Kenny Santucci

speaker-0: January twenty twenty I signed a deal with Under Armour, signed a deal with Hyroc. I had all this sh going on and it

speaker-1: all went away. Kenny was an influencer before influencers was a thing. Kenny was a Jersey Shore before Jersey Shore was cool.

speaker-0: Like, if you're not making five million dollars a year, you're a loser. Hundreds of millions, billions of dollars. You can't run out of that money unless you're a fing moron. You know, most podcasts die in the first 10 episodes. We're gonna film 10 before we put anything out. Ten became 20, 20 became 40, 40 became 60, 80. We're over a hundred episodes. The first two years I had the podcast cost me about close to fifty thousand dollars. So I'm paying to go do all this that now people pay me for. I went through a Two year lawsuit with that gym. I'm standing in the mirror and ⁓ my god, I'm so fat. Like I was sharing belts and pants with my dad. Every finish line I've ever crossed, I'm like, ⁓ if I could do this physically, then business and all this other s easy. It's not gonna be easy. So f tighten your boots up and get ready.

speaker-1: So I'm really excited today to welcome a special guest. Kenny has he one, I think it's a phenomenal story. It's it's gonna be fun to dig into, but Kenny was also in New York, kind of as we all do, go in and out of modes of fitness. But I was getting back into ⁓ getting into fitness and I started doing a I think it was a five AM or five thirty AM class at Solus and Kenny was my instructor. Group instructor, guy from Jersey just yelling at us at five thirty with music. We had a pack class. Yeah. Yeah. Every day.

speaker-0: Hey, for like what, two, three years? Easy.

speaker-1: Yeah. So Kenny is the full roller coaster. ⁓ Kenny was an influencer before influencers was a thing off ⁓ w it was ⁓ T V for how long were you on how many 'cause you did a bunch of the challenges I probably did

speaker-0: Road rules? Probably did nine, nine of ⁓ over the course of almost like ten years.

speaker-1: And that was like when when was that when was you the first one you did?

speaker-0: ⁓ I mean for most of you internet fans out there, the internet wasn't a thing. I actually have video tapes, like cassette tapes of when I was on TV. So that's what they would give us at the end of the season was like, ⁓ here's a ⁓ VHS that you could pop in the V CR and most of you guys don't even know what the hell that is, ⁓ and you could watch the episode.

speaker-1: Kenny ⁓ Jersey Shore before Jersey Shore was cool.

speaker-0: And I I hosted the first Jersey Shore After show.

speaker-1: Did you really? Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ so you were on for w for what how many years? For

speaker-0: I got on in two thousand I think I f I feel my first show got it. It's this is when you know you're getting old because of years bleed together. It was like two thousand four, two thousand five. Yeah, two thousand five was like my first show. And then I think I did my last one in 2011, 2012, somewhere around there. ⁓ and I did nine shows. I did one and never really would have thought it was gonna be anything. And then it was like they kept calling me back and calling me back, and I'm like, People are like, well, why do they keep calling you back? I'm like, I don't know. I'm not that interesting of a guy. At least I didn't think I was. But I get I kept getting called back and one thing led to another. And I always saw it as a launch pad to do other things. Like I always wanted to act or host or do something like that. As a young kid growing up in New Jersey, I had nothing. I'm like, man, this would be really cool if I got to do this. I was never even on a plane before I got on the show.

speaker-1: Let me pause here for a second. The show is brought to you by Propel. They find brands like yours exceptional marketing and operational talent in the US, Latin am markets, and beyond. For now, the links are in the show notes and all of our listeners get 10% off your first hire. Okay, let's get into it.

speaker-0: So like the first time I ever got flown across the country was to go and do the one of the interviews for the show. So I was like very sh just

speaker-1: Set in the cassette. And that was like back in the days where like figuring these things out was actually really difficult. Cause like it wasn't like you could just look it up online and there was like a ton, like you actually had to do a lot of work.

speaker-0: Yeah, you didn't go to somebody's Instagram page and be like, ⁓ they're running castings or something. I was dating a girl who's doing it. So she's like, ⁓ let's drive up to Syracuse and try out for the show. And we did it. One thing led to another and I got on TV. But like I talk about that a lot in fitness. When I was thirteen years old was when I joined my first gym. And I was this was ⁓ nineteen ninety five, nineteen ninety six, somewhere around there. To learn how to go to the gym or train, you had to grab a magazine or a book.

speaker-1: Well and you talk about this a lot. Like you were pretty out of shape as a kid. Like were you know not to use the the F word, but you

speaker-0: Yeah, you're Yeah. No, I was I was definitely fat. And I feel fat right now because after this injury I really haven't this is the longest I haven't done something in a while, but I have this giant gash on my arm, so they're like you can't get infected, so try not to sweat or do anything. So this is the longest I've gone without doing anything and I feel disgusting right now.

speaker-1: So your and so your trajectory in in fitness started when you were thirteen, you g just started going to the gym when were thirteen? Yep. What was kind of the like what was like the thing that got you like to say like I gotta get in the gym at at that age?

speaker-0: Yeah, I I you know. I think everyone n remembers where they were when they decided to make a change in their life. And I was at my parents' house. I was I was 13, so I didn't have my own place. ⁓ I'm standing in the mirror. I'm about to go to like an eighth-grade birthday party. And I looked at myself and I'm like, God, I'm so fat. Like I was sharing belts and pants with my dad. And I was like, I hate myself. I'm so uncomfortable. I need to change this. And I was like, ⁓ you know, the only gyms around were like twelve dollar, fifteen dollar a month gyms. And they were like twenty minutes away. ⁓ so when I joined the gym, I was like, I don't know what to do. So I just grabbed a like muscle and fitness, men's health, like shit like that. I would steal these magazines from like magazine.

