Zack Gray - Mastering Discipline, Real Estate, and Building Relationships

Zach, the owner of Gray's Anatomy Academy, delves into the intricacies of building a successful business, leveraging real estate, and the power of relationships.

Key Points:

• Discipline and Real Estate: Zach shares how discipline became his bedrock, integrating real estate into his life to alleviate personal expenses. By buying a multifamily property, he eradicated mortgage payments, redirecting that money into business growth.
• Operational Mindset: He emphasizes the importance of operating from abundance rather than scarcity, freeing oneself from financial constraints to make more impactful business decisions.
• Relationship Building: Zach narrates an encounter where proving discipline to a client opened an avalanche of opportunities, expanding his network through referrals and connections.
• Military Background: Reflecting on his military experience, Zach acknowledges the discipline and efficiency instilled but highlights the difference between military leadership and its application in civilian life.
• Journey into Personal Training: Transitioning from the military, Zach ventured into personal training, leveraging his interest and experience to carve a path that aligned with his health and financial aspirations.
• Business Expansion during COVID: Amid the pandemic, Zach creatively utilized the market demand for activities, expanded his training services, ventured into a youth program, and eventually scaled up to co-own a larger fitness facility.

Insights and Learnings:

• Negotiation and Attention to Detail: Zach emphasizes the pivotal role of negotiation and attention to detail in securing advantageous terms, especially during critical business decisions like lease agreements.
• Real Estate Early on: Given a chance to advise his younger self, Zach would advocate for entering the real estate market sooner, emphasizing the liberating effects it has on fostering creativity and breaking free from a scarcity mindset.

Connect with Zach:

• Business: Gray's Anatomy Academy, located in Boston. Open-door policy for fitness enthusiasts!
• Instagram: @the1099mindset for insights into fitness, real estate, and business.

Transcript

Zack: 0:24

I'm going to start created a situation where I basically to see how disciplined I was at being able to execute Right. So you're, I'm going to start in real estate you're tying it into them working with you, right? Mm-Hmm. Um, but I think that, uh, one of the, I think one of the other things that. It's all possible. And I'm going to go back to, I'm going to start to weave in real estate a little bit here is that I created a situation where I said, I don't want my own life needs from in my family to negatively impact my ability to scale my business. So what I did is I basically mitigated my largest expense, which was my mortgage. So I bought a multifamily property that I could live in for free. So that I didn't have to make monthly mortgage payments. And if I'm not making monthly mortgage payments, effectively, you know, let's say that right where I am, the average rental payment or the average mortgage payment is between, you know, was between at the time, you know, two K and 2, 500. So that's a 30, 000 amount per year. And if you can take 30, 000 a year and you can invest it back into your business, your business can be a lot more successful. And so my whole mentality the entire time was if I can mitigate my own personal expenses, I'm going to be less, I'm going to be less biased in my decision making to try to operate from that scarcity mindset. I'm going to be more comfortable putting money into the business. I'm going to be more giving because I'm not, I don't need. In order to live my own life, and I think that that was step one, and that as I began to scale my real estate portfolio, and I was able to create effectively cash flow that would support myself, now I have cash flow from property that's supporting myself. I show up, we use the analogy, eat what you kill. So effectively any client that I train, I'm collecting cash on any client I train, any manual hours I'm putting in. So now I have my own manual hours that I'm putting in that I'm making money on. And then I have cashflow from my, I have cashflow from my, uh, real estate. And again, now I'm in a position where the cashflow from the business, I don't need. So when you're operating from a standpoint of not needing, You operate from a standpoint of abundance. And so now if you're operating from You know, abundance rather than scarcity, you're going to be more giving. You're going to be willing to give up some of that equity that you, that, that your staff needs to live, to prosper, to prevail, and to, you know, to excel. And you're now going to provide that opportunity to show them the way. And then now you're going to grow that. And so it's like, you're effectively moving the chess pieces to manipulate it so that you're not negatively impacted, but you're showing that there is a gateway for others. How

Jimmy: 3:41

much do you have to rely on like connections and relationship building to get to where you're at?

