And sure enough, David definitely delivered in terms of the fact that there was a recipe for success and so you’ll have to listen in to that, ’cause it’s absolutely hilarious. And you will love these guys. They are just such great people, and if you’ve got any questions for them, absolutely look them up. Get in touch. David De Leon, and Courtney De Leon, from Of the Lion Fitness. I hope you like the episode, bye.

Hello and welcome to the Your Revolution Podcast. The Your Revolution Podcast is a collaboration between Revolution Personal and Performance Training in Melbourne, and The Me Project. The purpose of the Your Revolution Podcast is to inspire you on your mission of betterment. Each week on the Podcast, you’ll meet game changers who have created extraordinary lives, and you’ll listen to stories and lessons to empower you to make the changes necessary to your life. The Your Revolution Podcast is committed to fitness, health, nutrition, mindset, community, education, empowerment, and betterment. And we hope that you can take what you learned here, and apply it to your very own revolution.

Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Revolution Podcast, my name’s Jane Erbacher, and I’m your host. I am back in Austin, Texas, and I say lots of things are my favourite, everything’s the best, I’m always so excited, but Austin is my favourite.

David De Leon: It’s everybody’s favourite.

Jane Erbacher: It’s like no where else in the world.

Courtney DeLeon: It’s amazing.

Jane Erbacher: But this, we were just having this conversation. Apparently everywhere is now becoming like Austin.

David De Leon: Yes.

Courtney DeLeon: They’re trying.

David De Leon: Yeah, everyone is trying, yeah. Or we’re just becoming like everyone else. Who knows. I think we started it all.

Jane Erbacher: No, this is not like anywhere else I’ve been in the world. So, I love it. I’m here with Dave and Courtney, the owners of Of the Lion Fitness, and this is easily one of the best gyms in the world. It actually is. It actually is. And I’m, I hold myself as somebody who gets to say that, because when I travel I go to all the gyms.

David De Leon: You get to visit a lot of gyms. It means a lot. It means more coming from someone who actually, it’s like a chef coming in and being like, “Your restaurant is the best.”

Jane Erbacher: Yes.

David De Leon: Like, oh, thank you, ’cause you’ve been to a lot of restaurants.

Jane Erbacher: Exactly.

Courtney DeLeon: It’s a French chef, if you didn’t get that.

Jane Erbacher: I know, I was like, welcome [inaudible 00:04:46]. But I’m so excited to have you both on, I am excited to be back in Austin. So we were here, I was here two weeks ago, running Project [inaudible 00:04:54]. And I was only in town for 28 hours, I did add them up. And I was so disappointed in myself as I was leaving that I only allowed that amount of time to be here, because it’s not just Austin that brought me back, it was to have you both on the podcast, and it was to immerse myself in your gym. ‘Cause I could not believe when I ran the workshop what a great community you have. And the people are, the people here are so nice. I’ve always said that about Texas, it’s … the manners are like no where else. We need to run lessons in Australia for the manners, but it’s like they’re genuinely nice and good people.

And something that I loved about the coach that you have at the gym is everyone is open to getting better. And that comes from you both. And it comes from also, Travis. One of your coaches. It’s, you were both here at Project [inaudible 00:05:42] open to learning. Neither of you stood in the background thinking, oh I know all this, why haven’t  people listened to me, you were both like, you know what, I’m gonna pick up something today and I’m gonna take that and make me better. And that was the culture that you have, and as I was driving out of here, I was driving to Houston, and it was in a big Texas storm, and I was on the wrong side of the road, and I was a little bit, “Please no one drive anywhere near me. I’m not safe here.”, I was thinking, I can’t believe I didn’t stay longer because it’s people like you we can all learn so much from. So thank you for having me back.

David De Leon: Well we’re glad to have you back. No doubt about it

Jane Erbacher: So thank you. And this time I didn’t crash your house, which [crosstalk 00:06:21].

David De Leon: No …

Courtney DeLeon: You are more than welcome.

David De Leon: Yeah.

Jane Erbacher: Thank you so much.

David De Leon: Anyone can always use our house.

Jane Erbacher: It was seriously like, these guys were like, “You are not staying somewhere else. You are staying with me.”, and I was making jokes to my friends back home that I stayed on a ranch. Apparently it doesn’t-

Courtney DeLeon: Very small one.

Jane Erbacher: Yeah, it doesn’t fit the definition of a ranch.

David De Leon: Not quite.

Jane Erbacher: But you do have two dogs.

David De Leon: It’s like a small, a urban farm, I guess.

Courtney DeLeon: Yeah, there you go.

Jane Erbacher: You have two dogs, one cat, three chickens?

Courtney DeLeon: Yes.

David De Leon: Three chickens, and two lizards. They’re not quite iguanas, but they’re two lizards.

Jane Erbacher: Lizards. Sorry. I got [inaudible 00:06:51], baby iguanas, they’re lizards. Anyway, it’s taken me a really long time to get to the point, but I’m so excited to have these guys on the podcast. I think that I may have asked you about a year ago to be on the podcast.

