273. Anthony Geisler: UFC, Pilates, $8T Longevity & ULC

20:04Gary Brecka:But I had them three years apart, which was great spacing. But what is the secret to scale in a business like that and maintaining a culture? Well, I think different than what you did on the corporate side and the franchising side, right? You're partnering with somebody who's local, right and so for them they are building their average franchisee at the time had three and so they are out building their one two and three but there's a lot of people out building their one two and threes right and so you you get a lot of that and so if you sell 300 franchises let's say you're selling a you know three to a hundred different people yeah and so you know you can open a hundred stores in year one hundred stores in year two hundred stores in year three when really that's 100 people out opening one and another one, another one kind of year over year over year.

20:54So I think it's very important to, in that type of business, if you are franchising versus corporate, of course, pick really good partners and then support them to the best of your ability. Yeah, just be a really good partner. Yeah. The tough part about franchising is that, you know, you're franchising with partners, right? And so they have lives. They have people pass away, people get divorced, they need to move, They have different financial things that happen. They lose a job, whatever it might be. So you're dealing with a lot of, you know, you and a partner and then the partner's life. Right.

21:26And kind of how do you go about that?

21:28Gary Brecka:Yeah. You know, and more so even in SQL, your parent company, because I noticed that you have a real culture. You know, profound work ethic. When I went to the headquarters, I was really just impressed. A lot of these people have been with you for 20 plus years. Yeah, 10, 15, 20. Yeah, you find very little legacy companies right now. Just think, in general, our attention span is shorter. People feel undervalued. Their feelings get hurt so easily. So to build a culture that has scaled so many businesses in so many different verticals and to keep the same team together, that's more what I'm driving at.

22:09Gary Brecka:How does someone create that culture and sustain it over time? Yeah. And it's been interesting, that particular team. And we've literally opened 3 ,000 stores. That's what I mean. That's mind-numbing. But all of us were single without kids, basically, even when we started. That's the trick. You're single without kids. That's where you start. But then we ended up married with kids. So we literally all grew up together. And I think what's so important is you can put together a great team with great people as individuals, but can they play well together on the team? And do they know each other well enough to know, you know, what everyone's flavor is, you know, where they're strong, where they're weak, you know?

22:54I think in general, you have salespeople. You typically can push salespeople. and one of my very first sales people, when we pushed him, he just, he turtled, he was like, well, look, if, if I'm not a great, you know, a good salesperson, then you should just get somebody who is, because maybe this job isn't for me. Right. You're like, no, you're actually a good salesperson. You know, we're just, we're pushing salespeople, but, um, you know, on the, on the membership sales side. Right. And so, you know, you're trying to drive franchisees and their, their teams to do well. Um, but you know, sometimes you got to know, you know, who, who gets pushed which way.

23:29Right. And so for us as a, as a culture, we are, I mean, for the size business we are and the size business we were in the, in the past company, you know, we really operate like a family business, you know, and that means when, when someone's down, you pick them up, right. And you treat people like humans and, and like adults. Yeah. And I think people respect that too. Yeah. Like, look, you know, you're an adult, you'll figure it out, right. We're here to support you as opposed to just, you know, leaving people on their own island.

23:59Gary Brecka:But yeah, yeah, I agree with that. You know, when you first approached me, I was highly skeptical, not skeptical of you, just skeptical. I had a lot of, you know, framework around franchising. Not all of it bad, not all of it good. You know, it was a big unknown for me. I knew that I wanted to make an impact and I knew that I wanted my message to reach the masses and I wanted to touch as many lives as we could. But what was it that made you, I think it was Cali Means from HHS, Health and Human Services that actually first introduced us. The first night. So it was interesting. So I start on my own health journey, right?

24:41I've been doing kind of the Gary protocol before I was finding Gary. And I found this little angry Marine in my neighborhood who had a gym. And, you know, nine years ago, I went to work out with him, right? And I spent first 15 minutes, I thought I was going to die. And I was up against a wall and he came and gave me a red solo cup with salt in it and told me to drink it. And I knew like every other human, you don't drink salt, you don't drink ocean water, you die. But at that point, I was willing to do whatever to feel better than where I was. And I did and I came back and he came over to me and he was like, you're back.

25:22And I'm like, yeah. And I thought this was the part where he sends me home and I get to be done for the day. And he's like, now go finish the workout.