Zack: 3:47

Uh, I think relationships are the singular most valuable component to business success in, in the world. How would you

Jimmy: 4:00

say you utilize that the best?

Zack: 4:03

I'll actually, I'll actually tell a very, I'll try to make this as abridged as possible. Okay.

Jimmy: 4:09

Take your time. Well, I know you got a basketball game, but like, you know,

Zack: 4:12

take your time. I had, I had a, I had a client that I trained at a commercial gym five years ago that during the first free training session that I offered him, we got done with the training session and he asked me, what time does the gym open? And I said, the gym opens at 5:00 AM And he said, great. He said, I'll buy training to train with you. I'm gonna schedule my sessions for 5:00 AM but I want you to show up at 4 45 to let me into the building. That's a crazy ask, in my opinion.

Jimmy: 4:53

It's

Zack: 4:53

pretty ballsy. Yeah. What I will tell, what I'll tell you is I did that basically. That twice a week, three months, he concluded his training package. At the end of the training package, the guy said, let's start training at 7am. He said, I'm going to renew my training package. I bought that training package and I made that request simply to see how disciplined you were at being able to execute that. Now that's a full blown

Jimmy: 5:29

psycho move. Yeah. He's a control freak.

Zack: 5:33

Yep. But what I will say is I, as I executed with proficiency and I didn't, I wasn't late once. Now the guy said, okay, you can train at a normal time. That singular person trained with me at my facility five years later. And that person has now referred me to clients that I train myself. We both, my staff trains, their spouses, two of their kids come into our youth program. One of the spouses is directly connected with the athletic director at the school. I was trying to gain access. Additionally. Their best friend, who joined our group training program, is one of the sports coaches at the school. So now, I ended up with a meeting with one of the sports coaches, who vouched for me for a meeting with the athletic director. And that athletic director meeting has now led to me meeting one of the coaches of the most successful sports teams at the school. The most successful sports team at the school, from boys volleyball. Uh huh. Weird, weird, unique situation. Boys Volleyball hasn't lost a game in three years. Jesus. Yup. They've won back to back to back state titles, and we coach their boys. Coach, gone to bat for me, facilitate onboarding of multiple other teams, has introduced me to the basketball kid that I'm about to go watch in a few minutes, that is going to play collegiate ball, which now raises my credentials because we're coaching college level athletes. And he went to vouch for me that went in it, which resulted in us getting a contract with the neighboring school, who is a competitor in all of their sports teams. So the point that I'm trying to make in all of this is that I could have. We told this guy who wanted me to show up at 4 45 in the morning to go F himself To not open the gym, but what I will say is that that singular person has opened exponential number of doors for me for my business and for Opportunity and now granted it was not that singular relationship. You have to Re establish yourself ever along amongst every step of the way To show you are and to and to build a relationship with the next person in line but what it comes down to is that all of those relationships that That original engagement with that person who I trained at the gym. Those are all a byproduct of that original relationship And why was that person so willing to refer me to? advocate for me to His social circle to his peers and then Why will these people go to bat for me? And why will they try to support me and uplift me? And the reason being is because of the way that I engage with those people. So I think that, I think that what it comes down to is any singularanship that you encounter has the ability to completely change the game for you, your life and your trajectory. And I think this is just one example of that.

Jimmy: 9:40

Yeah, it's almost like, you know, you, you were abundant and, and thinking, Hey, I want, I want this business to get started. And he was testing you, he's testing your discipline. So yeah, the relationship is important, but that's just the first step. The next step is, you know, having the discipline and the integrity to do what needs to be done at that current moment. And that opened up. Opened up a very successful door, man. That's a, that's a great story on building relationships. Hell yeah. I would try and hire that guy. I mean, this guy, I mean, he sounds like he's operating at a, out of a place of abundance too. He's like, Hey, I have the, you know, I have the discipline to, you know, for him to show up at four 45 as well.