David De Leon: Yup. You did. It was probably a year ago. Yeah.

Jane Erbacher: Yeah, which is great. So it does take me a while to get things done, but I think that it’s great, you have such a great energy and message to share. And I have learnt so much from you both. So I’m really excited that everybody actually gets to hear from you.

David De Leon: Yup.

Jane Erbacher: So I would love you to tell us a little bit about who you are, what’s led you to now. So either of you can talk, I might direct lots of questions. Yeah, I know … David is the talker.

Courtney DeLeon: David is definitely the talker.

Jane Erbacher: Sportsman.

David De Leon: Well, so Courtney and I, as far as our relationship goes, we met in high school when we were 17 years old. Fitness wasn’t a huge part of her life when we met, it was more-

Courtney DeLeon: I played sports here and there, and moved around a lot. So towards the end of high school, I stopped playing sports, but, that was about it.

David De Leon: Athletics were definitely a part of our lives. Fitness, though, and exercise, was not a part of her life as much as it was mine at the time. And we tried to get to the YMCA together and work out, didn’t work out all the time. It’s … you already start to … well, you’re not doing this right, you’re not doing that right. But it was okay. And Courtney and I spend our, the half part of our senior year together. We started dating a little bit in college. We weren’t together, we got back together afterwords. And by that time I was already fully involved in fitness. I started running a garage gym when I was probably, you say 20, 19, 20 years old? I cleared out a garage, and this is still on YouTube, by the way. There’s a YouTube video of me putting together my first ever garage gym. And here’s a little side story on that, if you know what bumper plates are, rubber plates? In the video, I’m like, “Yeah, and I got these new bumper plates.”, and literally they’re just metal weights weights that we bought at the local …

Courtney DeLeon: Sears?

David De Leon: Yeah, yeah, the local Sears. And they’re just coated in rubber, but they’re not actually bumper plates, so I obviously have no idea what the hell I’m talking about.

Jane Erbacher: No, that is so funny. Do you do any videos where you’re dropping it, and it’s just crashed [crosstalk 00:09:06]?

David De Leon: I don’t know if we … there are quite a few videos from that gym on YouTube. I was already … I was like, “Yeah, we need to be online.”, and do all this stuff, so I was in it. Yeah.

Jane Erbacher: What year was this?

David De Leon: This was 2007 or 2008. I even have testimonial videos of people that would come for my classroom. If I met ’em in class, they would come work out, and then I would do a testimonial, like how did you like the workout?

Jane Erbacher: Oh my God, you’ve been all over it for so long.

David De Leon: Yeah, so I was already deeply involved. Got out of college, graduated for a while, I thought, I have to go work a regular job, right? A regular job. I applied for both Border Patrol, as a Border Patrol agent, and as a police officer. I didn’t get in to either one of them. And I started working at a gym, here in Austin, about a year and half in. There were just things that I didn’t appreciate about it, not appreciate, that I didn’t think were right. I thought could be better. So I opened up OTL Fitness. Courtney, at the time-

Courtney DeLeon: 2012.

David De Leon: That was 2012. Courtney, at the time was already back in Austin, she had an internship in Hawaii, right before that, but she was back in Austin, working as a vet tech. I opened up OTL Fitness in about 650 to 750 square feet of space. Totally run down, you’ve seen it before. We drove you by.

Jane Erbacher: yeah.

David De Leon: It was just the …

Courtney DeLeon: Perfect starting place.

David De Leon: Perfect starting place, yeah. It was the imperfect, perfect starting place. The smell there was terrible, it was tiny. And when I say it was run down, it was run down, but we made it look good. We tried to keep it organised. But we knew at the foundational level, if we kept quality there, and we really cared about people, we could really create something great. And there were just that foundational group of people who believed in that, and we continued to bring great quality, and they continued to follow us.

It didn’t matter where we were, because they knew that our vision was to grow from there, and they believe in that vision. And they believed in us, and we were able to grow from there. And that was with the help of people who … one of our clients owned a car dealership down the street, and he let us use the big parking lot of the … it was empty at the time, so start boot camps, and to run … what were they called? Community workouts. We did all that type of stuff, but we asked. Those resources were there and we asked for those resources.

I think a lot of people just think, oh you got lucky, you had someone that was there to help you do that stuff. Well, everybody has these types of opportunities, but not everybody actually opens their mouths and asks these questions. But we asked. And it wasn’t, “Please, please, please.”, it was, “Hey, if you don’t mind, we’d love to do this.” And we did. And we went after it every single day. We worked super hard, and we were so fortunate to run into the space that we have now, that this gym now, totally random.

I always had this vision of what I wanted the gym to look like, and when we found this place, it wasn’t even available. We were looking at a different gym right in front of our gym, or a different space in front of our gym, and I was like, “I want that spot.” And the guy, our real estate agent that was helping us was like, “Well, it’s not even available. I don’t know what to do.” And two weeks later he called, week or two weeks later, he’s like, “You’re not gonna believe this. My client just bought all of that land, and they need a tenant in the warehouse.”

