Building Success Without Burning Out ft. Lavinia Errico | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

0:00Back in the early 90's, gyms were, well, kinda gross. No structure, no real experience, just weights, sweat, and bad lighting. Then Lavinia Eriko and her partners changed the game. They built Equinox, a premium fitness experience with clean high-end facilities, expert trainers, and structured classes. Basically, they turned the gym into a place people actually wanted to be. But after selling the company, Lavinia realized something was missing. Real joy. So, she built MoveJoy, a movement-driven wellness platform designed to unlock energy, shift mindsets, and bring purpose back to fitness. But here's the part no one talks about.

0:45When you're grinding to build something great, how do you make sure you're not losing yourself in the process? How do you build success without burning out? Lavinia didn't just build a brand, she built a movement. And today, we're talking entrepreneurship, the true cost of success, and why learning to love yourself is just as important as the grind. Welcome to Coffee. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Joe. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for coming on today's show. I know it's quite the trek for you. It's funny how physical activity in general, any sort of physical activity can always connect humans at a different level.

1:23and whether you're working out you're playing a sport like ping pong pick a ball whatever it is so it allows you to just see a different side of people i totally agree totally agree yeah so you're moving your body you're actually a nicer person you are you know you are like if you i always tell people if you ever have to have an uncomfortable conversation with somebody say let's go for a walk and as soon as you like walk a little bit and this your circulatory system starts working, you're got a little bit of oxygenation going, like, trust me, the conversation goes a lot better. You know, the truth is, I was a dancer when I was young.

2:00And I never had that super skinny body. I always had more of an athletic body. And then when I was about 12, I got into this professional group. And the next thing I know, I hear, I overheard somebody say, yes she's a beautiful dancer but too bad her body is more like a tennis a soccer player wow and in those days today i think soccer players have they're strong they have amazing bodies but in those days everybody wanted to be like you know 92 pounds and super skinny that's what it took to be a dancer i think it's still like that for dancer a little bit different because it may for a ballerina yeah but if you look at or like dancing with the stars you know those kind of dancers they're all pretty thin but when you go out into the hip hop world or more jazz I mean now you like when you they got athletic bodies you're right yeah you know it's when you go and you see the dancers on Beyonce stage or somebody else's stage the dancers are definitely they have more body types and the truth of it is sometimes a more athletic body they move with such power.

3:13Like it's actually, I, my eyes now go to those dancers. Um, I, cause I like the power that they have in their bodies. You know, it's not just the little waif dancer, you know, that, um, but that began my, um, you know, a little bit of a story about, um, my body, you know, and I started really having some, um, you know, all I wanted to do was happy skinny. all I wanted to do. And so that started, you know, that that journey of somewhat destructive, you know, I, but on the other hand, I started learning to work out a lot. You know, when most kids were not working out at 12, 13, 14 years old, I was, because I just wanted to be thinner, I wanted to be thinner, I wanted to have, you know, an Ann ranking body, who you wouldn't know who that is, but she was a big dancer at the time.

4:06And so the truth is, that was how I really started getting into working out very young um and then i never stopped yeah i never ever ever stopped seems like a family affair because the your siblings were also involved in this founding of equinox yep we're all the founders together myself and my two brothers um came up with the idea of like this luxury gym um i mean i have to say like we were all it was kind of all of us like I first moved back from LA and I had taught all over LA you know classes and when I got back to New York I was like wow it's not as good in New York as it is in LA like in LA we actually had and I would started I was actually going to open up just a studio.

5:01I wanted to just open up like a real studio. But at the time, no landlord wanted anything to do with working out. Like it was not a sought after business at all. It was like they would rather have a dry cleaner than a gym. So we didn't make that happen. And then we just kept complaining. And then we kind of looked at each other and we were like, why don't we do it? I mean, And it was really kind of like that. My brothers were doing very well in construction and developing. I was in the executive program with Lancome, the cosmetic company. But we were living on the Upper West Side, and it was horrible.