speaker-1: So like back in the day men's health had like the workouts. Yeah. So you like you literally get the workouts, yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah, it's come full circle because for a long period of time they were doing like CrossFit workouts and stuff in these magazines. Now it's back to like bodybuilding splits. So I was doing these bodybuilding splits, but for Christmas, I think I was like fifteen or sixteen, my parents got me the Arnold Encyclopedia to bodybuilding. Yes. And I'm like That was like my Bible. I I read everything in there from cover to cover. I I was like, I gotta understand what they're doing, why they're doing it. And then you watch movies like I mean, we grew up in a very similar generation. It was like The Predator and Rocky and you know, y all these movies put.

speaker-1: Well there's about the apex of like the societ society at that.

speaker-0: Like you had to be jacked. Like I was watching wrestling all the time and I'm like, ⁓ everybody's jacked. I gotta get jacked. So I was like, what do what are these guys doing? They're going to the gym, they're eating tuna fish out of the can, they're drinking gallons of milk. I'm like, I'm just gonna start doing this shit.

speaker-1: So you go so okay. So the arc is we go get into fitness, then go into MTV, do that. You leave MTV, and then there was this like span of like, you know, kind of not really kind of moving upward or like hitting your career goals. Like w walk us through kind of the trajectory post MTV. Yeah. Because I I what I want to get to is like, I think you're you're absolutely since I've gotten to know you, your career trajectory's just been like up into the right. I know it doesn't probably always feel that way, but from an outsider perspective, it's looked like that.

speaker-0: Yeah, so right after ⁓ or I was still kind of dabbling in television stuff and doing commercials and shit like that. ⁓ but when I got into the training stuff, I'd go I actually got hired to be a firefighter. So ⁓ went out of college, my dad's like, You gotta take the civil service test for New Jersey. He wanted me to be a cop or a fireman. If my dad had it his way, that's what I would have done. ⁓ I didn't want to do that. No offense to anybody who does that. My brother's a cop. It just wasn't for me. It wasn't like what I wanted to do. I just felt like there's a lot of parameters around those jobs. I didn't want to do that. I I'm like, I could do so much more with my life. so I got hired to be on the fire department and I was just like I I remember standing there lineup and just being like, Fuck, this is gonna be the rest of my life. Like this sucks. So I at that point I had to double down on like either doing that or going to the gym. I had an opportunity ⁓ a couple of years before that to partner with some people to open up a gym in New Jersey. So I did that in like 2012, 2013. That went sour. I really didn't know anything about business. There was nobody I could really ask either. Like my my dad was a cop, my mom worked for an insurance company. She didn't really know what the fuck was going on. So there's nobody I knew like to really talk to. I remember signing paperwork and shit, pretty much signing my life away. But I went through a two-year lawsuit with that gym. And then the guys from Rosales called me up and they asked me to go there. And when I created that class, that allowed me to start to generate some money. Now the problem was that the the business was so in debt. That they couldn't afford to pay me what they need to pay me. So now we started talking about like me owning part of the gym. So this kind of rig and got the kick the can down the road for years. It's like, do we give them 5% or 10%? What's that mean for the rest of everybody else involved? And they kicked out the original owners. It was this whole big thing. fast forward, 2020 happens. Now we're at this precipice. It's like, ⁓ do we keep it open? Do we close it? I'm like, I'm not waiting around for this shit. It was literally, I think they shut down New York in March of 2015, 2016. I I think what the 17th or 18th, I carried two kettlebells, a TRX, and a jump rope to the park. I'm like, I'm just gonna do the only thing I know how to do. It's work out. So I started working out, people walking by being like, hey, could I join you? I had a bunch of people call me up, hey, could I join? Can I join? And one thing led to another and that's how I started the two gyms I have now was on the back of doing all

speaker-1: And do you feel like like hindsight, like the twenty twenty was like the like that made you ha you were forced to do it because like there was no gyms. And then but it gave you the confidence to be like I could do this myself.

speaker-0: Well, you n I think what I tell a lot of people is that what gave me the confidence to really like jump into business more was all the shit I did physically. Being fat and awkward as a kid, not being confident, not thinking I could do anything. Like I was afraid of everything. You know, the first time I got beat up, I was like seven or eight years old, and I got beat up at eleven. And I'm like, that was another thing. I'm like, fuck this. I'm gonna go to the gym. I'm gonna be able to defend myself. I'm gonna get stronger. ⁓ and that's why I started wrestling in high school and college. So for me, it was just like I I know what it's like when people are like, ⁓ the world's against me. I feel we all do. I'm not special in any way. So I just looked at it like the only person who could help me get out of this is me. So I had to figure it out. You know, my parents were broke. We had nothing. We grew I grew up in Newark, New Jersey. We had nothing. So when people are like, ⁓ you you had so much privilege, I'm like, I'm still waiting for this fucking shit to show up. It has not shown its face yet. ⁓ so we w the the only reason we moved out of Newark was because it got so bad that my mother was like, We can't do this anymore. And ⁓ so for me, I'm like, okay, I just need to help myself. And now it's like if I could help myself, I can now help other people with this same thing. But I think doing, you know, go stepping onto a mat for the first time wrestling was very scary for me. ⁓ you know, going on the challenge. And like competing in a lot of stuff. The for the first time you're like standing off the edge of a cliff or hanging out the side of a helicopter or whatever we were doing, you're like, fuck man, I've never done this shit before. Like I was never that guy. so a lot of that stuff, I was just like, fuck it, I'm gonna prove to myself that I could do it. And that's when I started doing Ironmans and marathons and you know, competing in other competitions and doing CrossFit. Like everything I did was to prove to myself that I could do it. And every finish line I've ever crossed, I'm like, ⁓ if I could do this physically, then business and all this other shit's easy. Yeah. You know? So if if you're willing to torture yourself through workouts and shit like that.

