I recently interviewed Joey Gonzales on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is the CEO of one of the hottest brands in the fitness industry. Joey Gonzalez started working as an instructor at Barry's Boot Camp in 2004. A little over a decade later, he became the CEO of berries. Joey, thank you for joining us.

Joey: Thank you.

Adam: Joey, can you tell us a little bit more about your journey to the top? I understand that you started off by being a Barry’s enthusiast as someone who attended Barry’s workouts, and not much thereafter, you're the CEO of the company. How did that happen?

Joey: Yeah, I actually call it the 4D approach; four dimensional because I started first and foremost as a fan of both the brand and the product. I fell in love with it. And I was coming so often that Barry asked if I wanted to be an instructor, and I didn't have experience in fitness. But I certainly had fallen in love with Barry’s. And the minute he asked me to start teaching, sign up for my certification. And, you know, that was sort of my second dimension- being in the Red Room teaching, connecting with customers, and it’s definitely the most meaningful role I've had. That really helped shape the way I view the business and the way I view the product. I just wanted to get more and more involved. So I took on a management position. And then lastly I became, you know, an owner and investor as we expanded across the US to in 2015. We did a private equity transaction with North Castle Partners, which is when I was formally asked to step into the CEO role. So my career with Barry’s has been 17 years now, at this point. In the last five, I've been at the helm, which has been a privilege.

Adam: I've actually taken a couple of classes with Barry, back in the day

Joey: Really?

Adam: Yeah. Great guy. Tremendous guy. Great instructor. I loved my classes with him. I think they were biceps classes if I remember correctly.  I mean, it doesn't get any better than the man, the myth, and the legend himself. Barry. He's amazing. I think my biceps are still sore from those workouts. Can you talk a little bit about how you developed the skill set to become a really effective CEO? You don't have the traditional business background, you didn't get an MBA. How did you develop what you now have, which is the capacity to run an international business? You have locations in 14 different countries. How did you do it?

Joey: Yeah, well, I would start by saying, I think people have what is called, and it's a little bit controversial, but hard and soft skills. And hard skills are, you know, the administrative skills that you learn, you practice, and you perfect through education, and experience. Soft skills are, I think, harder to learn. It's emotional intelligence. It's how to relate to people. It's your ability to be empathetic, and I am definitely a culture first leader, and I luckily was raised by a fantastic mother and father who helped equip me with a lot of soft skills, I'd say. My main role for the first decade at Barry's was really building teams and molding  that motivating them to have shared vision and to work together to be able to execute that vision. And then, you know, once I became CEO in 2015, and I actually had the financial wherewithal to hire the right executive team that's really when Barry’s became unstoppable and powerful, because I could surround myself with people who were much smarter with better hard skills than me, but I could continue to really execute and deliver on the vision. So hopefully that helps kind of explain it.

Adam: Yeah, I think that's really important for listeners to understand the importance of knowing what you know, knowing what you don't know, and surrounding yourself with great people. not being afraid to acknowledge that you're not the smartest person in the room. I think that if you're the smartest person in the room, you're probably in the wrong room. So, Joe, it's a testament to your leadership.

Joey: Yeah. Especially if you did the hiring, then you made some big mistakes.

Adam: Yeah, totally. What are some of your tips on hiring? What do you look for in the people who you hire?

Joey: Oh, I mean, I've learned as much from my mistakes as I have from where I've succeeded in hiring people. And I would say that for a while, as I started to put together my executive team, I became very hung up on and distracted by the resume. And I really started because I thought that's what a good CEO did. I really started to let go of the decisions I'd made by gut and I ended up hiring a couple of people that were not successful at Barry's mostly for cultural reasons. They really couldn't get in line with our our values and what I learned from that was that it's equally important to have that connection with someone and to be able to see them fitting into the organization in a way that makes sense and in a way that people will actually enjoy them is as important as what their capabilities are, particularly in a business like Barry’s that is so culture forward.

Adam: Can you talk a little bit more about Barry’s culture and about your advice to anyone listening in a leadership position on how leaders can build a winning organizational cultures?