5:47The gym options were not good. And we just complained for a while, and then it was sort of like – and we opened up our first gym actually outside. And it was Equinox? No, our first gym was Westchester Health and Fitness, which was in Westchester County. I kind of call it our proof of concept. It was like we went in there, we had a vision of what we would do and how we would do it. And we just wanted, we were in our 20s. We wanted a gym that we wanted to go work out at, that was clean, that was stylish, that had good people, that had great weights, that had great classes, that you could actually take a shower and not feel completely grossed out because it was so dirty.

6:30You know, like we just wanted like the basics, right? With a good vibe. Like it was all like, for us, it was all about a vibe too. You know, I always joke and I say, our biggest competition was happy hour because in those days, everybody went from work to happy hour. So we had to create something that was kind of like sexy and that people wanted to go to because we had to get you out of happy hour and get you really psyched and excited and inspired to like come in to work out. I've never been to Equinox, but like, so Equinox is like sexy? It was. How do they make it a sexy gym? Well, first of all.

7:08Tell me. First of all, lighting. Lighting, okay. Music, people, and even the workout and also the layout. Like this is where I have to say my one brother was just so masterful. like the workout class the workout room like the big studio you had to have that studio close to the workout floor because you know what when the women were in there because in those days it was all the women and they're working out and the music's amazing that energy is actually feeding into the gym floor whereas so many other people would literally put the workout studio in the basement yeah like so far away from everybody that was like for us a big no-no we're like nope we want to make it so that you're walking by you're seeing these bodies moving you're hearing the music you're seeing people sweating and having fun and and it was like it it worked like you know and also you're in there moving and people come by and they're looking at you and it kind of feeds you it gets you like excited you know it's like it's the feeling of being on a dance floor like okay like when you're in a nightclub you don't want to be down and in the like you want to be with around people where you're moving your body and you feel good you know and I really believe we were one of the first people in a in a health club setting to really like get where when you're in that class it looks like you're having so much fun it doesn't look like all those women are being tortured in that classroom right now or people look tortured in there they were we the music and and we really put an amazing sound system and then the lights were dim and you know like it was hot yeah yeah it sounds like I gotta get members with the equinox I don't know if it's I don't know if it's still like that but I mean when we were doing it we like I said we were young we were in our 20s and we wanted the gym that we wanted to go to What year was Equinox founded?

9:101990. 90. Yeah. So, you know, we, again, we wanted that place that we were excited and couldn't wait to go to, you know. And that's how it really, I mean, I can't tell you how many people would say to me, I used to hate going to the gym. I loathed it. Today, I'm literally, if my favorite teacher's on, I'm figuring out ways to get out of work early so I can come here and take this class. like it was such a huge shift of how people before equinox viewed working out to after that you know amazing i mean you started a revolution because i can't imagine my life now without a class you know so like every day regimented seven days a week i'm doing a class if not i'll try to take two you know just because it's so regimented i can bang out a workout in a fixed amount of time and structure it in my work day right amazing so had it been for you not really kind of sparking fire and getting people's interest in these classes this is like a revolution you started but it isn't even just the classes because we also i believe another thing that we revolutionized is personal training because before us at personal training the only people that really personal trained were actors you know people that needed to be professional athletes type yeah but the regular people that was unheard of it was completely unheard of that anybody would and what we did was we made it affordable you know we created these tiers we brought in people we actually created at this whole Equinox Fitness Training Institute because also it was very hard to find good trainers in those days because nobody wanted, nobody was like, oh, I want to be a trainer.

11:06Like that was not in existence. Like that was not a sought after career. Like nobody was like. Well, I don't think it's a big sought after career now still, but people do it. No, no, no. You would be very surprised. You would be, I mean, especially now because so many of these trainers are making ridiculous amounts of money online. Well, they make it on social media. That's what I'm saying. But a lot of times that's where they get their experience because you have to start somewhere. I mean, I can almost always tell. And there's a couple big ones out there now. And I watch them and I'm like, they have not had the proper training.