Zack: 10:28

And he loves, he loves the discipline and I'll tell you why. Attention to detail is one of the most impactful things that you can garner in this life. And his rationale behind that is, so, one, I'm an ex military guy, so I'm well aware of the importance of attention to detail. This guy is the, was one of the head neuroscience, uh, folks at Harvard, at Harvard. And he runs a lab of neuroscientists. To do basically brain research, um, on humans at Harvard. And so, his whole prerogative is that attention to detail dictates the outcomes for effectively, you know, changing the course of humanity. So, it's, it's a pretty, it's a pretty wild situation.

Jimmy: 11:21

And you score, yeah, you scored on that one. Um. Ex military, what branch were you in? Thank you for your service, by the

Zack: 11:26

way. Uh, yeah, of course. Uh, I'm an

Jimmy: 11:28

Army guy. Army, okay. Um, Yep. Is that, because you talked a lot about leadership, too. Is that where you learned the foundation of your leadership, or how did, how did that come about?

Zack: 11:41

Um, I hated the military. But what I will say is that it taught me a lot of, I think it taught me a lot of valuable things. And also, I think it really ingrained discipline. But I also think it taught me a lot about really ingrained discipline and it really ingrained how to be efficient, how to be maximally efficient. And I think that the negatives were that, I think that, I think that, I think the objectives, the military are a little different than real life. Right. And what I mean, what I mean by that is that the objective in the military is to stay alive. So you have more experience than you. And they're advocating in order to try to keep you alive. So ultimately they have your best interest in mind. And I think that in real life, I don't think that everybody always has your best interest in mind. I think that whenever, if you try to operate with the blunt leadership style and the forceful nature and sort of more of a unilateral, you know, dictation. I think that in the real world, it just doesn't work like that because I don't think people operate from a standpoint of believing that you have their best interest in mind until you prove it.

Jimmy: 13:29

Yeah, it's like that whole buy in process with, I mean, with the military, it's such like an old establishment. It's almost ingrained in the culture there.

Zack: 13:40

Exactly. And I think that, so the goal in real life is to provide, is to get people to buy in. To you having their best interest and then once they believe that you have their best interest Then it, then you can go military mode and that's when you can be most efficient. And I think that's kind of like what, that's what I was getting at is that you have to win buy in and then once you win buy in, then, then it's go time.

Jimmy: 14:09

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes perfect sense because, you know, well, not just the army, but any branch, it's like the, the camaraderie and the brotherhood is almost built from a place of, Like, getting fucked up. Like, you guys go through a bunch of shit, a bunch of hell together, right? And that's the bonding experience. Out in, you know, when you're out in, you know, civilian or real life, there's not that camaraderie. Yeah, maybe after like 9 11, when like the country was probably at its best recently. Um, because everybody went through, like, a fucked up thing together. Um, but as those memories pass, I mean, there's no qualification as to, like, what's the integrity of this human being. Um, you have to do a really good job in trusting yourself. And, and almost qualifying that like this guy was doing to you, he was qualifying, qualifying you as, you know, what is your discipline? Like, all right, you have this business. I see some integrity here, but you know, I'm, I'm going to test you and I'm going to test what you're about. And in return, I have some assets and resources that you might, you might like. Yeah, a hundred percent. Um, after the military, I mean, how did, how did you get to? How did you get to like get into the field of personal training and