25:28Gary Brecka:Yeah. And I was actually able to finish and push through that. And so originally when I saw what you were doing, the message you were spreading, I'm like, you're on the exact right path and the right track. And I actually had a couple of friends that knew Sage. And so I was texting with Sage and then I saw a UFC fight and Dana was there and I was talking to Dana and you came up and then we talked and I said, I actually know Sage or have been talking to Sage and we went over and then Callie was there and you and me and Callie took a picture together and that kind of kicked everything off. Yeah, but I mean, do you have like, I find like that you have this childlike fascination with longevity and wellness.

26:14Gary Brecka:And I think that intellectual curiosity, First of all, it's one of the most attractive things to me and any human being, being intellectually curious, being passionate about something, whether it's health and wellness or artwork. You know, I used to go to Art Basel here in Miami every year and I knew nothing about art. I still knew nothing about art. You know, I don't profess to be a contemporary art collector, but every year that I would go, I would be so impressed by listening to an artist talk about like the passion that went into a certain piece. and I would even get this like momentary sense of jealousy where I was like, man, I wish I could get that jacked over something like that.

26:52Gary Brecka:Over something I care about enough, yeah. I was super not that excited about your painting when I walked up, but now I think it's the coolest thing in the world because the way you described to me, you know. Yeah, it took you on the journey. Yeah, so I feel like you had that kind of childlike fascination with the human body and performance and, you know, fitness. I mean, you seem to have scaled in that sort of wide vertical, you know. of health and wellness. You know, you sent me Cole's in-body and I said, that's it. I'm coming for him. Yeah, now I'm coming for him. Here we go. You got like 4.6 % or something crazy.

27:24I got like three and a half at one point before my 50th birthday. That's actually getting too low, man.

27:29Gary Brecka:Yeah. It's that in-body scanner. I don't know. The 50th birthday took you back to 10 % just that one night. I did. I gained 11 pounds over the weekend. Yeah, I don't think you remember FaceTiming me during that, but you definitely gained the seven pounds of body fat back. I want you to be a part of it. But, you know, is that kind of the driver too? Because it can't just be a monetary obstacle to work that hard and to deal with all the headaches you have in the franchise industry. I mean, is that what the golden goose is to find something you're either passionate about or, you know, intellectually curious about and turn it into a business?

28:05Yeah, and I don't think I, yes, I'm passionate about fitness and health and wellness, but on the franchise side of it, that's the product, right, that we sell on the franchise side of the business. I went to USC. I graduated from their entrepreneur program. I've always been very passionate about entrepreneurship. And so the thing that I love about the world of franchising is that we see people all day long that come in, and this is the catalyst to get them to finally do what they want to do and start a business. And we had one of the franchisees in the other day who was looking at buying a franchise, and he said, hey, I opened up for questions, and he's like, hey, how do you get over the fear?

28:42And I said, you don't. you never do. I said, I, you know, I started this backup and I'm scared. Yeah. Right. And so it doesn't matter how much money you have. It doesn't matter what your resume is. It doesn't matter any of that. I said, every time a Navy SEAL goes on a mission, they should be scared.

29:01Gary Brecka:Right. Right. Like, I feel like, I don't know, you've had these guys on here and have to ask them which ones are right. But I've, I've heard these stories where on the way to missions and some guys are sleeping, some guys are freaked out, right? But I feel like even if you've done a hundred missions or whatever, whatever a large number is of missions and you go to do another one, like you should still, you should still be tentative. You're going to jump out of a helicopter or go somewhere in the dark or swim underwater for 30 minutes or whatever it might be like that should freak you out. And that was my answer to him was like, Hey, look, you, you don't get over it, right?

29:35You manage it. You manage it, you get through it, you do your best to de-risk as much as you possibly can. But none of this stuff in business is just add water, right? It is all risk.

29:47Gary Brecka:So someone at any stage of their life right now, Gen Zer that's actually getting ready to start a business, someone who's actually comfortable right now in a long-term career, but is inspired either by something you said or by something that they, you know, actually break out of that comfort zone and go out and do something on their own. What advice would you give to them? I mean, depending on the size of the business, and I always hate to say, don't just quit your job and uproot your family. I've seen people do it, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I'm always very careful not to say that.