11:39You know, they're cute, especially some of the women. They did a little Pilates thing and now they're building these brands. But when I watch them, I'm like, hmm, they probably would have really benefited from maybe working at like an Equinox for a year or two. to just get that like because when you train all these different body types and you've got you know that 10 ,000 rule that 10 ,000 hour rule that book that came out when you have that kind of really that kind of experience like you bring another level of confidence when I watch it I see different because I've been in this industry I've been a dancer I've been I've been moving my body since I'm six so I don't see I don't see that level of knowing and confidence it's like very this is how you do it you know what I mean like they're not owning it and I do think there's something to be said about really having that level of confidence no matter what you do you know um that you really you've got that you really really really own it you know um anyway so you know what honestly Jo I've been on this path of self-discovery of personal development of spirituality, like really since I'm 18, probably even earlier.

12:52It's been like I say, it's my, it's my nature of what I've been attracted to, you know, so and I've been very fortunate. I mean, I did have a little bit of a situation happen. It was about the second year that we opened Equinox. And I was working like, as you know, when you're in a startup phase, you're working 24 7 you're not stopping and i jumped out of bed and i landed flat on my face and ended up at lennox hill hospital i you know broke my cheekbone i had some jaw issues and i was in like what they would look at and say you're in perfect shape i mean i was at 15 body fat i had a resting heart rate of like i don't know 55 or 60 you know my cholesterol was 15 body fat as a woman yeah as a woman like I was that's crazy I was very very fit so you know I worked out every day I was muscular I was lean I was you know in those days we didn't eat any oil we just like had chicken breast and vegetables with lemon like that was kind of my diet breakfast lunch and dinner it's kind of crazy so I literally I thought you know in those days, we thought, we all thought as a society, if you were fit, you were healthy, right?

14:12Like that was kind of a, if you're fit, you're healthy. Like people say to me, man, you're so healthy. Look at you. And then after this, I realized, wait a minute. Like I'm, you know, 30 years old and I'm landing flat on my face here and what's going on here? And I'm so fit. And that began my journey of like, what does it mean to be healthy? Like, what does it mean to be healthy? And that's when I started realizing you have to be spiritually healthy, mentally healthy, emotionally healthy, energetically healthy, physically healthy. Yeah, physical health is just at the bottom of the barrel there.

14:52Exactly. Because the truth of it is, our mind, the mind goes and the body is the second. so if if a person has traumas and they have you know you've got to feel it to heal it i like that you've got to feel it to heal it and most people do everything to avoid it they do everything to avoid feeling the sadness the pain the hurt the disappointment like they do everything they numb themselves i mean now i feel like with marijuana being legal everybody's just you know around high Yeah, because they don't want to feel it. And we have to have the courage. And it takes courage. It takes courage to go down and feel and heal those wounds that we have.

15:37I always say, like, how we get our wisdom is from wounds to wisdom. Like, we all have wounds. Like, we just do. Our parents, they did the best job that they could do. But we have wounds. Society, limiting beliefs. We have patterns. We have limiting beliefs. we have all the not enough, right, that we grow up with, not being good enough, not being pretty enough, not being handsome enough, not being skinny enough, not being rich enough. Like, we have these things that just kind of run the show, right? Fears, worries, shame, you know, when I, I mean, sometimes I go back and I look at the things that I felt so much shame for, you know, when I was younger.

16:19I mean, like, that all lives on your body. That all creates, I mean, I always wonder if I didn't work out and I didn't move the way I did as a young girl, I think I would have definitely had autoimmune. Because I had some things that were already happening. You know, like I had bad allergies and then I had my eyes would do this weird stuff. And then I would get, and it was like, I know, I instinctively know what saved me was that I danced and I moved my body all the time. And I had really good friends. And I do think friendship and community is really important. it's really big advocate of community here yeah in our company as a community church community yeah friendship community exactly random like basketball league community or whatever group you're part of golf league or yeah it's it's very important very very important involved your gym community here yeah lavinia i want to learn more about move joy how can we how can people learn more about can you give people a 20 000 foot overview of what is move joy and the move joy movement that's happening so they can find us on movejoy.life um it's a online platform i do do it once in a while in person but it's really designed to get people to move every day now i really believe that my superpower is getting people that really don't like to move you know that's just not their thing or they're in a lot of pain so i've had women right now it's it's for women but i've had women who have had fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, MS, cancers, some real big things that make it hard for them to move.