Zack: 15:36

even ownership? Yes. So my best, um, my best friend going all the way through bootcamp and my best friend going all the way through bootcamp and during the original training process, um, he was a, just give me one second here. He was a, Personal trainer as a civilian. And so. He kind of opened my eyes to that and to my kind of piqued my interest in that. And then so when I, when I ended up returning back following training, um, I pursued that as sort of a job. In college. And then, so when I graduated, I graduated with a business degree and, um, I had been personal training for two years and I basically pursued personal training jobs and I also pursued, uh, business related jobs in a post grad setting. And what I ended up doing was, um, I ended up choosing a personal training job where I saw kind of a light at the end of the tunnel and basically in about a nine month period. If I was able to commit myself and get myself to be, if I was devoted, I could get to myself to the point where I could potentially earn six figures, um, in that timeframe. And if I chose the business route, I would basically, you know, be accepting, you know, probably a 60 or 70K salary or something along the lines. And it would take me a much longer period of time to elevate to that threshold. And so I ended up to, I also felt like that the business job would compromise my health significantly versus the training job would enhance my health significantly. And so I ended up choosing the training job. Um, and I basically said, Hey, I'm going to do this for, you know, nine months or so. Um, and if I can hack it, then great. And, uh, you know, I'll be, you know, I'll be at a good earning potential and I'll be in good health and I'll be in a good spot. And if I, if I can't. Um, and I can always fall back on the degree. I could always fall back on the degree and effectively, um, you know, just take a, take a job that, you know, would pay the bills as I kind of, you know, tried to build my profession and that was kind of the route that got me into fitness as a whole and then. Um, in regards to just like starting my own business and that whole thing. Um, I think during COVID was a unique time, whereas I think that there were so many people that were so starved for things to do because they were so bored. And I think that I tried to get creative with saying, how could I be a resource to these people at this time? And I was able to get creative and navigate in a way that made training desirable. I was training people. You know, at their house, I was training people in their garages. I was training people outside along the Charles river in Boston. I was driving around house to house to house to try to get as many, to train as many people per day as I could. And there wasn't really shit else to do. So, um, I wasn't, I wasn't really concerned about missing out on much of anything. My, I was just full work mode from the second I woke up to the second I went to bed. Um, and once I got to a point where I was at capacity, I tried to figure out a creative solution as to how could I continue to progress from here. Um, and then I ended up, I ended up seeking out a fitness facility owner that had a privatized studio, smaller space within the confines of their existing gym. I rented that out by the hour from them because they were, you know, pressed for trying to make more money. Yeah, everybody was looking for money. I negotiated the contract with that individual such that it did not state that I was the person who was renting the space. It stated that my business was the, was renting the space. And so, um, I'd also negotiated it such that the hourly rate would reduce based off of scale. So as I performed more hours, I would receive a lower and lower and lower rate, but because I signed it as my business, not as myself, I was able to hire staff. And there's my staff hours when I was able to scale up their clientele. Now, now fell under the umbrella that was my business name. Which then reduced my overall rate for all of the training that I was performing for myself, as well as training for staff. So it widened margins. Um, and then I forfeited some of my own clientele to staff to then start to build out my youth program. And I realized that if I was operating a youth program, parents were super eager to try to find activities for their kids. I would run all the classes outside. And, you know, parents were eager to pay whatever it was in order to get their kids out of the house. So I kind of, I was, you know, I had a long runway to build sort of, uh, an interest level and a buy in and an adoption from the kids. And then the kids were super invested at that point. Um, and I was able to, uh, you know, build out that youth program and that youth program made a significant amount of, you know, money. Um, and so once I built out that youth program and I was able to, you know, I had a, I had a staff member who was working for me and I was making my own money, training my own clients. I was able to kind of roll all that up. And, uh, pair up with one of my fellow colleagues who I worked with in a commercial gym setting before COVID. And we actually opened a larger facility, which is now the facility that we're at right now.