Jane Erbacher: Oh my God, that’s the best.

David De Leon: And I was like, “Uh, me, hello! I’ll take that.”

Jane Erbacher: Yeah.

David De Leon: And that’s what we, we led to this. But you can change locations, but if the quality changes, doesn’t matter where you are. And I think a lot of people in the gym industry, they get into it and they’re like, “I need the newest equipment. The fanciest equipment.”, this and that. Equipment doesn’t matter. Weight is weight. If you can’t get strong using things you find on Craigslist or at a garage sale …

Jane Erbacher: Or with your own body.

David De Leon: Or with your own body weight, then you just can’t do it. If you can’t be creative enough to figure it out. So for us it wasn’t always top of the line everything. It was top of the line quality, and belief in the people that were, and once we instilled that, then they began to believe in us, and then here we are now, at the space we’re at. And I’m not saying that, we’re the most successful gym. We’re successful in the sense that we have a great tribe of people who believe in us, and they know that we believe in them. And to me, that’s one of the best things that you can have.

Jane Erbacher: 100%. And everything that I’m hearing from you is complete … this is what you’re meant to be doing. And you’ve been doing it since you were 19. And it’s really interesting seeing the different patterns you see of success. So you see different people and it’s like this was ingrained in you for such a long time, and I think that so many people in our industry, and other industries, put the focus on external. Like, “I need this. I need this space. I need this equipment to be good at what I do.”, and it’s like you ran it in a place, and you showed me the place, that you ran it. It was not a welcoming place. It was not, but people followed you.

David De Leon: I’m pretty sure a hundred pound dog was walking up to our car when we drove-

Jane Erbacher: Yeah, with one eye.

David De Leon: Yeah.

Jane Erbacher: I was like, are these … are the doors locked?

David De Leon: Yeah.

Jane Erbacher: ‘Cause that dog could just jump up and get me. [crosstalk 00:13:58].

David De Leon: It was a big dog. And just to add to that, Jane. The other part of this is you have to have a liking for business. You can’t get into this industry just having a passion for fitness. You can gain the knowledge for business, which is what I did, it was hard not to … I didn’t study business, I studied leadership in school, and I had a minor in kinesiology.

Jane Erbacher: [crosstalk 00:14:19] teach leadership.

David De Leon: And it’s not about just having the passion for working out. Like, oh I like to work out, I think I should own a gym. When I was 12, I got a loan from my dad and I bought gumball machines at the local Sam’s Club, which is our wholesale club. And then I went to different hair salons and I put gumball machines up ’cause at the time, I already had that entrepreneurial itch. I knew that I wanted to do stuff for myself, and it was always a service to others. Some people like to go into product based businesses, business to consumer, which is kind of like what we do, and we also have shifted to business to business, but I just have always known that running a business is what I wanted to do. Fitness as the vehicle came in later in life, and that’s just where the direction took us.

Jane Erbacher: Can you just give me a little bit more detail on the gumball story, ’cause it’s like, I’ve told so many people about this story.

David De Leon: Yeah.

Jane Erbacher: I love it. So tell everyone what you actually did. So you got given a loan from your parents …

David De Leon: So my dad gave me a loan, at 12. And they were two gumball machines, they were $65 dollars each to start out. And I went to the local salons that I knew, if a 12 year old kid is gonna approach you, you’re gonna say yes. How do you say no to a 12 year old kid? I was like, “Hi, can I put my gumball machine in here?”, and they’re like, “Oh my God, absolutely!”

Jane Erbacher: And with those big, blue eyes? They’re like, “Yes.”

David De Leon: My dad and I put it in there. Sam’s Club had all the gumballs. We’d get the gumballs, pour ’em in, and then on … I think it was Sunday’s, because some of these salons were open on Sunday’s, we would drive around and we’d collect the quarters. I’m sorry, those were Saturdays. Saturdays we would go and pick up the gumballs. I’d take a HEB bag, HEB’s like our local grocery story, and I would scoop out the coins, and I would walk around, and I would make $30 per gumball machine.

But at the same time, it was a lesson because I’d get calls in the middle of the week, saying, “Hey, our gumball machine is stuck. Someone put a penny in it, how do we get the penny out?” So, at a very young age you start to realise, there has to be systems to this. Which at that age, I wasn’t thinking systems, but I was like, “Oh, how do I … I’m in school.” I can’t go drive over there and help.

Jane Erbacher: I need an employee.

David De Leon: Yeah, I think I need an employee for this. And it didn’t last a very long time, but it was definitely the introduction to business. And my dad was totally for it. He loved the fact that I, and my mom as well. They were like, “Oh my God, this is a great idea.” And sometimes I still think, what if I would have kept doing that? Could I have been the vending machine king of Austin?

Jane Erbacher: I know. If only.

David De Leon: If only, right.

Jane Erbacher: I feel like what you’ve done is better.