30:26But I think just getting involved in an industry that you're in and also knowing that it's not too late. I don't know if you know who Gary Vee is, but I - I do, yeah. I saw him this morning at breakfast. Oh, did you really? Yeah. Here in Miami? Yeah. Oh, right on. Right at the hotel this morning. And, you know, he always talks about, hey, it's not too late also, right? All the people, because you think, well, I'm married, I have kids, or I'm in this career for 20 years, I'm in this career for 30 years. It's not too late. You know, I mean, I would say the average age of a franchisee we even see come in is probably mid-40s to mid-50s.

31:01These are people that have been in a career 20, 30 years. But what I always tell them is, look, if you've ever thought about starting your own business, then you already have the bug. Yeah. Right? Because there's plenty of people that just haven't even thought about it. It doesn't appeal to them. Right? They're very happy to get up, go do the job that they do, come home. They've got this guaranteed income with promotions and increases and bonuses. And they're 1 ,000 % complete with that, which is great.

31:25Gary Brecka:Yeah. But if you're somebody that goes to work every day and says like, I don't want to be at this desk. I don't want to be in this cubicle. I don't want to be in this office. There's something out there that is more for me than this. Then you already have the bug. Then it just becomes, do you die with the bug or do you do something about it before you die? Yeah. Wow. It's a really refreshing way to look at it. What excites you so much about Ultimate Longevity Centers? It is. What we're doing together. Yeah. It's a couple things, right? It's the ability that we're going to have to go make a massive impact, right?

32:00Because I don't think there's ever been another time, and you know better than me, but in the longevity space, I felt like no one was listening even three years ago, four years ago. I mean, nine years ago when I was eating clean, I had to go to so many different grocery stores just to try and make a meal. No doubt, yeah. I remember when I think it was Primal Kitchen came out with like ketchup or something, and that was crazy.

32:27Gary Brecka:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now there's like 900 flavors and 10 different people like that or whatever it might be. And so now you can go to a basic grocery store and still shop and get good food. You know, you can eat a whole food diet. You don't have to go to any of these specialty markets. They're great when you do, but you don't necessarily have to anymore. So I feel like people are starting to listen. the last few years. I feel like in whatever you feel on politics, I feel like there's an administration that is listening to this, that is open to the change, which is great. Yeah. And whether that's the timing of the conversation, if it's the Maha Moms and the Maha Movement, you know, whatever.

33:12Like anything great, it's probably all of it. Yeah. And it's a recipe of a lot of great things that are all happening at the same time. You know, UBS looking at this marketplace to say that this is here says that it can be a viable business to help people a really long time. And I love what you do. I love the work that you do. But you're also one guy. Yeah. Right. And I've seen your schedule and I've seen the people that are trying to get on it and have a minute of it or eight minutes of it or whatever it might be. Yeah. And so really, how do we take what you're doing, take the side of the business that Lifeforce is doing, right, and put those together and have the ability for somebody who is, you know, getting a Starbucks and walking back to their car to finally say, okay, this is where the journey starts.

34:02because that's one of the things that you've said that really impacted me in the business was the number one question you get is everyone's like, where do I start?

34:10Gary Brecka:Yeah. Right? Because, you know, you can listen to your podcast, you can, you know, see the things online that you do. And then when it's done, it's almost like getting on the phone with Gary. And then when he hangs up, you're like, all right, now what? Yeah. What do I do tomorrow? What do I do today? How do I start this journey? And I think it is so much easier done at scale in brick and mortar where people can park in their grocery center and they can walk in. Someone can say, well, yeah, this is where it starts, right? It starts right here. And we measure baseline protocols, right? We look at where you're deficient.

34:46We supplement where you're deficient. And we have the playground, right, where you have hyperbaric chambers and red light and lymphatic drainage and cryo guns and all these things that are there. And I think I always tell everybody the second most confronting thing outside of, you know, getting your blood work done is, you know, these in-body scanners. Oh, yeah, yeah. Where you learn for the first time because everybody may know their scale weight within five or ten pounds, right? But scale weight doesn't really matter as much as the other kind of pieces of it, right? And so people find out for the first time, someone who doesn't appear to, you would never call them fat or say they were overweight, all of a sudden finds out they got a lot of visceral fat, right?