speaker-1: Yeah, the more hard things you do in life, the easier the next hard thing is to do. Yeah. So like, but if you live like a a very protected life, it's very difficult to do hard things. And the only way to start getting comfortable doing hard things is like just you get and I that's what I always tell people is like it's never easy. You get you get used to like being like, Okay, I'll figure it out. But like, you know, it's it's still I don't care who you are, it's like you start something new, you're like I like you, you know, there's butterflies, there's like I don't, you know, we're gonna figure this out.

speaker-0: I was just telling somebody this story the other day. I've been in the fitness industry since I always say since I was 13 years old. And I've been going to supplement stores and buying shit forever. And I said to so they're like, ⁓ we're gonna start this supplement line and blah, blah, blah I go, it's not as easy as you think. I go, you know how many Arnold Schwarzenegger, how many supplement brands Arnold Schwarzenegger had that have failed? You don't even know about them. He was involved in so many brands. They all falling apart. He's now a part of a brand called Momentous. He's been pushing the Momentous up. I go, but it's not a guarantee. And he's the most you know, I if you look at the food chain of fitness people, I mean Arnold's still at the top. Yeah. It doesn't guarantee you're gonna win. Yeah. You have to work hard. There is no I have learned time and time again, one, you never burn a bridge. And two, it's not gonna be easy. So fucking Tighten your boots up and get

speaker-1: Yeah, I think, I mean, I I love, I mean, I well, one, I was excited to get you on because we haven't caught up in little while. So I was excited to hear and and we're gonna dig into kind of, I think some of the stuff you're building in the fitness community in New York has been phenomenal. But I I I can say, like as a as a user of your product, which is is your fitness classes, is like you've been, you you just like you deliver an amazing product. Your energy levels every day, like I was taking the 5 a.m. class, you were like every day, like rain or sleep, you were in there, and then your advocacy, like People would show and they like some people recognize, but like the reason people came back to that class, the reason when you left, people left with you, the reason people continue is like your classes are amazing, your energy levels, your fitness, your inspir like you do a great job. And I think that's where people kind of ⁓ sometimes like want the shortcut is like you gotta do the hard work, you gotta become somewhat of the expert in the thing you're doing. And and that's just reps. That's just like a lot, a lot of reps. But I can I can s personally say, as like someone who's followed you around, is like You know, I I love your classes. I love like that. And like from fitness, you know, I saw so many people that you inspired, you know, and and not through like your, you know, your Instagram, which is also great, but like you you inspire people in the class and you challenge and you talk shit to everyone and like, but you got a lot of people in that class that were like completely out of shape that transformed over the few years I was there to be like in amazing shape.

speaker-0: I'll tell you what, I I attribute it to the fact that I ju genuinely enjoy watching people win. And I think you have to do that in any arena. Like you know, you're like, you just said you're like, I want to help open 10,000 businesses. You want to do that because now you feel like you're a part of that journey. It's almost like having a kid, right? I d I'm I haven't had a kid, but I'm guessing the fact that like you're watching this younger version of you win. You know, and you want that and you back somebody up on that. So for me, it's like with my coaches, with my gyms, with other people. If I can watch other people win, then that enriches my life so much more. So when I'm in a a classroom and I'm inspiring you guys to work harder than you normally would, like that fucking lights me up. I don't care if it's four in the afternoon or five AM, it doesn't matter. Like I like seeing people get after it. I I it gets me supercharged.

speaker-1: And then within that, you started like so you and in I think this is like also a great thing. Like you've been a champion of like, as you said, not only like people in your class, but peers, different people in the industry. And New York is a big town, but it's also a small town within different aspects of of New York. And so like you and I think, you know, when you guys I I would say like when Solus was p at its peak, it was kind of the epicenter of like like He we had some of the best trainers in New York at that at that facility. It was pretty amazing to just see the level of talent in there. But then that ecosystem, you kind of turned into now one of the biggest like like ecos like one of the biggest fitness events and and walk us through kind of the p the transformation into into that.