Joey: Sure. So I think the best place to start is to know what your mission and your vision and your values are. And that was a project that we undertook probably about three years ago, and berries had operated without them for a long time. But when I say without them, we were still practicing our values. And we still had a shared vision; we just hadn't really articulated it. And to go through that formal process, that's imperative as you scale, because your touch points are minimal or become minimal. And you really have to be able to explain to people in the onboarding process, why they're there, right, the why behind Barry's, so our investment in that, I think, was a game changer for us back in 2017. Additionally, personally, I have invested in my leadership, both soft and hard skills. I started a program called OPM last year at Harvard Business School, which has been incredible for me to be able to continue my education and equip myself with new tools and ideas that are going to help me get to the next phase. And then from a soft skills perspective, One of the best decisions I ever made was to hire an executive coach. He spent, you know, weeks with me during his onboarding where he literally just sat down and popped my hood and went through every year of my life. We built a very trusting relationship. And he's one of the main, you know, forces that helps me manage my executive team. And he has really helped drive the mission, vision, and values into every layer of our organization. He's a resource for everybody from the director level and above, to really spend time with when they need focus and understanding. Personally, I've done a lot of meditation in the past three years, which I didn't do before, and it has really reshaped how I approach things and my level of patience. I start my day with 10 to 15 minutes of meditation only, and I can tell you that when I don't do that my day goes very differently. And it's one of those hobbies that's really hard for people for some reason to start, but once you do, it can change your life, and it can change the way that you lead.

Adam: Can you talk about the rest of your daily routine? Meditation is a topic that we've talked a lot about on the show, a number of other guests have delved quite deeply on the topic of meditation. We actually had a guest, Dr. Patel, who's one of the leading meditation experts in the world. And I'm with you, Joey. I think meditation is something that everyone should undertake, even if just for a minute or two. It was something that I thought was really interesting in my conversation with Dr. Patel. We spoke about how people who are already meditating take their meditation practices to the next level but more efficiently. How could anyone who doesn't meditate today start meditating? I'm with you, I think we should all be doing it. What else are you doing? What are other things that you're doing throughout the day that are enabling you to become extremely effective in your success as a leader?

Joey: I mean, not surprisingly, I would add exercise after meditation, because it is also for me meditative and creates a stillness of the mind that I don't have during the rest of the day. My thought world shifts when I exercise, and I have some of my most creative moments, some of my happiest moments. And you know, it's been proven that exercise really creates endorphins and you know, part of what we do at Berry’s  is running so you get this runner's high. And so it's another practice that when I don't do it, my day goes much differently. If anyone has been with me where I haven't been able to work out for like a few days in a row. There’s almost no meditation that can get me out. So I'd say that exercise is another one.

Adam: Can you talk a little bit more about your best fitness tips? Man, this is your bread and butter. You were a fitness instructor before becoming CEO and you still teach fitness classes. What tips do you have for listeners?

Joey: Yeah, so everybody works out for different reasons. And the answer I'm going to give you is a holistic one, as it relates to not only how you look, how you feel, how healthy you are- and the word I would choose to use is balance. Most people go off in the world and they pick one- they do yoga, they run, they lift weights, and that's great. You may potentially be seeing the physical results that you're looking for. But you are not. If you are doing yoga or you are lifting weights, you are not optimally working out your heart and your lungs the way you would, you know, on a ride or on a run. Conversely, if what you're doing is cardio only, you're not

improving your muscle mass. You're not improving your bone density, you're not doing a number of things that are integral to help holistic health. And so that is why I fell in love with Barry’s because no matter what modality you do, whether it's on the bike or on the treadmill, we combine cardiovascular with strength training. I also got my 200 hour yoga certification many years ago. So it's really important for me to get that in a couple of days a week as well. Some kind of flexibility; yoga, myofascial release, and just really achieving balance is key. Oftentimes the advice I give people is the way to achieve balance is to take a look at what you're doing and notice that you're probably doing what you like most and you should be doing that other thing a lot more.

Adam: How has Barry's been able to stand out from all the other fitness brands and, for starters, from fitness brands that are doing things similar to Barry's? There are lots of workouts out there that are not all that different in the way that they're structured, but Barry's has really been able to stand out and has really been able to attract a level of clientele that's been different. How has Barry been able to do it?

Joey: Yeah, so there's a workout piece, which I call this science, right? It's the efficacy. It's the fact that this thing just works. If you come to Barry’s and you're looking for results, they will happen within a matter of weeks, your body will change. You will start to have abs. It's something that has helped Barry’s last for 21 years. Barry himself, I call him the mad scientist, because he gave birth not only to this idea, but also to the boutique fitness industry. There were no boutique fitness competitors, there was no landscape back in 1998. He was really an original and I think that matters, right? I think that people love something original, and they can smell it. The second piece is the community and the fact that our customers and our clients, our mission and our vision and our values are palpable. The minute you walk into Barry’s, people are working towards the same goals. We treat people, I think, differently than a lot of other fitness users do. We basically want to inspire our customers to work hard, to have fun, to find their strength and to be their best. And we have teams devoted to that- making people feel good. And sometimes in this setting, it's impossible to do that, but even when we've failed, you know, we have recovery teams who reach out to people who maybe didn't have a great experience. Everyone who works at Barry’s is genuinely moved by serving and that happens at the very top. My leadership team has to practice servant leadership, or they don't last. And that was kind of what I touched upon earlier, when I said I hired a couple people that couldn't execute on our values. Servant leadership is one of the most important things that I think translates and trickles down in a meaningful way because we're in the service industry and so everybody who works at Barry's, no matter what their role is, really there to help serve people to make their days better.