David De Leon: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Jane Erbacher: But it’s really interesting, like everything that you’ve said, because I wanted you on here as a part of this series that I’m doing, which is how to turn passion into profit. And I look at you both as you’re not settling. You’re not complacent, you’re always working for what you need to work for, and I think that in the fitness industry, there’s such a fear of business. And what I’m constantly having conversations with people about is the better you run your business, the more people you can impact.

David De Leon: Yup.

Jane Erbacher: So if you’re getting into this industry because you want to help people, guess how many more people you can help when you can afford to help them.

David De Leon: Right.

Jane Erbacher: And there’s advertisements on the radio in Australia for certificates in fitness. And it’s, “Do you want to get paid to keep fit?”, and every time I hear it, I’m like, I get so upset, because I’m like …

David De Leon: I hear those too. They have those here.

Jane Erbacher: Yeah. And it’s like, that’s not what it’s about at all. That’s not even the start of it. And I love what you’ve talked about, because what you’ve talked about is that you’ve created from the very beginning of what you both started, is you’ve created an incredible product. You’ve created an incredible product that’s researched and it’s constantly evolving, and getting better, and it’s not based on a new piece of equipment or anything. That just fits into what you’re doing. You deliver it in a way that builds a culture. So you’ve got a great product. You’ve got great systems around it. And you learnt that at 12 years old with a gumball machine.

And then it’s about the people, and you encourage the people, and you were doing testimonials, and you got all that. And what I want to know is, you said that you did research in business, but how did you learn that that was the way to do it?

David De Leon: I failed a lot. I got letters from the city saying you did pay this type of tax this … when you were supposed to. Or getting different letters from different people. It was literally failing, and then going on Google and saying, oh what is this tax? I didn’t know anything about franchise tax, I didn’t know anything about sales. I didn’t know anything about anything. And I’m not being dramatic about that. I didn’t know anything about an LLC, I didn’t know anything about a DBA. I didn’t know anything about insurance. But we live in an age where we have the internet.

If you are making the excuse that, “Oh, well I don’t know.” To me, that is the person that is so easy to be, and I know that there’s so many people like that, that when people go, “Oh, well there’s a lot of competition in fitness.” I look at it, and i think about how hard it is to fail that way, and then not have an ego, to be like well that doesn’t matter. I think about other people doing it and I’m like, I don’t know if they have the ability to go through the two, three years of learning all that stuff. So that’s what makes it easier to win the long run, is I’m willing to fail, and learn, and then learn from those failures every single time.

And Courtney knows, I’m like, “I don’t even know what this means.”

Courtney DeLeon: I was like, “Oh God, I’ll be in the other room!”

David De Leon: But then you remember, you can call people. You can Google things. You can ask people. All that’s there, and that’s how you learn. When I tell people I have a leadership degree, they’re like, “Oh, that was probably the easy classes.”, and it absolutely was a much easier way, a route to go, but I wasn’t gonna take a business class and learn business from someone who’s never ran a business before.

Jane Erbacher: Totally.

David De Leon: And then you find mentors. I started finding, not mentors, but people I could go to and ask questions that were running legitimate businesses.

Jane Erbacher: Totally. And had tried and failed at other businesses.

David De Leon: Exactly.

Jane Erbacher: ‘Cause that’s the great thing, I think that failing, the term failing is our greatest teacher. But so many people are so afraid of it, they just never take a risk.

David De Leon: Well, they see it as failure.

Jane Erbacher: Yeah.

David De Leon: And I call it failure, but it’s, to my, I don’t even see it … it’s just a hard knocks education.

Jane Erbacher: Totally.

David De Leon: I would rather have to pay a fine on something that I didn’t know I was supposed to pay, ’cause that’s me paying my tuition towards my grad school, right?

Jane Erbacher: Totally.

David De Leon: Not an actual grad school, but to me, this is grad school. I’m learning all my business degree stuff right now. And I’m paying for it by mistakes that I made in the beginning, but that’s the way it works.

Jane Erbacher: Totally, and we live in such a strange culture where people stop learning after they leave school. It’s like, you leave school, you go to college, and then you just sit on your butt for the rest of your life.

David De Leon: Well you talked about it. You said when you were here at the seminar, that we were so engaged and willing to learn, that’s what everything is about.

Jane Erbacher: Yeah.

David De Leon: I do not know everything. Courtney does not know everything. And Travis does not know everything. If we tried to pretend that we knew everything, we would be the most stagnant fitness facility in Austin. And how boring is that? And how egocentric is it to believe that you know everything [inaudible 00:21:09]?

And I go to these seminars, these training seminars. And there’s always that one, there’s always one or two people that, they’re just in the back like, “I know everything.”, and they move the worst, they don’t know anything, and it’s like lose the ego, drop that [crosstalk 00:21:22], and be willing to learn.

Jane Erbacher: And their business is failing.

David De Leon: Yes.

Jane Erbacher: Yeah.

David De Leon: Yes, exactly.