speaker-0: Well, I had access to a lot of these great people who I thought were given out so much great information. And they do, right? Like somebody like Gabrielle Lyons, I met very early on. And she was the one who kind of like this was like 2014, 2015, was teaching me. She was my doctor. And she was teaching me about like the importance of muscle tissue and how and I'm like, ⁓ my God, really? I'm like. I feel like there was something to this. Like I didn't know the science behind it, but I'm like, yeah, that makes total sense to me. Like I rather look like, you know, my father and Arnold Schwarzenegger the same age. So I'm like, I'd rather look like him than my dad. And what's the what's the only difference in their physique? The fact that Arnold works out and my dad doesn't do shit. So I'm like, I'd rather look like that and and follow that rule, ⁓ you know, kind of lifestyle. But With a lot of these people that I was meeting, I go, ⁓ my God, if I could get them to come to New York and teach the people that I care about, you know, enrich my community so that everybody around me is winning. So that makes me feel like I'm winning. Right. Like if you if you were like, all right, name the five guys you want to go have a fucking beer with, would any of them be losers? No. Right? You want your friends to be winning. So I'm like, if I could help my friends win, why wouldn't I do that? If I could help myself, my staff win. Then that makes me win as well. Because if, you know, me and my buddy joke around about it all the time. He's like, ⁓ when I get by my boat, I'm like, dude, I hope you buy the boat. I want you to buy, because I never want to fucking own a boat. Because that sounds like a miserable experience. It's fun for about three hours. So I'm like, I don't want to own a boat, but I want to help you own.

speaker-1: So walk us through kind of like when you cause you went from so you you leave Solus, you start your own gym, and and then pretty soon right after that, or I think right around the same time, you start cre creating this this platform, which walk us through kind of like the idea inspiration of ⁓ of the next steps into kind of building this.

speaker-0: Yeah, so I mean the event we started I started in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen. Yeah, it was going on, but it was smaller. We used to hold it in the basement of Solace, it was easy. And then twenty nineteen was the first year we partnered with HyRox and we did it at Pier ninety four, which doesn't even exist anymore. So we had a HyROX going on and strong New York at the same time. We had all these big plans for twenty twenty and the fucking world fell apart. I literally

speaker-1: Okay, so the event was going okay.

speaker-0: January 2020, I signed a deal with Under Armour, signed a deal with Hyrux. I had all this shit going on and it all went away. So now I'm like stressing the fuck out. But anyway, I was like, I'm just gonna teach classes. And every morning I would get up at six o'clock, I'd carry all this shit over to the park on 28th and 10th Avenue and just started running workouts out the park for months. And I remember I was just telling this story the other day to my mom. I had like a push cart. And I got like a heavy-duty pushcart, and I had kettlebells on there and dumbbells. That shit weighs a ton. It's not easy to push that stuff. Plus, the streets of New York are not very well paved, as you can imagine. ⁓ So the wheel fell off the pushcart. So now I gotta carry all this shit back and forth. And it took me like an hour. Thank God some of the people from the class showed up and I was like, hey, you guys wanna help me grab some of this shit? But now I'm on, you know, 10th Avenue carrying kettlebells and ropes and all this shit. But I remember being like, okay, I'm gonna build a gym and I'm never gonna have to do this shit again. Now I still do it because I do events and shit, but not because I have to build a gym every day. ⁓ but it's, you know, it's what I love. It's the only thing I want to do. It's the only place I want to go. And then when I started doing this, because I had the television background and I used to do all the hosting stuff, I wanted to scratch the itch of. doing this, doing a podcast or something. So as we started to grow the social side of things, like my my Instagram, the strong New York Instagram, I started toying with the idea of starting a podcast. So I said to Christy, I was like, hey, try to find a studio somewhere in Midtown where we could go and shoot a podcast. So we should I and I said, and we were looking up statistics on it. It's like if you don't do, you know, most podcasts die in the first 10 episodes.

speaker-1: Te we just saw the stats on that as well. So get to ten episodes.

speaker-0: Yeah. So I was like, we're gonna film ten before we put anything out. So I filmed ten with like guys I knew and people I knew in the industry and ten became twenty, twenty became forty, forty became sixty, eighty. We're over a hundred episodes now. Yeah. ⁓ but I have a whole media side of the business now because that helps us and I think everybody's doing it. It's not like we're unique, but we started to see like, hey, we work with Celsius. Celsius it sponsors me as a personality or personal. person or ⁓ influencer. I don't want to say I'm a fucking athlete because I'm 43. ⁓ but so me and then the podcast and then the event. So we were like, ⁓ shit, we could kind of stretch this out with a lot of the brands that we work with. They could help us push the podcast, which will help us push the guests that we have at the event or their podcast or whatever it is. We're pushing a book. So it's this ecosystem that we've now created. So I have a whole media team. So Strong New York is like there's this media arm of it.

speaker-1: And then Strong New York was just r like the one of the top Forbes or Fortune one of the Forbes ring tip, one of the top fitness pr like

speaker-0: Fitness events. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I saw that too and I was like, I don't know who the fuck did that bro. Like, yeah, that was great. I remember somebody sent it to me and I was like

speaker-1: I was like, Wow. Great. But I remember I was in the gym on the twenty nineteen, because that was like you were you were I mean you were that was your your baby. You were pushing it. It was like that was like the whole thing That's all I did. Yeah. And then I I remember obviously like everyone else, like COVID shut down the world and then that like but this this event has just gotten massive. And it's been I think this is like the exciting thing about this this era that we're in right now is that like you know you you became you're f like into fitness, you've been into fitness since you were thirteen. But you can now just create your own platform. You can literally like by by just being really into something, you can create multiple different revenue streams ⁓ and kind of build the life you want where you're doing the thing you want to do. You know, as you said, driving towards the outcome of of looking like Arnold versus your dad, like all these things kind of combining. and then, you know, being able to monetize it and doing the things you love. Let me pause here for a second and introduce you to our title sponsor, Propel. Every business I've built has had a huge, huge, huge piece with international talent. And as we started building the advantage, we wanted to bring in international talent focused around media, podcasts. And we started doing a lot of research and we came across Papel. And we were really excited first and foremost to use them for us. And we later reached out as a sponsor. Here's the best part it's all performance based. You only pay one off fee once you actually hire someone. That means no retainers, no ongoing costs, plus every hire comes with a three-month guarantee. I think bringing on international talent is really hard, really rewarding. As we all know, bringing a talent onto your team is the most important part about building a business. And with Propel, I can speak for ourselves, they have been a huge part of our ability to recruit great talent to our team. Every advantage listener gets 10% off their first hire. For more information, check out the show notes.

