better at all the things that got you here, that's right. It is more than like in whole order of magnitude and shift so like everything that got you here to date, probably all over again.

Will Hurst: 24:05

And when you come to the team and say, hey, guys, we're going to change everything, right, right, you got, you got to have a bit of salesmanship in you and persuasion, uh, and also really good at that painting the bigger picture and mission. Um, because you know, because if you have an operations manager that's responsible for carrying all this stuff out and he's really grooved in on a certain set of things, that he's got some ownership over and you've given him agency to go and build that, you're going to say, hey, man, we're going to change a bunch of this stuff. They got to be really sold on that. You know what I mean. First, on the bigger outcome and vision and some of that's what's in it for them and the opportunities that might be down the road for them if they're very goal-oriented. Or it might just be how we impact our customers, or it might be that person having an opportunity to have on their resume, whether they're working for you or not, having built a company that got to the higher echelon of whatever your industry is.

Dr. William Attaway: 25:02

That's all a big part of it. Well, at the end of the day, when it comes to change, everybody's favorite radio station is WIIFM. What's in it? For me? That's really what they're asking, and as leaders, we have to answer that question. We have to help them see why this change matters and why it matters for them, why it's going to make a difference in their world for the better.

Dr. William Attaway: 25:28

And that's what we get to do. So you know, leading at the level that you're leading at now, I mean eons away from where you were 10 years ago. You know your team, your clients need you to lead at a higher level today than they did five, 10 years ago. And that same thing is going to be true as you continue to grow. And your team and your clients, your business, is going to need you to lead at a higher level. How do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up?

Will Hurst: 26:02

with the new skills that they're going to need you to have. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think you got to be a person that's dedicated to personal growth. You know, um, and like not being too sold on the way you might do things now. You know, people get you see it all over the place, right, people. People get very, very prideful about themselves and what got them there, and I am too. I'm proud of myself. You know what I mean. I'm proud of myself, but I'm also very grateful that a lot of things had to come together for me to be successful like this. Now I will say I had to put myself in the right places for those things to happen. But at the end of the day again, just how your business might need a whole order of magnitude and shift and change in the way that it does things to hit the next level. You also personally might need a whole order of magnitude to change and shift In the way that maybe you see opportunity.

Will Hurst: 26:54

The people you're hanging out around that's been a big one. A lot of my peer group and people I spend the most time around are not the same people I spend the same time around 10 years ago and um, you know, uh, and yeah, sometimes it's just relationships fall by the wayside. Some of it's going out and pursuing relationships with certain people that I want to learn from or just be friends with or be around. It's going to a lot of events. I've definitely spent quite a bit of money on mentorship and being part of programs and masterminds and systems that some of the best in the world are hanging out that are doing things similar maybe in different industries, right that where we can openly share with each other. Um, that's that's been huge. So you know it's always investing in that. And then you know, so I'm married and I have two kids and, uh, you know, obviously the most important partnership in your, in your life is the person you're married to.

Will Hurst: 27:50

Um, so, obviously, like goes without saying, it almost could easily get overlooked in this conversation as, like, that's an incredible, that's the most important thing and I definitely say I lucked out in that regard and that my wife is very we have a very good balance in our life of.

Will Hurst: 28:07

I mean, I want to be the most present dad. I can, all I can, but I also need the freedom to, if I need to go to a trip once a quarter to just disconnect from all of it, uh, just to kind of refocus and get back, step back into that version of myself, um, that I can take that space and I'm given that grace and I come back. And what's funny is every time my wife's like, oh, yeah, she's like, she's like you know she'll say she won't say it right away, but she'll say in a month later, like Like, yeah, you came back really leveled up, like you know, just operating at a higher level and everything in life, in, in you know, in being a better dad, a better husband, um, so it's almost like you got to kind of like step away. It's like the, you know the. You got to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you can put it on everybody else.

Will Hurst: 28:50

Yes, you know 100 you know, and I see a lot of my friends that are kind of like struggling and toiling away with whatever you know path. They're in to success and are maybe like frustrated with it and not happy and trying to get it there. It's like you know that they just keep pushing harder down that path, versus like, okay, why don't you step away for a second? Because I don't know what happens when you get on an airplane to go on one of these trips, but something switches and it's almost like I my notepads out and I got all these thoughts coming in, these streams of consciousness and I start seeing the bigger picture of my business and I'm like, okay, why are we doing it that way? We've just gone so far down that way. That like and that's all we're talking about when, like, we're missing a real big opportunity over here, or like you know what, if we just move the pieces around a little bit, we'd be way more efficient, right? So that's a really, really big one. You know, I don't know if that answers your question.

Dr. William Attaway: 29:39

Coming back to it, yeah, 100%, and I'm really glad you brought your family into that, because one of the things that you have a reputation for I don't know if you know this, but, as I was researching and preparing for our time together today, learning more about you one of the things you have a reputation for is the priority that you place on your family, and that is not normal. That is not common, particularly among high-performing, high-capacity entrepreneurs, and I wanted to bring that out and I'm so glad you did, because that is something that I believe takes an intentional decision. That's not something that just accidentally happens. You don't wake up one day and say, oh wow, I've prioritized my marriage and my kids. I didn't mean to do that, but here I am. It doesn't work like that. You made that choice intentionally and you prioritize that consistently. That's the reputation that you have.