Jane Erbacher: Exactly. And that whole thing of asking for help, it’s … ego is such an interesting area in both fitness and in business. And it’s if you see anybody that succeeded in either, they’ve asked for help. You don’t see, Roger Federer has a coach. I told know why I went straight to tennis, then, but I did and [inaudible 00:21:42] but, he has a coach that still helps him even though he’s been the best in the world for so long.

So this whole idea that you know everything, is crazy. Richard Branson still has a business coach. It’s there anybody better at business than Richard Branson …

David De Leon: You know what it is, it’s an excuse.

Jane Erbacher: Yes.

David De Leon: Everybody just uses it as an excuse, like they use everything else. Just like they say, “Well, I don’t know how to get my LLC.”, that’s an excuse. “Well, I heard you have to …”, that’s an excuse. You just have to do these things, and you have to be open minded, and you have to know that to evolve constantly as a human, and allow our minds to evolve, we have to continuously get new forms of education. It would be like coming into the gym everyday and doing one exercise over and over again, and thinking, “Well, I don’t need to do anything else.”

Jane Erbacher: Totally.

David De Leon: You’re not, you’re only going to get a certain result, and then eventually the body starts adapting to that form of training, just like it adapts to what you already know. You have to read books, you have to watch documentaries, if that’s what you like to do. Or listen to podcasts.

Jane Erbacher: Have conversation with people.

David De Leon: Have conversations with people, which everyone’s so afraid to do, don’t be afraid to go into a situation where you’re called upon of something you don’t know.

Jane Erbacher: Totally.

David De Leon: Because then someone, the person asks you these questions, either already know and they’re gonna help you, or then you’re exposed, and you go, “Oh, I need to learn that kind of stuff.”

Jane Erbacher: Totally. Oh, it’s so interesting. I love listening to him. You have your own podcast.

David De Leon: I do, yeah.

Jane Erbacher: You need to talk about it right now, because everyone’s gonna be Googling you right now.

David De Leon: No, so I run a podcast called Garage Gym Startup, and it is not a how to get 150 new members in your gym. Actually, my most recent one, it was how to get a hundred new members in your gym and ruin your business!

Jane Erbacher: Yes.

David De Leon: So it’s not … it’s the anti of all of that.

Jane Erbacher: How to build a six figure business out of the back of your house.

David De Leon: Everybody wants to sell that dream because people are dumb enough to believe that that’s how things work. And mine is about the grind. Yes, buy my six step way to success, and the guy that’s doing it has … all they’re doing is writing an e-book.

Jane Erbacher: Totally. He’s sitting in the bathroom right now.

David De Leon: Yeah, exactly. But the Garage Gym Startup is all about the grind, and what it has taken, and the steps that we’ve taken that have worked. Things that we’ve done that haven’t worked. Our goal is to get people on and to interview people, not only in the fitness industry, but outside of, because business is business. In the sense of, everybody has typically the same foundation of how things should run. Especially in a service based business, which is what we’re in, where we’re having to serve other people. But it’s just that. And we have old episodes, from what the podcast used to be, and it recently was transitioned to the Garage Gym Startup, and it’s on iTunes. So that’s where people can find it, but it really is just me documenting things that we’ve gone through.

I talk about …

Courtney DeLeon: Started from the old gym, we’ll move on to now. But it’s like stories and recommendations, and maybe some things that he doesn’t recommend, and …

Jane Erbacher: Mm. And it’s like your learning experience over the time.

David De Leon: Exactly, because when we were starting the gym, there wasn’t really a podcast out for us to listen to to help us with the small things that, do I pass out flyers? Or do I put up signs?

Jane Erbacher: How do I market? Is it all paid ads on Facebook? And it’s like, no.

David De Leon: So we’re, like I said the most recent one I did is literally about when you have your first 15 people, what do you next, and what kind of marketing did we do? And then one of our next episodes, probably the next one or two, I’m gonna literally go verbatim of how I break down creating a Facebook advertisement, and it’s not an easy process. And it’s very long, and people will probably think, well if you’re gonna give it away, what if someone in your area uses it. It is such a long, arduous process that I guarantee 98% of people who hear it are gonna go, oh … or they’ll do it once, and never do it again. Because it’s not easy! And that’s what the whole thing is about. Is that this stuff isn’t easy. It’s not just showing up to the gym and working out all day long. There’s a high stress to it sometimes in the sense of, I want to take care of all these people, how do I take care of everyone without totally destroying myself.

Jane Erbacher: And do I have time to do that? This is the question that so many people ask me, is I talk to people who run a fitness business, and they’re will to put two hours into their training a day, and it’s … but then they get to the business stuff and they’re like, I just hate the tech stuff, or I hate the communication stuff. I hate writing emails. And it’s like, do you want to run a successful business?

David De Leon: I worked out a lot more when I wasn’t running a gym.

Jane Erbacher: Yes. Exactly. The more time you spend in a gym, the less time you have to work out.

David De Leon: Yup.