speaker-0: I remember talking to my guidance counselor in college, and I was an art major in college, which most people find hard to believe, but I I grew up drawing, I love comic books and all that shit. ⁓ I've had three different t-shirt companies, none of them which have done well. but I remember saying, I'm like, what could I do where I could be in the gym?

speaker-1: have a six shirt there. The strong New York.

speaker-0: Yeah. My new stuff because I'm gonna because I pay fucking a ton of different artists. I was actually just talking to like a New York City strip ⁓ all my gyms have artwork in them. Like I pay graph ⁓ like graffiti artists and stuff to do artwork in all my gyms. The last one that I did in Jersey, I don't even want to tell you how much I spent on it, but the idea was that it was a CrossFit gym before that, and they took a bunch of like wooden planks and panels and just threw them up against a wall because there was all the holes in the sheetrock and stuff. So I had a guy come in, I was like, all right, we ripped down all this wood and the sheetrock and stuff. How much is this going to cost me? The guy's like, you know, 20 grand, 30 grand, and we'll paint in and all this. And I was like, so I hit this guy up. I'm down the shore that night. I was in Jersey, and I saw the sick mural at this restaurant called the Block. And I was like, I saw this guy's name at the bottom. And I saw his Instagram handle and I hit him up. I was like, hey man, I got this wall at my gym. I'd love for you to do it. Hit me up. We figured out a price, which was crazy. But I'm like, it's less than me paying these guys to re-sheetrock it. This guy came in fucking graffiti the whole thing. It was so sick. It was one of the best moves I made. It's like the experience of like, okay, I could have a sheetrock wall, yeah, or I could put in. A piece of artwork, which I think will be so much cooler. And it's it's now the staple of that. Like I see it in videos and pictures that my team puts up, and I'm like, that looks so much cooler than a a sheet rocked wall.

speaker-1: Swagzalls. I got my strong NYC ⁓ black hoodie that I it's my go to black hoodie.

speaker-0: I gotta send you some more stuff. ⁓ because I love seeing him in the wild. If I if I see somebody with my shit on I

speaker-1: Good. You have more compliments on that sweatshirt than and I'm like they're like, where'd you get that? I'm like, it's I got another gym. ⁓ so you've now built like all these and you have two gyms now. ⁓ those of you in ⁓ your twenty eighth and fifth? Fifth, yeah. Twenty eighth fifth. And the gym name is ⁓ The Strength Club. The Strength Club. Yeah. And then you're in where in Jersey? Caldwell. Caldwell. Where's Caldwell?

speaker-0: twenty eighth and It's over by like a little north of ⁓ a little west of Montclair.

speaker-1: All right. So those of you in the Montclair clock, that's the gym to go to. But if you're in New York, if you're visiting New York, you gotta hit up the gym. I'm telling you, it is the best experience. ⁓ I just I didn't you were at Union Park, which is a little too long of a walk, but I just found out I'm gonna be at the this gym. I'm going back. Please go back.

speaker-0: I'd love to have you. I it's funny because one of my clients said the other day they were like, You've really had a lot of huge people come to the gym. You know, I was training Bon Jovi for a while, you know, I had some of the Knicks there. I still have some of those guys there. ⁓ The other day we had a bunch of the WWE people. So it's like I get a good group of people where some pe ⁓ people show up sometimes, they're like, Why is it why are they

speaker-1: Bon Jovi, that's like Bon Jovi and then you have ⁓ Bruce Springsteen are like the two peaks jersey guys.

speaker-0: For a Jersey guy. I mean the I like honestly you who needs a fucking gym and I'd love to get a hold of him is Br ⁓ Billy Joel. Because he's had some calls. Yeah, he's a long island.

speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. He's a Long Island. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. That's my neck of the woods. ⁓ yeah, he has. ⁓ so you built all these revenue streams, you built all these things. Like but we were talking earlier. Now you feel like you're like what do what do you think like as you kind of think about the building, what is like the what is the ten year journey look like for you?

speaker-0: I mean, I the world is so volatile now. Yeah. I mean, think about it, right? When we were younger, I didn't know anybody who made five hundred thousand dollars a year. Now it's like if you're not making five million dollars a year, you're a loser. Right? Like it's insane. Like I was just talking I was listening to one of my clients works from Meta, but I was listening to ⁓ Joe Rogan's podcast and they were talking about Zuckerberg was saying that he hired a bunch of people. You know, all these twenty something year olds. Yeah. And the average salary of one of these kids who works for Meta, th they're obviously like the AI programmers and stuff, is like sixty five million dollars a year. ⁓