Will Hurst: 30:32

Well, thank you, thank you. I'm man. That's. That's the best reputation I would choose for myself, cause that is the most important thing to me. Are those things, man, like you know, it's hard not to even every time I spoke on stage. Every time someone brings up my kids, or I bring up my kids, I have a hard time. I'm just like holding back the waterworks the entire time. Right, it's very tough for me to even talk about my kids, as it can be for a lot of parents who, you know, like you know, have that close relationship with their family and their kids and view it so highly and so importantly in their life, right? So, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's everything to me, right, and it's all about, like, like I said, when I built the company Big Little Gyms, I wasn't, you know, know, I just entered the phase of parenthood just a couple years prior. Oh, wow, and it's, you know, it was. They had my daughter when I was was 2017 and I started big little gyms in 2019.

Will Hurst: 31:21

No, those things weren't causative, it wasn't like I had my daughter and was like, oh, I want to go do something bigger. I'm going to go start this bigger company or the gym's not enough anymore I'm gonna go start this bigger company, but I think it's very correlated. So it's causation, is correlation right, like this is a correlated move in that like I think something spoke to me that like, hey, it was time to maybe go go bigger, um, and I think it was those early days, that first company I built and having built something that had some real momentum and, you know, a good business, to step down and run the gyms was, I think, a nice phase of life. But I think, you know, it kind of drove me to go get that mojo back, because while the gyms were good and I knew how to run them, there was a lot of low times during that that I was fighting with and I now know I think it had a little bit to do with like, okay, we can't, and not to belittle that there's gym owners. That's a very important role gym owners play in providing the service that can serve their local community. I'm not saying that's like a low level thing to go and do.

Will Hurst: 32:17

I just think for me personally, like coming from where I was prior, stepping down into that, um, I would struggle, struggling with identifying with that being it for me right, and that we need to get back to it, and I think when I had my daughter, I think it really kicked a lot of those things into motion. Uh, because it's also the same time I was dealing with some of those mental health and identity things. I think it was, you know, and I'm not the most conscious person when it comes to, like, my own emotions and what's actually bothering me. Pretty like, I'm a pretty focused individual and so a lot of things can be going on around me and actually influencing me quite a bit, but meanwhile I'm just very focused and just like, oh, it doesn't bother me, right. But you know, I now know enough about myself to know that below the current, it's subconsciously there's, there's shifts taking place that are going to drive and change my behavior down the road. Right, so that was a big one for me.

Will Hurst: 33:01

So, starting the company my point there was starting the company was like I wanted to build a company, like I said, with lifestyle in mind. Right, I want to be profitable and run a good business, but I also wanted to have Okay, I'm putting in 40-hour weeks, nothing more. And I was a guy that all through my 20s and most of my 30s was like I didn't count hours. It was like, okay, midnight and we get the mojo right now, let's step and work on a funnel, let's hack out some copy, let's do all that. So I probably put in 70-hour weeks, most of my 20s and 30s building my businesses, because I enjoy it. You know what I mean.

Will Hurst: 33:37

But when this came along I was like, no, I don't want to be absent from my kids. I want to see them every day, as often as I can, except for when I'm traveling, of course, and even then we FaceTime. I guess a big driver for me is, and my buddy, matt DeCeno, says this when he goes up and speaks on stage and I don't know if you know, matt, I don't want to say in circles, but you know he always says like a big goal for him and I gotta give him credit for this and I'm not just gonna hijack it, but I pretty much just stole it from him because I love it and that, like you know, I want my kids to be friends with me long after they have to yeah, you.

Will Hurst: 34:12

You know your kids have to be friends with you when they depend on you. But once they're old enough to be their own people and choose who they want to spend their own time around, like I would like for them to still want to be around. I would like for them to still want to have a relationship with me and maybe that's driven deep down by me, you know, like I said, tell myself that that bothers me. I don't sit around moping about that. I'm not a super emotional person. I'm fine if there's not a part of me that's like oh, I'd love to go find the guy out and maybe meet the guy. I don't sit around thinking about those kinds of things. At the end of the day I got to focus on what's in front of me and not let those things try to hold me back. But I'm sure it plays a major part in how I view my relationship with my kids.

Dr. William Attaway: 34:55

A hundred percent? Yeah Well, there's no such thing as a wasted experience. You know, everything that's happened in our, in our lives, on our journeys, has made us into the person that we are good, bad, ugly and different and it plays into the choices and the decisions that we make.

Intro/Outro: 35:09

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway: 35:09

And you have been so intentional about the design of the business around your most important priorities, and I love that and I think the most effective and successful leaders think that way. They prioritize what matters most and they build in a healthy and sustainable way, and that's what I'm seeing in you Will Thank you. Yeah, so, as a continual learner, I imagine that you were always in that posture of what can I learn, how can I grow and you've alluded to this a number of times as you were sharing your story. Is there a book that has made a really big difference in your journey that you would recommend to the leaders who are listening? Hey, if you haven't read this, check it out.

