LIFTS Episode 114 - The Future of Personal Training, AI & Human Intelligence | at Connected Health & Fitness 2026

20:30Matthew Januszek:Well, David, it's been really good to have you on. Your first time, I'm surprised it's taken us this long. I'm a big fan, too. We have to get you back. Thank you again for joining us.

20:38Jeff Yasuda:It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Mo and Matthew. Thank you. Jeff Yasuda, I mean, I consider you a friend.

20:44Matthew Januszek:I think we're friends. We've shared many meals together.

20:47David Van Daff:Sometimes if your dog doesn't bite me.

20:50Matthew Januszek:I know. You kind of scared me. So I had Jeff at my house a couple months ago, I think. And he's like, I'm great with dogs. and I told him, look, my Frenchie is feisty as they come. He's like, no, I'm okay. And what happens? He necks him a little bit. But then I didn't feel like you felt that bad because you treated me too. I just know you were horrified. I was horrified. I was petrified. But then I saw CES, and I still talk about this incredible dinner that you treated me to.

21:20David Van Daff:Oh, right, yes. The bordeaux, the steak, the sides. We had everything. That was a long afternoon. So I had some investors in town and I took them out. But it started at 2.45 because they had a show at Sphere. So we had to get through a lot of stuff. And they've been investors for, you know, eight years. So I knew them. But I wanted to take them out. And then sure enough, Mo's like, oh, I'm free now. So, oh, and there was wine at three and steak. So I had my second dinner. Mo at, what was it, 4.30, 5 o 'clock? Something like that.

22:00Matthew Januszek:It was delicious, though. I love it. But you are the co-founder of Fiat FM. We've also been partners for a long time. We have been. Which has been a lot of fun. We have been. And I think really innovated in music in the industry. To kick this off, we're here at Connected Health and Fitness. What have you seen change as it relates to music and fitness over the last couple of years? and what do you see happening in the next couple of years?

22:27David Van Daff:Yeah, well, actually the trend line that we were talking about earlier, which I think is important to underscore, you look back at sort of 2019, right? We talked about 96 % of paid subscribers in fitness would stick with one app. So there was a lot of loyalty. Then, of course, COVID hits, people go bananas. So come 2022, people are trying multiple apps, right? They're trying different ways. They're getting out of the house. All of the cabin fever stuff gets left behind. Enter 25. And obviously fitness, we all know, had a very rough ride. There's a lot of consolidation in the industry. A lot of companies shut down.

23:11David Van Daff:We felt that because we power music for most of the fitness industry. And so a lot of our partners, they just ran out of money. And there's consolidations that happen and some just are no longer. right? I mean, we've talked about this multiple times, right? You tried to save some of these, right? And so, you know, I think enter 25, 26, you know, it's kind of this brave new world, right? And sort of, I hate it when I do this because I always forget the number, but, you know, sort of four things, right? You know, the first is, you know, the ecosystem concept, right? And I think you said this before too, right?

23:47David Van Daff:It's not, you know, ecosystem means you got to bring fitness to the individual, right? But you got to incorporate all different things of their daily life, right? You know, wellness, recovery, all of these other attributes that kind of live outside nutrition, right? You know, it becomes a much more holistic, you know, and intertwined sort of thesis around how to please my end user, please my customer, right? You know, number two, obviously, the AI thing is alive and well. I want to talk about not just AI, but the importance of HI, which is human intelligence, but the concept of adaptive learning and the concept that no longer is there beginner mode and intermediate mode and advanced mode.

24:35David Van Daff:Fitness will come to you. You don't have to go to fitness at their level that they prescribe. Everyone has different levels and that's okay. And that's kind of a cool concept, right? Yeah. You know, the third element is, you know, community, right? We talked about that, right? Which is how, again, we can get, you know, others involved, how you can share your wins, kind of like what we're doing with our tonal scores and things like that, right?

24:59Matthew Januszek:Which, by the way, I'm close to you. I'm 10 points away.

25:03David Van Daff:You're going up and I'm going down.

25:04Matthew Januszek:I love that tremor.

25:06David Van Daff:I did get injured. I did get injured, but too much guitar playing. Actually, I think it was. I went to my PT, and I have golfer's elbow because my forearms are so damn tight, right? There's nothing wrong with my elbow, right?

25:20Matthew Januszek:More tonal time, less guitar time. More tonal time.

