The First Time I Hit 6-Figures, In Debt.
$16,087.75.
That is the amount of money left owing on my consolidation loan.
With a monthly payment of $759.93, this should be paid off in 2025.
In the business community, the first milestone we all try to achieve is “6-Figures” and I never would have thought I achieve that goal backwards.
And I’d do it again.
It all started with a $500,000 business loan from ATB Financial.
Our gym business was doing great.
My wife and I were working as personal trainers and nutrition coaches out of our small 1,500-square-foot studio in Edmonton, AB.
As our clientele began to grow, so did our aspirations.
We made the gutsy decision that we wanted to expand. Little did we know the roller coaster of a ride that awaited us - and how much we were going to be challenged to grow during this time.
After we found our new location and secured a $500,000 small business loan, construction started.
(Even though it took a little bit of work, in retrospect it now seems like it was to easy to secure half a million dollars)
I was like a kid in a candy store.
I had $500,000 and I could use it to build the gym of my dreams.
At the time as a 5-time bodybuilder and 2-time powerlifter working as a personal trainer and nutrition coach, there isn’t more you could ask for.
We scoured the planet for the best equipment we could possibly find.
Custom equipment flown in from Germany and the United Kingdom, special order paint and fabric to match our colors, special turf to line the brick wall, custom speakers hung from the ceiling, painting the ceiling jet black to set the mood, hand-built powerlifting equipment assembled by a carpenter, and competition grade equipment to support my training.
We built the gym of our dreams.
A 6,000 square foot private facility that would only be used by our private training clients and my 1 friend Jordan, who was given the sole honor of having the only “membership” to train whenever he wanted.
From the outside looking in we were on top of the world.
Having a gym gave us newfound credibility.
Not only within our city but with our friends and family.
It wasn’t long after our Grand Opening celebrations (with an open bar and a DJ) that things began to take a turn that we never anticipated.
From the outside, we had it all.
My wife was awarded the #1 Personal Trainer in the city.
We were named the #1 Private Gym.
We developed a partnership with Lululemon and routinely held charity events.
We hosted sold-out bootcamps on the weekends.
I was writing for fitness magazines and hosting a podcast that was getting thousands of downloads per episode.
We hosted the first-of-its-kind fitness conferences in 2017 and 2018 flying in guest experts from the United States, the UK, and New Zealand.
Our team expanded to having 8 employees and 2 interns.
And we were clearing $40,000 per month in revenue.
But what people didn’t see, yet at least…
Is that we couldn’t afford to pay ourselves.
We worked 7 days a week.
We were up at 4 am and didn’t get home till after 9 pm on most days.
It was then I entered into a deep and dark time of my life.
I had a falling out with my brother, and (as I reflect back now) entered into a years-long depression.
It wasn’t long after I was drinking 4 Monster Energy drinks every single day with cans visually piling up on my desk.
And our “date nights”, recommended to us by a mentor, turned into an excuse to drink, eat, and escape for a moment before doing it all over again the next day.
Our love for our gym was quickly fading.
It became clear we could no longer hide it when our clients called us out.
“You look like shit.”
The pile of energy drinks, and the dark circles under my eyes, it was clear from just a single look at my pale and concave face that the passion was gone.
Both Laura and I had clients independently comment on how poorly we were looking at work.
It was clear, we weren’t hiding it anymore.
We didn’t know what to do. We felt trapped in a prison that we had built for ourselves.
We gripped and held on as long as we could.
We were gym owners. This was our identity. We hadn’t known anything else for years. This was who we were, this is how people viewed us, this is what people respected us for.
We had built a community of over 100 people who routinely came into our sanctuary.
We had built a team of trainers and interns who relied on us to put food on their tables.
Then everything changed as I broke down in tears driving to work one morning.
I walked in, sat my wife down, and said “I think we need to close the gym.”
A revelation my wife had already come to but we were both too scared to let the words actually come out of our mouths.
Because we both knew what this meant:
$100,000 worth of debt we were personally liable for if we defaulted on our government-backed loan.