Will Hurst: 35:54

Oh, there's so many and I probably, I probably should have had the book list up in front of me. I don't want to forget one that I'm like later on, as I'm saying, I should have mentioned that one right, um, you know, uh, good to great, by jim collins. Yes, it's kind of a classic that you'll hear, like so many successful people reference. Um, e-myth is, yes, incredibly foundational, foundational, a very fundamental business book. Even Rich Dad, poor Dad, from the cashflow quadrant perspective of employee, self-employed, business owner, investor, I would say that particular dynamic. There is something we focus on at big little gyms for our clients of like we want to move the gym owner from the self-employed mindset of like sell all the customers, do all the jobs, including everything from sales to marketing, to mopping the floor, to like let's run it like a business, let's build something that if we wanted to do multiple locations one day, we could. If we wanted to turn into a franchise, we could right Huge, probably the most fun. And I don't know how much this has to do with leadership, but I think it's actually. I know it has a lot to do with leadership.

Will Hurst: 37:02

It was a book that Napoleon Hill wrote. He wrote a book called Thinking Grow Rich, which everybody knows. But then he wrote a spinoff, one called Succeed through persuasion, and it was like a spin-off of thinking grow rich. So he wrote thinking grow rich. But that book was such a banger at the time that he wrote like 20 other books that are essentially thinking real rich, but just with a different spin towards a different audience. Right, so you think you're rich. But then he had succeeding grow rich through persuasion, which was like his sales book. You know, interesting, um, and it was like, but like the book kind of goes through some of the same principles as thinking we're rich still, but then he spins off deeper into, like you know, um, essentially, like you know, persuasion in all walks of life, not just sales. Like you know, uh, for leadership purposes, for, um, you know, networking, right, um, all these things and um, it's important you know that that when people hear the word persuasion, it can be viewed as good or bad. We're not talking about convincing or trying to manipulate people. We're talking about how do people work and human behavior and psychology and genuinely how to be a persuasive person where it's beneficial for everybody involved, right, which is what leadership is the best salesman, you know.

Will Hurst: 38:13

It's like I was one of the top rank salesmen for General Motors and I was in the car sales world, which is generally viewed as a really kind of icky world. Right, oh, like a car salesman, right Gets such a bad name. And I was like you know what's so funny about that man is all the best salesmen at the dealership. Like all the things that people say about salesmen being icky, they didn't do. It was generally always a win-win deal and that's why the customers always came back. That's why they always got the most referrals. That's why they always.

Will Hurst: 38:37

The reason why I was able to grow a book of business is I got to the point where I didn't need to go get customers anymore. My customers were referring them to me because everybody always felt taken care of Didn't mean they always got the best deal. My job was. I did have a fiduciary to my employer to make sure we made profit, but at the end of the day the customer knows they're going to pay a profit. Right, they know they're going to pay it anyways.

Will Hurst: 38:56

But then it's about the experience. Did they get what they wanted? Was the service after very, very good At the end of the day? As long as I feel, it's not about price, it's about value, and I always made sure I positioned what we were selling on value. So the customer never taken advantage of right and, as a result, they always referred their friends right. They sure they knew they could probably buy the truck cheaper someplace else. It wasn't about that, it was about the experience and the overall value that they got out of it right and so, um, those are some of the things that from. I read that book when I was 19 years old and I think it's the book that, like I said, I read that book and I think subconsciously it influenced me to where, when I was 20, I was like okay, we, okay, we're moving west, we're going to go do this thing. It's got a job in sales, right To use some of these skills. So those are a few of my books Fascinating.

Dr. William Attaway: 39:37

I have not read the last one, but I'm going to Thank you for the recommendation.

Will Hurst: 39:42

Yeah, it's a really good one yeah there's probably a few more read, like I love your room. By the way, I have another office I work out of. My home office looks like that. It has a big bookshelf behind it and it's got probably a thousand books on it, like yours does. And it's, you know, you probably. You know you probably got the whole litter of all the ones I would mention on that wall.

Dr. William Attaway: 40:06

So yeah, All but that last. Yeah, that's brilliant.

Will Hurst: 40:29

Well, I could talk to you for another hour.

Will Hurst: 40:29

This has been so fascinating and I'm so grateful for your transparency in sharing so openly from your journey. I know folks are going to want to stay connected to you and continue to learn more about you and what you do. What is the me a little while to get it, but we got willhurstcom now. So you know, awesome, yeah, big win, right gang. So, yeah, willhurstcom. It's kind of like you know, I have a little page up there. It's kind of a mishmash of all the different things I do and ways you can reach me and my different profiles on different platforms, depending on what your cup of tea is, whether it be Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever. You guys can link up with me there. Yeah, that's the best way right now. I'd say, if you want to connect with me is go to willhurstcom and pick your poison as to how you want to connect Perfect.

Dr. William Attaway: 41:02

We'll put that link in the show notes. Well, thank you again. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining me for this episode today.

Dr. William Attaway: 41:10

As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Dr. William Attaway: 41:43

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. If you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Intro/Outro: 42:27

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.