25:24David Van Daff:And the last, you know, obviously is the importance of wellness and recovery, right? And that's kind of intertwined a little bit with the ecosystem. But those are kind of like the four main pillars, right, that we're seeing, right? And along with wellness and recovery, fitness is physical, right? Wellness is obviously psychological, right? So, yeah, this becomes a very important part because if the mind isn't right, performance isn't going to be right. We all know that. But anyway, so those are the kind of the things that we're seeing right now across the industry.

26:00Matthew Januszek:We were talking before about HI and human intelligence. I guess, are we as humans getting more or less intelligent? Are we almost like handing over our brains to these machines and just getting dumber as we continue to scroll and being hooked on these devices? What are you seeing in terms of human intelligence in the way that you're describing it that would be interesting to share?

26:30David Van Daff:Well, I do like this, you know, where you're going, right? Are we becoming dumber or are we becoming lazier? I mean, there's a strong argument, particularly, you know, with, you know, we all have, you know, well, I don't know. Do you have kids? Yeah.

26:47Matthew Januszek:And don't talk to you about kids and phones. Okay. Okay.

26:49David Van Daff:Well, that's another issue, too. Attention spans, right? But, you know, there's one argument that says AI is an amazing tool, right? Because we're not dealing with the mundane. There's a great fear that all these legal services companies are now going away because you can get a lawyer in your pocket. Draft me and I've done this. Draft me a board resolution that says blah, blah, blah. Just to be careful, you do run it by an actual lawyer. But a lot of these tasks now, one argument says, now we can now focus on a higher level, a higher plane of intellectual challenge, right? And there's a real argument to that.

27:36David Van Daff:The other argument is like with our kids, right? You give them AI tools and all the sort of cerebral functioning, the logic, having to articulate an argument, having to go down, go through a very arduous, difficult process of saying, no, bad idea, good idea, bad. That is training your brain. And so are we taking that?

27:58Matthew Januszek:I think about going back to where I grew up in a very kind of Eastern culture way. I was born in Dubai. My first schooling was this Asian or British method. Sure. I memorized the periodic table. With sticks. I got hit with the sticks. No. More than once.

28:18David Van Daff:I actually wasn't joking, but yeah.

28:20Matthew Januszek:And just thinking about the root of formulas, thinking about not using a calculator. And now, does that even matter? Because now you've got calculators, you don't even memorize your prep table. So part of me, and you kind of start over here, so starting back over here, because the technology takes care of the rest. At least my perspective on that is, I get that, that there is a rewiring that needs to happen. But does that then help us start ahead so we can progress in? If you think about it, I had a conversation with a friend, and he was talking about really how lifespan, it's only recently that our lifespans increased and part of one of the things that changed was when we were able to actually go and farm our food and create enough abundance of food so that we could continue to feed a lot of people instead of having to spend most of our time going out and hunting.

29:17Matthew Januszek:And so if you sort of, and what that allowed us to do as humans is put more time into thinking and planning and a lot more sophisticated things and just hunting for food. Is this a similar shift where now as humans, a lot of this, you could call it mundane stuff, but a lot of these things that probably are not as important are now taken away in terms of like how farming was in some ways. And now we can actually put our brains to some higher power. The challenge is, if we're not careful, we could just end up getting sucked into these machines where the machines are actually controlling everything that we do if we're not able to direct it into some areas.

30:03Matthew Januszek:So I think for the younger generation, it's a challenge because certainly it's very easy and they can be totally addicted to some of these things without even knowing it. Sure. But you gave another example of now we can we can actually be focusing on much bigger problems because we have the ability to almost like have a full time legal team next to us that can do things that we couldn't do previously.

30:25David Van Daff:Well, it's a great, great point. And I do want to address your question. I haven't forgotten about sort of music and HI per se. But, you know, you raise a really important topic around access. Right. And so it may be the case that AI does give us access to more strategic thinking and higher levels of thinking. But you also have to think about access the other way, which has profound societal, you know, socioeconomic implications around, you know, let's take Waymo's, for example. So I had a, have you taken a Waymo? I haven't. Have you taken a Waymo? Okay. Yeah. But you're the second person to bring up a Waymo, but go ahead.

31:09David Van Daff:But it's pretty wild, right? They are all over San Francisco, right? And so the person I had a debate with was someone who described Waymo's as lame-ups, right? And I was like, why? How could you not love this? It's the future. It's incredible. And my argument was, well, now, you know, Uber drivers can focus on higher levels of opportunity, per se. And he said, that's a crock, right? And as I kind of thought about a little bit, why? Well, you talk about education. Not everyone has access to education. Not everyone is built the same way where, you know, if you get rid of the subsistence attributes, you can focus on it.