17:59Their bodies don't feel good. They don't want to move. But regardless of what you have, you have to move. You have to move. Like movement is health. Movement is life. It's the medicine. Right. Exactly. Movement is life. Life is movement. We have to learn how to move. However, we have to do it in a way that actually is going to feel good to our joints, our ligaments, our tendons. You know, we have to be really mindful. And I believe it has to also be fun. You know, like if you can make it fun, people will do it. And I've been doing breath work for over 10 years and I see the value of breath work in a huge, huge way.

18:40But most people, almost all people they go to a breath workshop and they're like wow that was great I feel good then they don't do breath work again until they go to another breath workshop you know in three months from then and what I realized is how can I get these people to move and incorporate breath work with affirmation with what I taught you right now too with visualization how can I do that so that when you're moving, you're actually healing. You're healing. And also, 92 % of all women, I mean, men too, but 92 % of all women over the age of 38 hate their bodies. They really hate their bodies.

19:20So nine times out of 10, when they go to the gym, they're not going to the gym to be like, I'm moving my body, I feel good, it's medicine. They're going to the gym to be like, I got to get rid of this cellulite. I got to get rid of this muffin top. I got to get rid of these arms. I got to get rid of this back fat. Like they're going in with such negative energy. So the whole time they're working out, they're not working out in an uplifted, joy lifted. I call it a life lifted energy. They're working out to change. It's so negative. It's so hard. Just change isn't happening. Yeah, because how can you?

19:56It's actually making more inflammation in the body because joyful is, that's the journey to get there. But it's like this. I love my body. I love my body. Like I have two feet that are working. You know, when I say to you that when I am grateful for, like how many people don't have legs? Oh my God. These legs may not be perfect. They might have some cellulite, but I can go everywhere. They take me where I like to start showing your body. Like I love my body. I love my body. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for my now that doesn't mean that i can't desire it to be fitter to be leaner to be toner right yeah but it's a different mindset yeah when you're going i gotta change my body i gotta i gotta get a six pack i gotta i'm in like of course you're gonna create inflammation in the body exactly and then the other part of it is that in our country and of course i think in america it's higher even though we have obesity more than other countries but 25 it's only 25 of people actually work out in our country i my special the people i go to are everywhere because i'm an online platform but 75 of all people are either skinny and deconditioned overweight and deconditioned or obese and deconditioned.

21:21And the truth is, there's not a lot of brands out there that are speaking to them. Like, because let me tell you something, you are not going to get somebody who's 30 pounds overweight, that's going to want to walk into a class where they know they're going to be doing things like burpees and, and all these kind of crazy exercises. And there's the cute little instructor with her stomach hanging out and, you know, and basically shaming you. like come on ladies move faster move come on you want to have a body like mine you're like like that is not inspiring and it also isn't inspiring as we get older like women you know we get to a certain age our bodies are changing we're going through perimenopause we're going through menopause where you know our bodies change like we don't want to be shamed that we know and we don't want to be uninspired that we don't look like that anymore like you're next to a 25 year old instructor with abs you know the whole thing well wait a minute there's some instructors who are 25 and have so much wisdom yeah and then there's other people that are there just to show off their beautiful body and inspire that way i say that's not the group that i would want to be first of all when we started equinox only three percent of the country was working out such a small number like today i really believe we're the we are the brand that actually brought this up to 25 percent uh you guys were the brand that brought sexy back to working out well i told you public level because 24 hour fitness sure as heck didn't do that no actually i was a member of those places and even for somebody like me who loved to move it was to walk in there it was really really hard it was an arduous it was like i remember being at like there was this is so ghetto i'm the founder of equinox and here i am at a 24 but i was this is before i was a founder of anything this is when i was just a young gal and i was working out and i you know again i told you i was like obsessed with trying to stay thin so i would literally i belonged to like five different clubs and i would go to this one club that was around the corner from my house it was like family fitness or something and it was down it was like low ceilings and so dingy but I would ride the life cycle for an hour like so that would be like the morning uh yes it did the job it did the job but like no it wasn't about how I felt it wasn't move joy definitely wasn't happening there like listen I want people to love to connect to who they are like because also when you move the energy off the body and the body starts moving and you start moving it in ways that you have never and it starts releasing some energy you start feeling better about yourself you have more confidence like I have women now who um you know hadn't they didn't drive at night for like seven years I never drive at night I have night glare have this have that now they have they have more confidence they're like I'm driving at night like little shifts that make your life so much more enhanced yeah you know I have women who's lost 40 pounds who's lost 20 pounds, who's lost, like, they feel so good, you know?