The threat of a lawuit from our landord if we broke our lease.
Dissolving a community of friends and family we spent years of blood sweat and tears building.
And shattering our entire identity as gym owners which was all we’d come to know.
It meant failure.
But the moment the words left my mouth the decision felt easy.
Even though it was not a decision I came to lightly.
I even hired mentors to discuss the decision and explore alternative options with.
Except it was listening to Extreme Ownership on audible as I drove to work one morning where everything became crystal clear.
At that moment I realized one important thing.
I knew what I needed to do if we were going to turn the gym around.
And I knew that I did not want to do it.
So closing the gym became the only option and everything that would ensue would be necessary.
Our gym officially closed on September 30, 2018
The same weekend as our 2018 L2 Fitness Summit I flew in 4 world-renowned speakers and rented out the local Hyatt to host the event.
I can still remember driving up to our gym the following morning of October 1, not knowing if my keys would still open the door, or if the lights would turn on, to get one final workout in with Eric Helms (one of our renowned speakers - and one of the most brilliant and kind people I’ve met).
I remember sitting in awe, trying to take it all in.
This was the last time I would ever step foot in our gym.
And there I was working out side-by-side with a world-renowned expert who runs multiple businesses, and speaks at conferences around the world, it was a special moment I will hold on to for the rest of my life.
I wish I could say what followed was easy, but I’d be lying.
Between the lawyers, to keep from being sued, to the bank who oddly didn’t seem to care, although we owed them $100,000 from our personal guarantee…
…It felt as though within the blink of an eye, the last 5 years of our lives were erased.
We lost (almost) every friendship that had been formed. People no longer replied to our messages and we felt like complete outsiders within the city we used to be so respected in.
Shortly thereafter we had to sell our home for a lump sum of money to put towards our debt, and we moved away, spending the next 3-4 years of our lives as digital nomads.
Now, we can sit back and reflect on how this was purely a trauma response to being unable to cope with the situation and that all we knew at the time was to run away.
You discover a lot about yourself in business.
This has shaped me in many ways.
It brought so many great memories like having my father almost single-handedly construct our dream gym and the hours we got to spend together during this. To the amazing networking our gym provided with our fitness conferences.
It also taught me valuable lessons…
One of the most important things is that you can always figure it out.
My wife and I knowing that we had each other I believe is one of the things that got us through. I am not sure many people know how much this truly affected us, not even our families, but all along we had each other and we knew at our core that we could always figure things out.
I learned that always putting the needs of others before the needs of myself is a recipe for unhappiness and resentment.
I learned that as much as we try to hide what we’re going through, the people around us, especially those who care, know something is wrong and it’s better to let someone in and have their support during difficult times.
I learned that having my identity and validation strongly tied to something external (outside myself) takes all my power away.
I learned that there are more important things about life and business than how much money you’re making and that high revenue numbers do not tell the entire story. We were pacing half a million dollars while not paying ourselves and utterly unhappy.
I learned that when faced with difficult decisions we’re often much stronger than we think we are.
I learned that some of my most difficult lived experiences have actually forged me into who I am today and provided me the ability to do even greater things in the world and have a broader and more positive impact than I could have without ever experiencing them in the first place.
I learned that business is really fucking hard.
I learned that “work harder” is the stupidest fucking thing anyone can ever say when giving business advice.
I’ve learned and discovered so much about myself.
This wasn’t the first difficult experience I endured, and it will not be the last, but I know that I can always figure it out.
I hope that in reading about my experience you discover how capable you truly are and that if you are experiencing difficulties, you’re not alone, there is a community of people out there that can relate to you, and that are willing to be with you in it.
Landon
PS: Here are a couple of other letters you may also like:
This Is Not What I Thought My Life Would Look Like At 35
https://landonpoburan.substack.com/p/this-is-not-what-i-thought-my-life
What Are You Willing To Sacrifice In Your Pursuit Of Success In Business
https://landonpoburan.substack.com/p/what-are-you-willing-to-sacrifice