31:57David Van Daff:Not everyone has that capability, right? And so is this taking away jobs from some people? Yeah, you would say that. And is that problematic? Absolutely, right? But there's a lot of ways to look at this very complex issue, right? And it's very prevalent in San Francisco. San Francisco, as you know, has probably one of the worst homeless situations in the country. The new mayor, Daniel Lurie, is doing a lot to really handle that situation. But, you know, again, a lot of it is economics. It comes down to mental health issues. There's a lot of complexity to this. And again, so AI, HI, is it taking away opportunities and providing, this is a hotly debated conversation and moving to music in AI.

32:49David Van Daff:Yeah, come back to it. Right, and your question. But so let's talk about AI from a generative perspective. And presumably we've now moved beyond, look, there's a ton of founders here, a ton of entrepreneurs here at this conference. right we all know the game right where this is one of the most brutal fundraising markets in history right and so but what do you do it's like back in when i was you know a banker on wall street you slap dot com in the late 90s on something and your valuation goes up you know nowadays if you if you slap ai into your business you know thesis your valuation goes up even if it's just a superficial shill, you know, on some LLF, right?

33:36David Van Daff:And that's okay, too, right? That, you know, there are very clever ways that people are building businesses around. And that's great. You know, I think, though, as it relates to music, you know, it's fascinating, there's a massive Hollywood strike. And this is I'm not going to be making a lot of friends with these comments, you know, but, but I do believe them, which is, you know, there's a huge strike, you know, from the creators of content saying, AI is the devil, right? It's taking away our livelihood, it's stealing our content. And yes, there is lots of truth to elements of that. I'm not going to get into the copyright issues that are taking place right now.

34:17David Van Daff:There are massive lawsuits going on from the rights holders to these generative AI companies, right, that have trained their engines, train their models on license, on copyrighted content. I'm not going to talk about that. But there are a lot of artists that feel that this new wave of creation tools that are coming out, some say it's cheating, right? Some say it's a scenario whereby you don't even play an instrument and you're now calling yourself a creator. That's garbage. And you're using my content, which you never created. That's my content. That's not your content. oh and there are religious words about this the flip side is you know we've got a label in a publishing company you know in our company we we create content you know you sort of hasn't

35:05Matthew Januszek:that been going on like if you look at things like sampling and um you know like remixing records and electronic music hasn't that been going on in the music industry for for a long time this is just

35:16David Van Daff:another it has which doing that with unlicensed with licensed content is copyright i want to remind you but but you know i i think where you know there's this delicate balance right from a creation perspective you know you take a comparable artist which is a loaded statement but comparable and you compare one that uses AI tools versus one that doesn't. You know, and I got to say, you know, the folks that have, you know, access to technology, different workflows, they're just going to be more efficient, right? Is it cheating? I mean, that's a hotly debated topic, right? And so, but I will say, you know, when we started talking about HI, right, human intelligence, you know, Everything reverts to the mean.

36:09David Van Daff:I'm old enough now. I'm starting to see these cycles come back and forth where everything reverts to the mean. So AI was hot. People are going to revert back to that human touch. I mean, I'll tell you, right? We've got a curation team. You guys know that. Our customers, many that are here, that are really pushing on the AI buttons, right? They love talking to my curation team. They love having that direct dialogue. hey, this is what we're thinking about, this is what we're doing. Maybe this is the higher level of thinking you're talking about. Whiz-bang, an actual conversation with a human being, right?

36:46David Van Daff:Maybe that's the kind of feedback. You know, community? I mean, I can't remember the app that was basically developed where your agent talks to my agent, and they're having a conversation about something. I mean, it's crazy.

37:02Matthew Januszek:Well, Jeff, I appreciate you coming on. and then you've got a run too with that.

37:06David Van Daff:You're kicking me off. I kissed you off. No, no.

37:10Matthew Januszek:It's been great. Listen, HI, I've learned a new term today. Human intelligence. Human intelligence. You go plenty of that, Matt. I didn't make that up. But I think you're right. And it's been a theme that we've actually heard in a couple of conversations today. The importance of the person delivering that service, in your case, the curator, could be a massage therapist, could be the trainer. So thank you so much, Chef. Yeah, man. Let's do it. Good to see you, buddy. Thank you. Julian Barnes, I have to do the math and count. I lost count. I lost count. But you might be our most frequented guest on lists.

37:45Mohammed Iqbal:You know what that means? I'm at the place where Matt's walking by and says, hey, what are you doing now? That's all it means. Is that how this happens?