24:35And it's not just about the weight. It's about the mindset. It's about, and also we're a community. So even though we're an online community, everybody goes into a breakout room. If they want to share, we do something, we're actually working through this right now. It's called deep listening. So we go into a breakout room and nobody's there to therapize you. Nobody's there to fix you. But it's a place where you can just be witnessed. And it could look something like this. My truth is, I'm really sad. My truth is, I'm really sad because, and you just kind of start listing out, but also because nothing is more important to find ways to connect with our children in a really beautiful way.

25:22And And I believe that is what is so powerful because they're our future, right? And if they haven't, if they don't really know how to connect, and I always feel like a little bit, I mean, I'm being vulnerable here, but I had the best dad. My dad was amazing because he provided well, he gave us, but my father never sat down and talked to me. Like, I guess it was a generational thing. And I do feel like that I really had some issues with men to really be able to connect with men because I didn't have that intimacy with my dad. You know, I didn't have that deep intimacy to be able to, like, go to my dad and tell him what made me, what I was afraid of and when somebody was bullying me or whatever it is.

26:14Daddy, this is, like, I didn't have that. And I really believe that it was a loss. So to be able to somehow be able to help a parent, be able to connect on that deeper level, that's something I'm really, I feel a lot of enthusiasm around. I have a couple last questions for you. This question is a three-pronged question. Okay. What is a personal goal that you have for yourself? You're always one of many goals. I can see that. and then what's a goal that you have for your family and then what's a goal that you have for move joy okay so a personal goal for myself is

27:00i could just cry by even saying it it's okay is to just have like harmony like i just want to have deep inner peace you know I I still get I get rattled by mostly family members I get a little rattled and I would love to not like just have this deep inner peace and and balance and that completely my goal for my family is my son's getting married and yeah I'm so excited and And I love her. She's amazing. And, yeah, just for us to really continue to blossom together, like for them to grow as I really have really good boundaries. So, like, I understand that my son and his wife and children will be on their own plate, so to speak, and to be able to navigate into that in the most yummy, delicious, loving way with them.

28:13And, of course, just to continue, a lot of my nieces and nephews are getting married. We have like five weddings, I think, this year. And just, yeah, for us all to just be able to come together and just be in each other's lives in a very holistic way. you know which isn't how we necessarily grow up because we grew up in a very high-end family that had was had a lot of energy like I want just peace and harmony and calmness and connection and and tender like I want tenderness within the family and my move joy goal is honestly like I want to have a hundred million women from all over the world that are literally feeling so much more empowered and confident and healthy and alive like to really feel authentically alive every day like i want women to feel that um my last question for you yeah um because you're a servant at heart and you've done so much and you continue to empower and help and serve and do god's work but my last question when you're in front of the pearly gates what do you think God's going to tell you?

29:31I think I think God's going to tell me that I've done a really good job, that I've impacted so many people and that I've done I really feel like, I mean I'm Christian and I've really dove into my Christianity in the last five years and I've always been when I went back and did a lot of like what are my four key values. I didn't put serve in there at first until I went back and I looked at it and I was like, I've been serving since I'm a little girl. And I really, I, yeah, I think he's going to say you've served your whole life. So I think I'm going to, I think I'm going to get a good seat up there.

30:19Definitely helped me and served me and served all our listeners. And it was a deep journey that we went on kind of deep and uh i thank you thank you for your time today thank you for enlightening me enlightening many many others that listen to the show and uh your wisdom will live on for many years to come god bless you your family i hope every single one year goes thank you thank you lavinia erico the legend co-founder of equinox and founder of the move joy movement thanks for listening see you guys soon

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