Jane Erbacher: And it’s so interesting because it’s like people are willing to put that time into their own training, but it’s the exact same tools required to put it into your business. It’s just out of your comfort zone.

David De Leon: It’s out of your comfort zone. And then they go home, and then they put two hours into TV, and they go put two hours into Facebook, and two hours into all these other things, so you’re just finding ways to get around it, ’cause it’s not easy.

Jane Erbacher: Totally. And it’s not a … I spoke to somebody a couple weeks ago who was just starting his own personal training business. He was renting a space in a big gym and I was like, oh great, how are you gonna market? And he was like, oh I’m just gonna do some social media. And I was like, who to? People you know, people you don’t know? Yeah, I’m just gonna pay for some ads. And I was like, you need to be speaking to every single person you come in contact with. And I heard this awesome podcast recently, actually, saw this guy, his name is Matthew Hussey, you would love him. He’s loosely a dating coach, but he talks a lot about business. And his whole thing about sales is, I do this awesome thing, you should go to it. As in, and that’s basically it, it’s like when you believe so wholeheartedly in what you do, it’s not sales.

David De Leon: You’re not selling. You’re not selling it at all. Yup.

Jane Erbacher: And you’re so passionate about delivering it, every single person that walks out of the door here, is telling everybody in their life about how great you are. It’s not about you, then, just getting home and doing a post, everybody come to my gym. It’s like, you’re living it, and doing it. And so that’s so interesting because if people were to listen to what you do, and in your podcast, they would learn so much from it. But it’s in the application phase.

David De Leon: It’s all about execution.

Jane Erbacher: Exactly.

David De Leon: And execution is hard because everybody is afraid that they’re gonna fail, or they’re afraid of what someone’s gonna say about ’em. They’re afraid that their wife doesn’t have their back, they’re afraid that their mom or dad is gonna be mad at them, and they’re so concerned about what everybody else thinks, that it’s hard to execute because of that fear of what can happen.

Jane Erbacher: Totally.

David De Leon: And I’ve just … she’s known me a very long time, and that’s what makes this a lot easier to work together. I was like, I really don’t care what you think.

Jane Erbacher: Totally. And it’s so interesting, we were talking about, before the podcast, we were talking about identity, and how quick people are to attach themself to an identity external to themself, because it is really scary being your brand. Or leaving what you do, and you’re both always in the OTL clothes, you don’t want down the street and you’re not OTL. You’re not Courtney De Leon, it’s like, did I say that right?

David De Leon: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s perfect. Yeah.

Jane Erbacher: But it’s like you believe so wholeheartedly in what you do, that you’re a part of everything you put out there. You’re not then attaching yourself to an external identity that explains you.

David De Leon: No, we are us.

Jane Erbacher: Yeah.

David De Leon: And everywhere we go, people understand that. That’s our brand. Sometimes it even has it’s downside to it, because we are so much the brand that it’s hard to do anything else because people are like, well you’re the brand. But in the long run, it’s so much easier that way, because we have to live that lifestyle every single day and that holds us accountable.

Jane Erbacher: Totally. And you believe in it. And that’s why you’ve created it.

David De Leon: Yeah.

Jane Erbacher: Something I want to know, is you’re married, and you work together. Partnerships are hard, no matter what. How do you find working with each other, and running a business together?

David De Leon: Yeah, I’ll let Courtney answer first, and then I’ll answer after.

Courtney DeLeon: Well, I mean …

David De Leon: I should not listen to it.

Jane Erbacher: I think that you’re pretty amazing, I think she’s gonna say good stuff.

Courtney DeLeon: We’ve been together and been around each other for so long, that its’ really easy to be around each other, and I think that that helps a tonne. But don’t get me wrong, there’s ups and downs, in relationship and business, even if you’re not married. Even if it’s a friendly relationship, people have ups and downs, so we go through those normal things, but it’s so helpful because people always say, “Oh, do you separate business and pleasure in your relationship?”, and yeah, to an extent, but we never turn off. This is how we pay our bills and this is how we eat at night, so it’s nice sometimes if we just have a random idea, to have that person right next to you and just be able to talk to them, versus, “I’ll talk about it tomorrow when I see her at 7 AM.”, or whatever.

Jane Erbacher: And you can’t switch off the passion.

Courtney DeLeon: Exactly.

Jane Erbacher: You can’t. Yeah. And someone else that gets it as much. It’s like, that would be really nice, when you come home and it’s one of you is like, “Oh my God, I thought of this, that we can do that will make this great.”

Courtney DeLeon: There’s a mutual respect if I’m doing … ’cause I do custom meal plans for people, if I’m needing to finish a meal plan, and it’s 10 PM, he’s not like, “Oh my God, you’re done working?”, it’s like, okay I understand that that needs to be done.

David De Leon: I’m like, maybe you need to stay up ’til 11 o’clock, make that even better.

Courtney DeLeon: And it’s the same for him. If he’s like, “I need to go record a podcast, and it’s 10:30, and he has to wake up at 4:30, I’m like, “Okay.”, I understand that. If you need to go do it, that’s fine.