speaker-1: I but I also think here's I mean I think yes Anne, in New York is very expensive. But I also think like a little bit of like where you ben what you're benchmarking to. Like I I mean, I like Instagram's all bullshit, right? So the like I'm making twenty million a year is like bullshit. Like ⁓ like but that's what sells. ⁓ so I think like the the bound what I I I mean I what I can say from like certainly getting the exit or whatever is like You you know, and everyone will tell you this. It's like it you like you like the problems don't stop. And it's like you realize like it's just like another hurdle. Yeah, there's always other hurdle. The journey's always like the the thing you will enjoy the most hindsight is just looking at the journey and being like, dude, I I always I just think that in the building, not only do you find so much joy out of it, but like you learn so much. Like you you like I I you probably don't even take time to sit back and learn over the last five years since you stepped out and and brought your bag. Like All of the different shit you've learned from opening gyms, from you know, like from as simple as how much it costs to redrywall a wall and like all these things that you're like, ⁓ yeah, like there's like

speaker-0: I've learned a lot from the School of Hard Knocks. Like I and this is the best advice I could give to anybody who wants to build a business. I'm an idiot. I was never good at school. I can never pay attention. I'm I don't know anything about business. I still don't. But realizing that you don't know these things is the most important thing. And asking for help and having a good team around you because there are so many times where I could have made a left. And I ended up making it right because I asked for the help. You know, there's a lot of pe I'm very humble about what I know and what I don't know. And yeah, ⁓ I've learned a lot, but at the same time, there's still so much to understand about business. Now you can't just be a business owner. You're a business owner, you're a social media expert, you're, you know, you're a dad, you have like you wear 12 different hats. Like I look at somebody who's a parent. I avoid that at all costs because that becomes a whole other fucking job. That's more important than your real job. It does, yes. You know? So now you're responsible for more lives, which is crazy. You know, so I admire anybody who's building a business, has a family, and you're actually present.

speaker-1: Right. What do you think so as you 'cause I cut you off earlier, what do you think that success journey looks like for you as you what do you want to keep building and like where now that you're like you've got a ⁓ you know, you've got the bus is rolling, what do you think like

speaker-0: I've never been, you know, like I said, I I have zero desire to own a boat or fancy cars or even a home, right? Like I like coming home. I there is nothing I love more than my peace. Like when I want to be alone, I just want to be left the fuck alone. I took my nephews this weekend to Fanatics Fest and then we went to Saturday night's main event. And when I dropped them off, I was like, Thank God, that nightmare is over. I'll do it again next week, but not Not anytime soon. ⁓ it's a lot of work. I think people like nowadays use kids and families as accessories. Like, ⁓ I it'll add to my level of success. It's like, no, until you're ready to do it, don't do it. One. Two, it's like for me, I I want to be able to help other people make money. You know, I'm still not at the point where I'd like to be where it's I can't fathom the amount of wealth that certain people have. Hundreds of millions, billions of dollars. You can't even you can't run out of that money unless you're a fucking moron. You can't really run out of that money. So, like after you get to a certain number, and I don't know what that is, I'm guessing somewhere along the lines of 50, 60 million dollars, like you don't really I wouldn't worry that much if you have a good investment team. I would love, like I I admire somebody like Shaq. Like you see Shaq walk into like a Walmart or something, he buys everybody's shit. Like dear with the amount of billionaires and millionaires in the city, that should happen more often. Yeah. You know, it's like what are you hoarding your money or I've never seen somebody put in a casket holding hundreds. Yeah. You know? You're i the bank gets it if you don't spend it. So put give it the fuck away.

speaker-1: Have you seen some of this stuff that's happening with the Trump accounts? So have you heard about the Trump accounts? And then what they're so these and they're named the Trump accounts. But so he said which is a brilliant idea. He set up these accounts, which basically is that when you're born, and if you're born between I think 25 and 28, you get $1,000 and it's invested in the S P 500. And then so but now what people can do is they can donate directly into this. So Michael Dell, I think, donated five billion into this, and it basically goes directly to these kids. But now it's getting compounded and invested. ⁓ the COO, Glenn ⁓ what is it, Shotwell of ⁓ SpaceX just donated 350 million. So all of these, so I think the next like pledge is gonna be going in there, which I'm a huge fan of because you go then and you basically it's going back into, you know, underprivileged kids to basically say, like, hey, here's like I did I think there's like because I agree with you. I think like this idea, like you're not taking it with you, but also like You know, there's a certain point like, you know, but giving into these charities, I don't know if that's the best thing either. Like it's like

speaker-0: was gonna that was my next point was yes, I'm a big fan of like helping people out and giving money away and all this stuff. And like those acts of kindness go a long way because then you want that person to pass it forward, right? Like moving on. However, when people don't have a purpose, it becomes a problem. Without a purpose, there's a problem. So we need to help people find what they love to do. And I think the school systems are broken because of that. Had somebody have taken me out of English class and just been like, hey, why don't you, why don't we push you to do more of this drawing that you like to do? Because then this will be something that you really that drives you and you're excited about. I think there should be more of that. You know, more art focus. It's like a kid who likes playing guitar, likes banging on shit, but let him play drums. There's there needs to be more curated. purposeful. It's yes, it's good, but I I took years of math, geometry and algebra. I couldn't fucking tell you any of that shit right now. Like it was a waste of my time.