35:30And they could have just gone their whole life not knowing it. And so, you know, people getting on that machine kind of in a physical world, right? The outside physicality of like, okay, what's going on in my body or a DEXA scanner or any of these things and then matching that up with what's going on inside. Yeah. Right. And then how do I supplement for that? I just think it's, I think it is a crossroads of, of something that is truly perfect, right? With the people that you have in your platform, how longevity is going and our busy, our ability to scale. I think those are the three pieces that, that put this in shopping centers.

36:04I mean, I, I really agree with that.

36:06Gary Brecka:And for me, it was about, you know, sometimes the pendulum swings so far. and then it takes a while to swing back. And I think, you know, in a way, the pandemic did us all kind of a favor because it put everybody's wellness right in their own face. And I think it woke up a generation of citizen scientists that said, I want to take my healthcare choices into my own hands. Maybe that I'm not as trusting as I was of governmental elites or what have you. I'm not going to outsource my healthcare choices to the extent that I don't have to. and I'm going to take matters into my own hands. And I also think that because I know Gen Z because I have four kids and they're all Gen Z.

36:47Gary Brecka:I've got a 17-year-old, a 22-year-old, 25-year-old and 28-year-old. So I run the whole gamut. And what I see happening in that generation is very promising to me. You know, the alcohol consumption is down 34 % in that generation. That's a third of the alcohol consumption. I mean, the last thing you want to be is like a vodka brand, you know, a launcher. Yeah, I don't know how true this is, but I heard online that at Coachella, which they had, which is that Gen Z, that they sold more at Stagecoach in the first night, which is an older demographic, right? Really? And they did all at Coachella. Really?

37:24Yeah, because no one drinks there anymore. Right, that's pretty wild. Less lines, less to no lines and things like that, which is just amazing. And I think too,

37:32Gary Brecka:that people are craving real human connection again, like community and connection again, like the number of run clubs and social wellness clubs. And each of my kids has been in different run clubs here. I mean, some of their biggest DJs like Diplo and some of the biggest rap artists are having run clubs now. And I think it's a sign of the times and a shift in people's attention going towards community and connection. So having an environment where they can connect and create a sense of community with people that are on a like-minded journey with them. It's one of the foundational underpinnings of longevity.

38:12Gary Brecka:We don't talk about it a lot. We don't talk about faith, community, connection as being medicine, but they are. And to do that at scale, as I got involved with Secretary Kennedy and the Maha movement, I realized it's gonna be decades before we fix the bloated, broken healthcare system. There's too much entrenched worth there. You know, big food, big pharma, and other entrenched corporate interests, including chemical companies. They just have too much of a stranglehold on it. But what we could do to make an impact is keep people out of that system in mass, right? And knowing that 85 % of all chronic disease right now is preventable through things like what we're building, you know, it's really exciting.

38:59And as you talked about with COVID, I think everyone pre-COVID thought somebody else, whether it was the FDA, the government, whoever it might have been, was in charge of their healthcare.

39:11Gary Brecka:Yeah. Right? And so they're just kind of like, hey, they're in charge of my healthcare. I just kind of muddle along and do whatever the doctor says. And somebody out there like this overlord or something of health is out there looking at it. And when COVID happened, I remember people sitting there. I was sitting there and you're like, well, now what? How do I do? Now you're locked in your house. You've got something you can't see that's out there. You know, you got parents, you got kids, you got all that stuff. And like you said, then people figured out, wait, like I'm in charge. Yeah. Right. Like I'm in charge of my home protection.

39:43Right. And I need to make sure I'm making those choices. And so I feel like people, you know, getting out of their houses, you know, really realize that that community connection was taken from them.

39:53Gary Brecka:Yeah. Right. You weren't having Christmas with family. You weren't doing those kinds of things. You know, So many parts of the world, your neighbors called the police when you went outside. Yeah. And so, you know. Yeah. That pendulum swung a little far in some senses. But now people realize that they're in charge and they wanna get back out and be with people and really be in charge of their own health. Yeah. Well, Anthony, this is great, man. I'll be the first one to say I'm proud to be your partner and really excited about what the work that we're doing together and the opportunity we're gonna create for the masses to create community and connection around wellness and longevity and anti-aging and bring the best of evidence-based therapies into middle America so that we can really move the needle for people.

40:39Gary Brecka:We're going to go into my VIP room now because my VIPs have a lot of questions for you. Thank you so much for coming on The Ultimate Human and I'm excited about this journey. Sure. Until next time, guys. That's just science.