Adam: You've obviously mastered the art of branding and you laid out a few reasons why and how. What advice do you have for entrepreneurs and marketers on the topic of branding? How can anyone build a brand and improve their brand?

Joey: So I mean, that's so that's a really hard question to answer. We've gone through two decades of branding and I'd say that, you know, one of our core values is innovation and that has really been what's helped Barry’s survive the test of time, because you know what? If you had walked into Barry's back in 1998, you would have seen camouflage all over the walls, nets on the walls, a huge military dog tag with Barry's Boot Camp on it. I mean, we have changed so much from a brand standpoint, but all of those changes have really embraced our community and our customers. And I would say that when you allow your customers to be your guiding light as a brand, you can really ultimately succeed no matter what.

Adam: Joey, I want to talk a little bit about leading during moments of crisis. We're obviously in a significant moment of crisis right now, with COVID-19, which has impacted many industries, the fitness industry as much as any. Can you share with listeners how you've been leading in this moment, and what advice you have for other leaders on how to lead during times of crisis?

Joey: Yep, so our commitment has been, first and foremost, to the safety of our employees and our clients. We put that above revenue from the very beginning of this, and what I mean by that is we voluntarily decided, prior to any governmental mandates, to close all studios across the U.S. and Canada, and as we continue to navigate the pandemic, we used our mission and our vision as the roadmap to all decision making. And so like I said earlier, we wanted to continue to inspire people to work out hard and have fun. We wanted our community to stay moving, even though they were stuck at home. And so within days, we launched on Instagram, these workouts live every single day for free. And they continue today, you know, seven or more weeks later, at the same time. I really wanted to make a commitment to myself and out employees that I don't think many other fitness companies have done, which was I kept on 60% of my full time staff across the organization and I kept on every single instructor and trainer both full time and part time. And that is financially a lot to bite off. And so, as a result, we launched a product called Barry’s at home, which literally brought our community into the homes of our instructors as they delivered four different types of workouts. One, just a standard bodyweight workout where you need no equipment, anyone could participate, to a band-together workout where all you needed was this band-together Fit Kit, which we had been selling on our site Barrys.com. The third modality was strength training where all you needed were weights. And the fourth was the actual original concept; our running and lifting class. And so half the class is strength training with weights and the other was, you know, running on a treadmill, which your instructor would create and obviously, explain and walk you through. We weren't expecting what happened, which was overnight, our community and our world and our universe came back alive. And we tried as much as we possibly could to simulate what it was like to take Barry’s classes and where I think we really differentiated the experience was, we had moderators, who are gems across the country who would welcome people, who would bring first timers into the Zoom experience first so that they could meet and greet the instructor and talk to him or her about any injuries. And then we would invite the rest of the class in, make sure we were celebrating birthdays, make sure we were celebrating milestones, people in their 10th class, 30th class, 50th class, whatever it was, and we even launched a frequency campaign called Social Fitnessing, which invited our people to take 20 classes in 30 days. So, just doing our best no matter what to try to carry on the mission and the vision through those values, is how we have handled ourselves through COVID-19.

Adam: What about how organizations and how businesses can best adapt? You've talked about a number of ways that Barry's has adapted in this moment. What are your tips on how organizations, regardless of size- you have over 70 Studios. There are small businesses, there are large companies, but all companies need to be flexible. All companies need to adapt. All companies need to understand how to pivot. What advice do you have for leaders on how to do that?

Joey: Yeah, I mean, we've talked a lot about culture and brand, and the work we've done behind establishing that. And I think in times like these, that innovation has to be born out of those things. It has to be honest, so that the customers you're serving feel like it's still you.

Adam: What are your best tips on how to communicate with your various stakeholders during times of crisis? How to communicate with your employees, how to communicate with your customers, and in your case, you mentioned that you're owned by a private equity firm- how to communicate with your investors?