37:53Matthew Januszek:It's just, what is it called? Kismet. It's kismet. Serendipity. Serendipity. Right? It's just always there in the right place at the right time. But it's always been insightful. You're such a wealth of information. You're plugged into the industry and you bring different perspective than what either one of us do, which has been great. And we're at Connected Health and Fitness and you're co-chairing this event along with a good friend, Emma Berry. Two different stages. And which stage are you on?

38:20Mohammed Iqbal:I'm the health and longevity track. Which is great. I'm excited. We talk about this. All the time. You and I talk about this. On WhatsApp.

38:27Matthew Januszek:I'm getting all the messages, the questions.

38:28Mohammed Iqbal:You're tired of me pinging you. I'm not tired. I appreciate it.

38:31Matthew Januszek:I have me thinking. But thank you for coming back on again. And we said that the condition is it has to be really, really interesting and insightful information. And you said, I've got just the thing. So now the pressure's on. No pressure. No pressure.

38:45Mohammed Iqbal:So let me, first of all, thanks for having me back. Always love talking to you guys. You just said something interesting that I want to unpack, that I have a perspective that the two of you may not have. And that's largely, I had this conversation with NT the other day, my business partner, co-founder of BFS. I spend more than half of my day every day talking to operators. So the perspective you hear from me isn't my opinion. It's a combination of three things. One, as you know, we published the State of the Industry Report and sub-reports on Pilates and strength. And so we collect market intelligence data from throughout the industry, including our partners at FitGrid.

39:27Mohammed Iqbal:So we have data, right? Not trends, not beliefs, not stick our finger in the wind and what we think is going to happen. The first thing I'm always referencing is what the data says. And then for the last six years, we've been leading and I've personally been leading peer network groups with some of the top studio owners in the country. In the last six years, we've had SOT and title boxing and box union and mile high run club and fitting room. Those have been our members. And I've been leading their monthly peer network meetings throughout those six years. So I've learned a lot from them about what their challenges are.

40:07Mohammed Iqbal:So when you hear me expressing a different perspective, first is data based. Second is anecdotes from our members in those six years of peer peer network conversations. And then my analysis comes in of the data, of the anecdotes. But I represent the voice of the operator, the independently owned, rarely PE backed, self-funded, growing from investing their own profits to open new locations. Those are our members. Average of three locations, 2.5 million in revenue, six person leadership team focusing on growth. That's our average member.

40:49Matthew Januszek:Which, by the way, is the majority of the industry. Well, the majority of the industry is independent operators.

40:54Mohammed Iqbal:Yeah, but they're significantly smaller. The majority of the industry, no one knows the exact number, but if I had to guess, the average studio owner nationwide does$250 and$350, top-line revenue because that's including a lot of small studios, whereas one guy or one person doing most of the coaching and two part-time people, but that's a gym, and they're on software, so they count. That's the majority. So when the average BFS member is doing 750, 800 AUV, that's more than double the average studio owner nationwide. And then we have one peer network team that has an average of 5.4 locations last year, 5.5 million in revenue, so top line.

41:42So 1.1 million AUV, independently owned, non-PE backed.

41:48Mohammed Iqbal:So our top peer network group is 3x what the average studio owner is. So that's what separates BFS from anyone else out here in the space. Our members are truly, they're the top of the industry, right below the level where you take PE funding. And many of them are in the process of securing PE funding.

42:08Matthew Januszek:So on that, just to jump in quickly then. So you are involved in coaching and getting some of those people.

42:14Mohammed Iqbal:No, no, I'm not coaching them. They were successful before they heard of BFS. They join BFS because they want to be in a room with their peers. I'm not coaching them. We're not Vistage. Nothing against Vistage. We're not coaching the studios I just mentioned, Studio MDR in L.A., Lisa Hurst-Solomon. I'm not coaching Lisa. Lisa built a phenomenal brand independent. We have a new member, a couple of new members. We're global now. We have a member in Dubai. We have a member in Birmingham, U.K., a new member in Calgary. These are all multi-location, multi-million dollar businesses who come to us not for coaching.

42:52Mohammed Iqbal:They got to multiple locations and multiple million without us. They want to be in a room with people like them so they can have conversations around AUV, average revenue per member, what platforms are you using to track that, what conversations are you having with investors. and then we bring in investors. Like we had a fireside chat recently with Julianne Burkhardt, managing director at Bank of America. And she's talking about what she's looking for in companies that she wants to invest in. And then we have meetings after that and our members have conversations. Well, how are you tracking? Well, what are you tracking?