Jane Erbacher: Not gonna get on his back.

Courtney DeLeon: Exactly. We understand where we’re both coming from.

David De Leon: I think she’s right on point with all that. Yeah, she’s spot on. The thing that I would add is if anybody is getting into business with a partner, whether it’s someone you’re married to, especially if it’s someone you’re married to, you have to have communication up front, and the communication leads everything. If there’s a lack of communication in your business with your partner, whether that’s someone you’re married to or not, you will fail every single time because everything is exposed at some point of time during your business. So if you don’t communicate out in front of all of that stuff, it catches up, and then you’re in a hole.

So anytime something comes up, we communicate. And there’s been times when Courtney and I will start arguing about something that’s gym related, and we have to remind ourselves, right now we’re talking about this like business partners, not as a married couple, and I’ve had a response to Courtney, it’s like, but we are married. And I have to remember that. Yes, you are still … I am still your partner in life, and in marriage. And that is, I think the one thing that can crush most people who are married and start businesses, because if you met someone three years ago and then you started a business with them, you may not know them at their deepest root when things get really crazy.

The fortunate thing for us is that we’ve known each other so long, that she’s seen me at my craziest, and she has seen me at my happiest or my lowest low, and my highest high, so there’s nothing new to her. And when we come out and we communicate things with each other, we understand this communication right now is gonna be civil, it’s gonna be about business. And without that communication, you just throw everything off.

Jane Erbacher: Totally.

David De Leon: So that’s, the communication has definitely been the key. And I see a lot of people going into business too, with their girlfriend or boyfriend, and I just really think, too soon is too soon sometimes. You have-

Courtney DeLeon: We were just dating when the gym started, but again, it’s so different for us.

David De Leon: We weren’t just, we were still dating, but you know.

Courtney DeLeon: Not just dating, we were still …

David De Leon: We were already at the point in time where people …

Courtney DeLeon: We were not … we were not married when the gym first started.

David De Leon: Yeah, yeah. I would say, we were already at the point in time where people were like, “Are y’all ever gonna get married?”

Courtney DeLeon: Yeah.

David De Leon: We’d been dating for 8 years.

Courtney DeLeon: Yeah, but we had known each other for so long, so that was so much different.

David De Leon: Because money involved in anything can change anyone. And Courtney knows, we can go on vacation, and she can sit on the beach and lay in the sun and not think about anything. I’m at the beach thinking, “Okay, what can we do for the business? How can we improve our business? Are people gonna be upset that we’re gone?”, it’s never off.

Courtney DeLeon: Right. And it’s … he’s very right. I could be sitting there doing nothing, but if you wanted to talk to me, I would totally talk with him about it. But I think that that also balances us out, because he can get really manic, and I can just be, hm. Well, let’s just talk about it.

Jane Erbacher: Totally. And that enables the conversation to then happen properly. Whereas is you got manic too, it’d be crazy.

Courtney DeLeon: Exactly.

David De Leon: You’re exactly right. We balance each other out. And I’m highly aware of how I am, and how I act in my emotional state, because I think in business, depression is a huge thing in business, that a lot of people don’t know that it’s there, and they’re very not self aware. And you have to really be self aware as a business owner, because you’re gonna go through ups and downs, and states of depression, and states of high anxiety. And if you’re not aware, you don’t know how to control that, and since I’m highly aware of it, I’m very open and not ego driven. And I’ll tell Courtney, hey, I’m having problems right now. This is how I’m really feeling. I almost feel like I’m depressed, or I feel this way. But people who hide it because they’re so ego driven, that can really crush people.

Jane Erbacher: Completely. And if other people around them don’t know how to deal with that, then they don’t know what’s going on.

David De Leon: Exactly.

Jane Erbacher: So, it’s like [crosstalk 00:34:06].

David De Leon: And if they don’t know what’s going on, they don’t know how to deal with it, so it’s both ends of it.

Jane Erbacher: Completely. It’s so interesting because, watching you both, even how you interact, and what you just said about balance is, you actually need both of these personalities to run a good business. Because it’s not that you’re closed off to ideas, you’re open to them, just as much as he is …

Courtney DeLeon: I’m just not as vocal.

Jane Erbacher: Exactly. And you’re just not as … and it’s, that’s what he needs. ‘Cause it’s like …

David De Leon: And to the other side, there is absolutely no such thing as work life balance. I think people get obsessed with this PC culture of, “Oh, so you’re work life …”, my dad worked extremely hard when I was a kid, but between the ages of when I was born to five, I don’t remember anything, at all. Not because … I just don’t remember that part of my … who really remembers what happened when they were two years old? And you’re from that working environment, and I don’t even know where I was going with this, what were we talking about?

Jane Erbacher: Balancing each other.