Joey: Yeah, communication is key to running a successful organization. The other thing you hear is that nobody really does it right no matter how. Sure, so we have, over the past two months, been- I call it over communicative, as we went through some very challenging decision making around part time employee terminations, some full time employees furloughs, all of those decisions. I held calls with each population of the organization explaining how, why, when, and actually opened it up for conversation afterwards. So I stayed on for as long as people needed me to answer any questions, As far as partnership, which would be not only North Castle, my private equity, but also my executive team, just daily calls for the most part; starting our morning together as an executive team talking about our objectives, updating people on our department, our employees, and North Castle. I'd have to say none of what we've been able to accomplish over the past five years would be possible without North Castle. You hear a lot of not great stories with private equity partnerships and I've been blessed with the best partnership of my life. They've been incredibly supportive, no matter what ups, downs, etc. l I don't know where we would be in this situation if I wasn't aligned with my private equity partners from a values perspective.

Adam: Motivation is obviously a core topic. In the world of fitness, you're trying to motivate your customers. As a leader, you're trying to motivate your team. How do you motivate yourself on the days that you don't feel motivated?

Joey: That's actually always been the hardest question for me to answer because I've been asked it my whole life, and I just don't know the answer to it. I think that's why I ask it. Yeah, it's, it's tough. I think for me, I do really well with goal setting. So whether it's physical or you know, professional, I like to think through something that I have coming up in a month or set my own goal. I just do well with goals so that I can work backwards and figure out what I need to do when and just sort of line it up that way, if that makes sense.

Adam: Yeah, it does. Can you talk a little bit about how you're able to manage your time, manage competing priorities, and reach your goals? I think that's a topic that you could shed a lot of insight on for listeners.

Joey: Time management- it's definitely helpful to have somebody if you can help you with that, and I've been lucky enough over the past couple years in my career, to have someone really talented to help me manage my time. Because when you're in a role, like, you know, CEO or leadership role where you're running an organization of this size, and I personally have an open door policy, it's all day long, right? So I'm just inundated with meetings and calls and I try to set aside on my calendar a couple of hours where there isn't anything planned, where I'm able to really focus on a lot of the more, you know, high level vision goals that I have for the organization. And then I often work to prioritize the rest. So I look through kind of meeting requests, and think about, you know, one of the things you and I discussed earlier was the importance of knowing where you can add value. So really looking at all the different pieces of the organization and all of the different requests coming in, in terms of who wants to meet with me when and where, and being able to prioritize, where I can lend the most value and where I might be able to delegate that meeting to someone else who could do a better job.

Adam: What's your best career advice for listeners? How can listeners know when is the right time to pivot? When's the right time to pursue a different opportunity? You've pursued lots of different opportunities, you followed a career path that has taken you in a direction that you probably never thought you'd be in and how would you advise listeners to think about their careers?

Joey: Yeah, so we have six core values at Barry’s  and the one, I think, that has lent itself to my personal success the most is fearlessness. If you're able to live your life in a fearless way, which means not that you don't feel fear, you just don't allow it to control you- that's what's been so difficult about COVID-19 is there is just so much fear in the universe now. My advice is to replace fear with focus. So if you have goals, if you want to innovate your business, if you want to start a business, you need to just go for it. You need to be organized, and you need to be very focused, and you need to be able to have a vision and execute upon it. By  the way, sometimes you'll still fail. And failure’s okay. Failure, I always compare to the- it's the same way that a muscle works, which is you need to fail in order to succeed.

Adam: Joey, what's a defining failure in your career and how did you bounce back from it?

Joey: Well, I started as a childhood actor at the age of 13. So I spent 10 years failing. I actually was off to a really great start. I was in the union within three or four months of acting, and I started to book TV and film and was traveling around the country acting between, you know, 13 and 17 years old. And, you know, there's a lot of disappointment in that career and I think it's really helped serve me today because there are some people who move through life just achieving success so easily that when anything goes wrong, their world is shattered. I am so numb to it. When I fail or when things don't go my way, it's fairly easy for me to pick up the pieces and move on.

Adam: Yeah, that's extremely important, extremely valuable. Last question, Joey. What can anyone do to become a better leader tomorrow?

Joey: What can someone do to become a better leader tomorrow?

Adam: How do you develop leaders at Barry's? What do you do to help grow leaders? What are your best tips on how anyone can become a better leader?

Joe: I think honestly, it's really about your ability to connect with people, to manage people, your emotional intelligence, your propensity for empathy. Those are really the things that separate good leaders from great leaders.

Adam: Joe, thank you so much for joining us.

Joey: Thank you. I appreciate it.