43:29Mohammed Iqbal:I'm doing this, I'm doing that. So they join because they want to be with other people at that level.

43:35Matthew Januszek:Thanks for correcting me on that one, then, Jude. And I should know that by now. I've spent enough time in Ubers and restaurants with you. So with what you create with this network and seeing people that have been able to come into that club and people that want to get in there, what do you see in common with those people that are at the top of their field compared to people that are not probably able yet to sit in that room? There's no question.

43:59Mohammed Iqbal:Mindset. Mindset. Mindset. And we're shameless in that we follow the YPO model, right? And so YPO has very rigid criteria beyond age. You need to have 15 million revenue or 25 million market valuation. You need to have 50 employees or payroll of 2.5 million. And we debate whether our requirements should be that rigid. And we've chosen not to because we've learned about once or twice a year, there's someone who does not have those numbers, but they have the mindset to be great. It's mindset of the person who says, you know what, there's something else out there for me. I don't want to be teaching 10 hours a day.

44:53Mohammed Iqbal:I didn't get into this to create a job for myself. I want to grow. I want to scale. And what typically happens, what we've discovered is that the people who've chosen to join BFS have already gone through EOS. They've already gone through strategic coach. That's where they get their coaching. So they made a decision somewhere between the second and the third studio that there's a better way for them to run their business. And they're making investments in programs that typically cost$10 ,000 to$15 ,000 annually. They're investing their team in growth. So it's mindset growth. It's the 10x greater than 2x.

45:31Mohammed Iqbal:It's mindset.

45:32Matthew Januszek:So tomorrow you're going to be kicking it off. And you said you'll give us a preview. So I'm sitting on the edge of my chair knowing.

45:40Mohammed Iqbal:So you know, because we text all the time or most likely it's me texting you asking questions. I love this stuff. I love the fact that we're finally beginning to see the emergence of the promise, the emergence of the promise of convergence, where fitness is part of the conversation around health care and tech and wellness. And that's what this conference is going to talk about. I don't want to say but. I'm going to offer two reminders to everyone at the beginning of the conference. And that's not to forget about the people in this industry. So two examples. On the tech side, regardless of if you're whatever fit tech platform you are, whatever solution you've come up with to help studios operate more efficiently.

46:38Mohammed Iqbal:it's my belief that the vast majority of that tech will be used in gyms and studios by people who earn somewhere between minimum wage and$50 ,000 annually. Typical gym studio manager, gym manager, average salary,$50 ,000 annually. So I'm not going to say warning, but it's a reminder that the cool stuff has to be simple and easy for the frontline people to use. Otherwise, it's not going to get used. Like the vast majority of features on our phones that most of us don't use or in our cars that most of us, it's there. Someone thought it was cool, but if I don't know how to use it, then it's not really helping me.

47:28Mohammed Iqbal:And again, the average gym and studio owner is trying to get to profitability and they're trying to increase their profitability. So they're going to be evaluating all the software in terms of the ROI. Is it helping me grow my business? So reminder number one is going to be, don't forget about the role of people in this industry. We're still a people-driven industry. We're still hospitality-driven, service-oriented. it. One CEO of a significant scheduling management platform told me about nine months ago that we're about two or three years away from AI running every aspect of a gym and studio, not advising the owner, running every aspect in the same way that Waymo operates without drivers.

48:21Mohammed Iqbal:He said the The only people we're going to need to hire are the people delivering the services. The massage therapist, the esthetician, the yoga teacher, we're going to need them. We're not going to need anyone else. I'm not qualified enough to weigh in on the validity of his assertion, but even his assertion still requires the people to deliver the services. And so what are you just on that?

48:50Matthew Januszek:And like, it's obvious that you're going to need people for certain things. But, you know, what are you saying? Because that's not necessarily anything new that we need. Is it that we've got to reexamine how we create this culture to be successful in conjunction with technology?

49:06Mohammed Iqbal:Well, let me say the second example, and then I'll come back to that question. The second example is perhaps more positive in the role of people. I have an Apple Watch that I've had now for four years, not because the Apple marketing led me to buy an Apple Watch, because my coach told me to buy an Apple Watch. I wore an Oura Ring because one of the thought leaders in our industry told me you should get an Oura Ring. the meal tracking app I use, the weightlifting app I use, the HRV tracking app that I use. Every software on my phone that's fitness related was recommended to me by someone I know, like, and trust.