speaker-1: Well, I I mean I I think you gotta like I would say an and I think the biggest thing is like I think K through twelve, I think the biggest gap and the challenge we've had is like everyone's gotta go to college. And this has been like, I think is I mean, so now you've got, you know, half the country massively in debt and they got a degree and some, you know, whatever your worthless degree is in liberal arts, whatever it is. And now you're you're like You're like, I got $200,000 in debt. I can't get a job. And I think like the bitter thing is is like get these, get people into the workforce earlier, get people learning, and get people to get real tactical tactical skills. Cause I do think there's a million ways to make money. There's a million ways. Again, one of the like he's not one of the richest, but certainly this guy's worth that north of a hundred million. ⁓ met early in my life, rancher, he he got early into and I I ⁓ I literally shit you not. This is not a buying manure. And then selling manure as natural fertilizer. And he became in the ranching world. He starts and now he's worth several hundred million because he would just basically it's free, free material because everyone's got to get rid of manure on ranches and any of these things. And then it's natural fertilizer. So he built in this business. So literally you can make millions doing, like I always like to say, selling shit. Yeah. And and like it's just like, but like this guy, you know, had an eighth grade education, but just started doing this. So like you don't need a lot of education to go out and sell shit.

speaker-0: No, but that's the th that's my point. Like there are kids who are my niece and nephews watch other kids online make millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, playing video games. Yeah. These kids have YouTube channels. It's it's mind-blowing to me because the last thing I want to do is watch anybody play a video game. But my niece and nephews will sit there, watch YouTube of other kids playing video games, and I'm looking, and it's like 700 million follows. and and subscribers and shit and you're like, This kid's making millions of dollars. Yeah. Yeah. It's insane doing something they enjoy doing.

speaker-1: What? And I think you what you're seeing in this is this is opportunity is like the old like when you started on MTV, MTV owned like so you you didn't have the ability to connect directly to the audience. So your ability to reconnect with the audience was get back on another show and get back on another show and to become a talent for MTV. But now you realize like, okay, you can become your own talent. You have your own distribution, you can build your own audience, your audience comes to you. So you don't need to reach everyone. You need to reach a very small niche. And I would say like I think the biggest opportunity and you know, I think where we're we've jumped the shark is that it used to be build a create a product and then hire someone to market it. Now it's become the marketing engine and then you can create the product. Sure. So like you're seeing as as you've now built this media marketing, it's that then now is the influence to get people to come to your gym. It's the influence to get people to come to ⁓ your events. And then you get sponsorships and now like the flywheel like works so much better.

speaker-0: Well, because if you have a billion dollar company like this, right, Celsius is like, why am I gonna pay for a billboard in Times Square? We can, or we could spend fifty million dollars, give it to all these influencers, and it'll have more of an impact than that billboard.

speaker-1: Yeah, and you'll get just I mean, get recuts and and reimagined.

speaker-0: They're they're they're doing all the advertisement for you. Like when I'm I I start every episode, hey guys, we're cracking Kansas Celsius open and having a conversation. It's simple, it's easy and it's like I'm doing their marketing for them, you know? For way less than what it would be if they were to do some other

speaker-1: Yeah and then It's more of that and then your targeted audience is is is their t targeted customer, right? Like the people listening to your podcast are ultimately exactly who they want to get in front of.

speaker-0: And I d I say this to people all the time. I go, Pepsi or Coke doesn't need a a billboard in Times Square, but they want to be at the forefront of your mind. So anytime somebody's like, I could go for a Coke right now, it's like 'cause you just saw the sign. It's not because you're like starving for some sugar in your mouth.

speaker-1: So if you're watching if someone's watching this podcast today and they're they're like looking for, you know, you at twenty twenty, like what's advice you give to someone or who or you do give to people who are saying, I wanna start, I wanna do ⁓ I wanna do something ⁓ in fitness, in anything.

speaker-0: Yeah. I you learn to love it because no matter what industry you're in, you know, people look at influencing and influencers and say, ⁓ I want to do that. The people that I know who really make money from being influencers work their ass off. It's not easy. You're constantly cutting content, and even if you have a team with it, you have to okay things, you have to make sure things are going right. So I never want to lose tract of the thing. And the thing was always training. Like that's that's what grounds me. That's where my expertise is. That's what I've done for a very long time. So when I say, when people are like, What do you do? I'm I'm a trainer. Yeah, but don't you own businesses and all that? I'm sure. But it all started from me being a trainer. So that's what I do on a day-to-day basis. I Try to stay as connected to the gyms as possible. ⁓ but don't go into it being like, ⁓ I'm gonna eventually leave this. Everybody thinks they're gonna have this massive exit. And it's very rare that that happens. so for me, I'm like, if I die in the gym, which all my stuff says, all my shit says dying in the gym on it, right? Or bury me in the gym, is because I'm like, this is what I've agreed to do to the day I die. I wanna be in a gym every day. I don't care where I am. I was in France, I went to the gym. I was in Dubai, I went to the gym. I was in Italy. I went to the gym. It doesn't matter where I am in the world. I want to go to the gym. So that's like my thing. I I if I cut content in the gym, if I'm training somebody in the gym, I'm always trying out new equipment, whatever I'm doing, it's all focused around the gym. And when people are like, well, I don't want to do that forever, it's like, well, then go find something that you want to do forever because it's gonna get hard, it's gonna get tough. And that's gonna be the breaking point. Because even if I didn't make a dollar from this, I'd still be in the gym.

speaker-1: And I think it's also the key is like, you know, I always say this is like, I don't feel like I work. Like I I sold my business, I was back at because I love what I do. Like I love, I love business. I love doing that, like I love like, which a lot of people don't. Me and my twin brother are exact opposite. Like his life I would hate, he would hate mine, but I love what I'm doing. So like I get up every morning fired up to go into the office. I'm fired up. And I think the key is I don't feel like I'm working. And that's to your like find something that you're passionate about that you want to do every day. That you would

speaker-0: Do for free if you weren't getting paid.