Jimmy: 22:22

Dude, spectacular. I mean, I'm If the people that are listening can almost, they could see your attention to detail. And just by the way that you talk, that's,

Zack: 22:34

that's, that's really cool. Yeah. I think that, I think that there's a couple of key components in there where it's like in, in business. When you're talking, I think one of the, one of the huge things that, and this is, you know, real estate and, and owning your own business, um, attention to detail and the, the actual act of negotiating can have such an impact on the actual benefit received. And I think that really marginal details can kind of be. Looked over during the negotiation process because I think ultimately both people want the same outcome So I think that you as the buyer, you know, I'm just saying buyer and seller but you know You as you as the buyer are one outcome and the seller wants the same outcome So I think that if you operate from a standpoint of the buyer and the seller want the same outcome How can we achieve that outcome? Um, and make it more desirable for each other, then you can create, um, you know, a more favorable situation for yourself. So one of the things that I realized throughout this whole process of negotiating the lease terms for my business is this guy, this guy who was running a gym, he was super, super cash strapped and he was worried about his facility going under during COVID. And so I was able to kind of almost take advantage of that and play off of that. Because I said to him, Hey, what if I guarantee you this amount of money per month? And he, and then, yeah, and he said the term, and the terms got more favorable. And I said, okay, what if I did it for six months and then terms got more favorable? And I said, what if I did it for 12 months or 18 months? And then I said, what if the monthly amount went up? What if I guaranteed the monthly amount and I, you know, it's to be more. And so the more that you increase. The monthly guarantee and the more months you were willing to guarantee it for The more favorable terms he would be willing to give me And so, you know a lot of that comes back to well, how can I guarantee it? Well, I go to my clients. I go to my clients and if I can get you know, if I can get a 30 decrease in In rental cost for giving my clients, you know a five to seven to ten percent decrease in price For the same term Well, then I'm saving 20 percent

Jimmy: 25:26

and it almost seems like you had this stuff figured out before, before anything

Zack: 25:35

happened, I didn't, I didn't,

Jimmy: 25:37

it seems like it will, how about this then? If you were to go back and give yourself advice, because it sounds like you're very knowledgeable. If you're going to go back and give yourself advice at any point in time, when in your life would you go to? And

Zack: 25:53

what would you tell yourself? Uh, I would go back to me being in college and living at home with my parents when I was working my ass off. Working a significant amount of, you know, hours and working a significant, multiple jobs. And I would tell myself to buy real estate sooner.

Jimmy: 26:14

God damn.

Zack: 26:17

The number one thing, the number one thing is And in this, in my opinion, in this world that is really free freeing is the ability to buy multifamily real estate live for free and how much creativity that can foster in your mindset because everybody operates from a scarcity mindset every single day because they have overhead, they have bills. And if you can create a situation where you don't have bills, and you're not dependent, then you will get really creative really quick. Almost out of necessity. Yeah. I just, I think it's like, instead of operating from a standpoint of like squirrel herding nuts, you know, hoarding nuts, you operate from a standpoint of like pulling out the paintbrush and it's like, you know, that's like, that's where you want to be going to work in that state, you

Jimmy: 27:17

know, absolutely. Man, this is. This is awesome. I know you got a basketball game. Um, where, where can people follow you? Where can they find you? Where can they find your business? Give me all the details. Yeah, of course.

Zack: 27:33

Uh, so my business name is called Gray's Anatomy Academy. Um, if anybody is ever in Boston and they're trying to get a lift in, come on by, drop in. You don't even need to say anything. Um, come on by. You know, and I'd be more than happy to get a workout in and, um, you know, doors always open in regards to, uh, socials, um, you can connect with me on Instagram and my Instagram handle is at the 1099 mindset. Dude, you're

Jimmy: 28:02

all in. I love it. Zach, man. I appreciate I appreciate the talk, man. This is this is some good solid stuff, man.

Zack: 28:13

Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me. And, um, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, really appreciative, you know, the opportunity to speak and hopefully make a difference for other people who are, you know, either interested in real estate or looking to start their own business. And, um, you know, that's what it's all about.

Jimmy: 28:29

Well, I expect some, I expect some messages coming your way, uh, by Monday. Awesome. Have a great night, man. Awesome. Thank you so

Zack: 28:41

much.