49:50Mohammed Iqbal:The two devices I wear 24 hours a day were recommended to me. So the good news is people, coaches, instructors, trainers are still instrumental in helping all the companies that are sponsors here for this conference. In my opinion, those companies, product companies, companies like yours, Matthew, still have an opportunity to persuade, educate the people on the front line. The people on the front line are the service providers, whether it's a coach, trainer, or in the beauty spa space, the, you know, esthetician. Those people typically see their clients on a regular basis. They have a personal human relationship with their clients.

50:42And if they recommend a product or service to their clients, if they're like me, they're going to buy the watch, they're going to buy the ring, and they're going to download three apps.

50:51Matthew Januszek:So kind of given that, but there are examples, too, where the practitioner might not be needed. So one is escape massage, where you don't need a massage therapist. So in your example, you potentially could automate the entire thing. I work with a brand called Your Reformer, which has this great on-demand kiosk, which I had a chance to work on. But they have launched on-demand studios where potentially you're letting yourself in automatically. That's great. We're going into a world where you could potentially almost be people free. I'm just curious, but at the same time, people are so important for those things.

51:27Matthew Januszek:How do you build that connection? Which connection have I built? About people still being the leading voice of trust and recommendations, to your point, in this kind of very much of a digital environment. Because we did the Les Mills report last week, and they seem to say that, you know, there is, you know, Gen Z that you would have thought are most into, like, they were using AI as an example, but they say they prefer to have real people. Now, whether they're sort of high-level coaches, I think it was more about, like, just having people on the gym floor to be able to converse with because they don't want to double down just on these sort of tech, fully integrated, you know, businesses.

52:06Mohammed Iqbal:so if anyone tells you they think they know what's going to happen in the next three years i would be very skeptical i don't think it does that you've been pretty good i don't have to i don't think anyone knows i listened to your annual your annual uh recap with uh you two and

52:25Matthew Januszek:anthony and grading yourselves i keep on scoring on top i don't know why uh no but but seriously

52:31Mohammed Iqbal:hear a couple things that I think I think we as an industry forget and I'm in New York all three of us are on the east coast or on the coast west coast and to east coast and I know you travel a lot I don't travel nearly as much as you do but I travel and I think sometimes we as an industry talk as if everyone lives in New York LA Chicago so true okay so when that CEO told me that AI is going to run the business. My first reaction wasn't, I don't believe you. My first reaction was, remember I said earlier, the average studio makes between 250 and 350? That person would love to have AI run her business so she could just coach and teach because she loves to coach and teach and doesn't love doing bookkeeping on a Friday night.

53:22Mohammed Iqbal:So there is a world, and I think that world is in secondary and tertiary markets, Where there isn't as big of a pool of talented instructors where this world that you're describing needs to have an escape. And you're a reformer. And I'm not even talking, probably not even secondary markets. I'm talking the vast majority of this country is rural areas. You know, population 100 ,000 or less. And so if they can get access to world-class programming being delivered through technology, I would say not only God bless, but what's their alternative? Like how many certified massage therapists do you think there are in a population of, you know, 20 ,000 people in Anytime USA?

54:13Mohammed Iqbal:So at some point you get that and then you get a, I think Les Mills did a big Gen Z report a year ago.

54:19Matthew Januszek:Which we've recovered, yeah.

54:20Mohammed Iqbal:I think what I'm hearing a lot from our members is that Gen Z doesn't want to do the jobs and make the same amount of money that gyms and studios can afford to pay because that's their business model. And so you have, I mean, we can go super deep on demographics.

54:40Matthew Januszek:We're almost at time, so bring it home.

54:47Mohammed Iqbal:there aren't enough people to do the jobs that this industry is built on right that's the bottom line so we're going to need technology to to supplement the loss of workers because the young people don't want to take some of these jobs so there's a role for technology and when i make my recommendation my reminder tomorrow not to forget about people it's not from a negative standpoint It's from an influencer standpoint. All the tech I use, all the apps I use, all the products I use are because someone recommended them to me. I think that's an opportunity for all of the companies here at this conference to remember, yes, digital ads, yes, paid ads, yes, conferences.

55:29Mohammed Iqbal:But maybe there's an influencer campaign you might want to consider with coaches and trainers so they become familiar with your products because they're actually on the front lines. At the end of the day, we're still a people-driven industry.

55:43Matthew Januszek:Well, with that, Julian, thank you so much for coming on. I'm looking forward to it tomorrow.

55:46Mohammed Iqbal:So am I.

55:47Matthew Januszek:Thank you, Julian.