David De Leon: Oh, oh, the work life balance. Right. So I really believe work is just essential. I love work, I love getting up early to have to come to work because that’s what’s been ingrained in me from a very young age. You work. You have to provide for your family, and people … this is what I was going towards too, there’s just so much focus on, are you gonna be able to … your daughter’s one, or your kid is one, and you’re supposed to be, have to be there all the time for this one year, and it’s like, well what I’m doing now if setting ourselves up for when we have kids, and then beyond that. And people just get caught up in the PC world of the way things are supposed to be. And the people that are talking about it, that are like, “Oh, yeah, I get to spend all my time with my kids.”, they’re at home, on their phone on Instagram and Facebook anyways.

Jane Erbacher: Is it quality?

David De Leon: Yeah, is it quality time?

Jane Erbacher: And I completely agree with you and I think that people forget that all your time is all your time. And it’s all so precious. And so if you’re wasting time in job that you don’t like, but then you’re going home and you’re all, but I got balance, I come home and I watch four hours [crosstalk 00:36:08].

Courtney DeLeon: The balance is an excuse to not have to do any more work, and go watch Game of Thrones.

Jane Erbacher: Exactly. And to not acknowledge the fact that you don’t like the job that you do.

Courtney DeLeon: Right.

Jane Erbacher: And that’s where the issue lies.

David De Leon: Yup.

Courtney DeLeon: Yes.

Jane Erbacher: If you love your job so much, that you come home and you want to keep talking about it, and then that is balance, because your life is … you’re actually valuing your life.

David De Leon: I would hate to be at a job that I just can’t wait to go home on Friday.

Jane Erbacher: Yeah, oh my God, that’s my worst nightmare. I …

David De Leon: Oh, Monday’s, womp womp. And I’m like, ahh, what is that?

Jane Erbacher: And it’s really interesting since travelling around, so many people are like, oh, so you’re working while you’re travelling. And I’m like, I love what I do. I can’t stop. I get out of bed and I start doing it because I can’t stop. And it’s the same as you guys, it’s like it oozes out of you. Why wouldn’t you want to find something in your life and create something in your life that you can’t wait to do, even if you’re in Austin, and people are swimming in Barton Springs, which is …

David De Leon: Well, I told you yesterday, I was at the bank, and the girl was saying that she’s gonna go to school, and she was gonna be a part of an entrepreneurial programme, I was like, “Oh, what kind of business do you run?”, she goes, “I just want to make money.”, and I was like, you are gonna crash and burn, because you can make money doing anything, but if you want to make it your life and your business, but you don’t absolutely love it? And I’m not saying that you’re gonna love every aspect of it, but as a whole, if you don’t love it, you’re just gonna bury yourself very deep.

Jane Erbacher: And you just won’t make any money. If your focus is … it’s like money is an exchange of energy, it comes along with the other changes that you create, and so it’s money just such an interesting thing to focus on, it’s like, you missed the point.

David De Leon: And we all spend it differently. We all save it differently. So how much you make, for us, it may not be very much, but the way we spend money, and the way we use it, is so much different than other people that …

Jane Erbacher: And you need to enjoy your time. And value you time. And then it’s like money isn’t alongside that.

David De Leon: Right.

Courtney DeLeon: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jane Erbacher: So I want to ask you, the one thing I actually was gonna say about that is that you both are based on the same intention with the business. And I think that that’s a really core ingredient to run an successful business, that you have the same intention with what you deliver, and you also have a mutual respect for each other. And I still remember the first time I met you, David, our very first conversation was about how amazing Courtney was. And I was like, “I need to meet this girl.” I was looking her up on Instagram, and I was like … to meet somebody who speaks so highly of the person that they’re with, is just … I can’t even believe it’s real? That kind of made me sad after when I reflected, I was like, wow, that made a real impression on me. That should be the norm.

And I think that since when I met you, you had the exact same feeling about David. And it’s like there’s this incredible respect you have for each other, and you genuinely both look up to each other. And you both see value in what you contribute to the relationship, and also to business. And that is so key. And it’s so real, though. It’s not like you’re trying. It’s not like you’re like, what did you squat the other day? Was it 340, or something?

Courtney DeLeon: No, 304.

Jane Erbacher: Oh, but still. Pounds don’t mean anything to me anyway, but I saw a lot of plates on that. And as in kilogrammes, I think it might be like 145 …

David De Leon: I have no idea.

Courtney DeLeon: That sounds about right.

Jane Erbacher: It was a lot. And it’d be like you not respecting what she can do, but you’re like, look what she can do. And look what she says, and she’s amazing.

David De Leon: Well, I think a lot of it too comes from … if people didn’t know Courtney when she was 17, they don’t understand the transformation that she’s gone through, and seeing that is really inspiring, because she was super quiet, didn’t talk to anyone. I remember the first time she … she has this very emo vibe, right? Her hair across her face.

Courtney DeLeon: I had the side bangs.

David De Leon: And it wasn’t a style thing, it was very much a thing of, it was her comfort zone. It was her way to put herself back from everyone.

Jane Erbacher: And hide herself.

David De Leon: Right. So she comes to my house one day, and my grandmother’s there, my grandma only speaks Spanish, and she leaves, and she sa