speaker-1: Because this is what like I I think and there's a great book out there I reference all the time, but it's really good. It's like the five wealths, which is is obvious when you slow down and think about it. But like the easiest wealth that everyone focuses on is monetary, right? It's just like how much money are you making, ⁓ these guys are making it's like it's the easiest thing to kind of benchmark yourself to. But really it's it's probably, I would say, yes, certainly out of the five, it's it's very much not the number one because I I like a quick test is like, okay, Warren Buffett walks in this room, right? Warren Buffett, I think, is ninety two, something like that. And Warren Buffett sits in and he says, Kenny, I'm gonna give you all of my money. But when I do that, we switch ages. So you become my age, I become yours. You would say, absolutely not. Now, he would gladly make that trade. So time is our biggest wealth, right? So it is, and I think as you get, you know, me and you are plus or minus the same age, as you realize like time is your biggest wealth. And then so time is like, what are you doing with the time? And if you're like, so if you're if you're doing something that you would pay to do anyways, and I always tell people it's like, Try to choose something that if if you weren't making money, you would pay to do. You'd be paying money to be in the gym. You'd be paying someone to be like, I want to hang. And so like people are so even on the downside, if you're not making a ton, you're getting paid to do the thing you do. Yeah. And that's like, that's the magical thing. I always tell people is like, don't focus on the outcome. Focus on the process. What do you want to do? Become an expert at it. Every day wake up doing what you're doing. And then at the end of it, like no matter what the outcome is, you win.

speaker-0: Well, the first two years I had the podcast cost me about close to fifty thousand dollars. We didn't make a dollar from it. It was only in the last like six, seven months that we started making money from it. But I go, I would do this for free. The amount of people I've trained for free, the gyms I built for free, the the the trips I've taken to go to other gyms or to go to other events, I paid for. So I'm paying to go do all this shit that now people pay me for. So I think you need to understand that that's one of the things that makes you good at what you do is like, are you willing to invest in other people's things that you're that you love? I I have four gym memberships in New York City and two in New Jersey. And people are like, Why do you pay for all these gyms? I go, that's like saying I own this restaurant and I could only eat at my restaurant. That's the way I look at gyms. I'm gonna go every day. Why do I want to go the same place every day? I'm gonna work there for six hours. Why do I wanna go and spend another hour there? I'm gonna go to somebody else's gym, support somebody else's business. And then the what I love about the gym is the gym culture. I'll bullshit with somebody, we'll talk about equipment. It makes it more enjoyable for me to like try other stuff. So I do that everywhere, all the time, no matter what. And I pay for it or I get it for free, or it it's what I wanna do. You know, people always think. The best thing in life is when you sell your business or you you you have the ability to step away from your business and let it run itself. And now you're in fucking Cancun drinking margaritas. I don't care to drink margaritas ever. If I've never had another margarita again in my life, it'd be too soon. So I that to me, that's not success. To me, it's like I'd have a bigger gym with all my friends and family and pla in places that I want to go to, that I like traveling to. And go visit them and make sure they're doing well.

speaker-1: The plan is open two more gyms. Keep keep going. So and wrapping up here as we're getting close on on time here, but ⁓ so where can every where can people fall? And I if you guys are in if you're in New York, if you live in New York, if you're visiting New York, you have to you have to make the you have to make the stop because it it really is truly magical. I love the gym.

speaker-0: ⁓ so ⁓ the strength club is the gym. So if you go to strengthclub.com, which cost me a a fortune to buy that, ⁓ the strengthclub.com you'll you'll find the gyms. ⁓ Strong New York, which is on September twenty-sixth this year. We rent out the glass house, which is arguably one of the nicest venues in Manhattan that we rent out for a huge fitness and wellness event. ⁓

speaker-1: And if you're in into fitness, like really into fitness, influencer or anything, or wanna become an influencer, you gotta be there. It is it it's the who's who of the fitness community. Not only not only New York, it's now like the who's who's of the fitness community across the

speaker-0: We have a great, great list of people that we're gonna announce pretty soon on who's gonna be there and what they're talking about. So I'm very excited about that. And then ⁓ the podcast, Strong New York Podcast. So everything is strong. If you look up Strong New York, that finally we're like the first thing that comes up. So ⁓ just at Kenny Santatucci.

speaker-1: And then your Instagram Yeah, which is always a good follow. You you could've followed his bicep, his his his

speaker-0: Yeah, I I gotta do a whole thing on this. ⁓ tomorrow I go see my doctor and he's gonna let me know what this all looks like moving forward. But I'm gonna share the journey of like my arm's gonna look like a fucking noodle soon because I haven't moved it in over a week. So

speaker-1: That'll be Well the last time you like fell a little out of shape and then you got like you f filmed your getting back ripped and you got like absolutely just shredded.

speaker-0: Yeah, and well that and that was during COVID. Yeah. Right. Like I was just like, I'm done. I stopped drinking. I wasn't going out as much. And I'm like, shit, I'm starting to look pretty good. If I dial this up, it's gonna look better. So that's my recommendation to people. Like the best I've ever felt and was when I was the most ⁓ you know, dedicated to what myself. You know, if I the when I get up in the morning, five, six, seven AM and I'm at the gym, I'm I feel my day's so much better.

speaker-1: Well, this was awesome. I really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on and I can't wait to ⁓ can't wait to get the gym. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you guys.

speaker-0: Thank you so much.