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Barbell Shrugged

Drugs, Women, Murder, and CrossFit: The Story of Vincent Miceli — Real Chalk #54

Barbell Shrugged

Doug Larson

Fitness, Health & Fitness, Nutrition

4.72.8K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2018

⏱️ 64 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From Wall Street cold calling to owning a successful gym in NYC with a detour into the nightclub scene along the way, Vincent Miceli's career trajectory is all over the map and he has got some stories. I caught up with him at Solace to compare notes on gyms as businesses, how to create great programming, and what we would do differently if we could start all over.

 

Vincent talks about his own weight-loss journey (he lost almost 100 pounds in a year) and how he got into CrossFit (spoiler: it involved flipping a coin). We get real about what we look for in coaches, wonder where the insanely energetic people coaching SoulCycle classes come from, and break down what running a gym really looks like when you get down to the expenses. It's a little bit of storytelling, a little bit of insight offering, a little bit of knowledge dropping, and a hell of a lot of fun. With Vincent's "there is no ceiling" mentality, anything is possible—and this episode is proof of that.

 

Buckle up!

- Ryan

 

HIGHLIGHTS:

1:00 My gym is bigger than your gym

2:30 Vincent was a 24-year-old millionaire

6:30 Let's go build some nightclubs

7:15 Crazy cocaine stories

13:30 Murder makes you reevaluate

15:00 You try consuming 30 to 40 drinks every night and see what happens

18:30 90 days to turn a life around

22:30 Coin flips and CrossFit

23:30 Vincent is going to the Games

24:15 Vincent is opening a gym and he's never coached a class

26:00 Is a gym a business or an investment? Two different approaches

27:10 How to make shit happen: be the person with the most passion and the best perspective

28:30 Give the people what they want: different classes for different interests

29:30 The good and the bad about Marcus Filly's program, and why HIIBB works

31:00 Tendinosis and Active Life

34:00 Programming overlap: how TBB solves the problem—power to the people

35:30 The opex model

36:30 CrossFitters are brats, and the interest is fading

40:00 How do you find high-energy coaches?

42:15 Don't do the stupid shit—what causes injury

43:00 How hard is making money with a gym, and what makes a coach worth paying?

47:15 Incentivization and why it's slippery

52:00 Three things that could change, and three things that were great ideas

57:00 "The only major difference is I owned more things"—more money doesn't necessarily mean more happiness



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Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc_miceli

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Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since.

Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini.

We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast.

Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here:

SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

What's up everybody we got a new hot episode for you guys. I'm sure you saw the title drugs women murder and cross fit.

0:08.0

My man Vince much Shelley is from New York City and I happen to meet him when I was up there for the strong fit expo just a few weeks ago.

0:16.5

So basically I had asked people on Instagram, hey like who do you guys want to listen to or if you have a really cool story and you want to be on the podcast go ahead and DM me.

0:25.5

I didn't know who Vince was so I emailed him back and I was like so why should you be on the show.

0:31.5

Give me something good and he's like well.

0:35.5

If you consider losing millions of dollars in the stock market losing a hundred pounds there was some murder in there some women some cocaine this and that then maybe you may or may not want to hear my story and then I was like oh snap this is gonna be a really good story.

0:51.0

So as you guys know I'm a big fan of really good stories so I had to have him on the show and once I got to meet him he was super super cool.

1:00.5

And we got down into the nitty gritty with so many different things like on how his path went from this stockbroker who is making insanely good money to you know him in the club business losing all this money and all these things happening and then he lost a hundred pounds.

1:19.5

And then the way that he got into crossfit is actually like absurd it's like the craziest story like flip the coin.

1:25.5

And then from there all the things that he did to create this business that he has that's actually doing insanely well called the body blueprint so basically he's building this thing up to sell it so a lot of people out there they sell food products or they sell.

1:39.5

Chains of gyms or this or that whatever they want to franchise and then they try to sell this thing off so I know he's really close right now to a buyer right now who's going to be potentially buying a series of his gyms so the guy has some really cool things to say and I think if you're a gym owner out there it's really great listen for you.

1:56.0

And if you're someone who just wants to hear a great story and wants to get motivated this is also a really great story for you as well.

2:02.5

Online I have all of the little time slots where you can hear all the best parts of the story for like anybody who's just looking for a particular part or you want to go back listen to a particular part but before we get into the show sponsors right now are going to be everything that I have going on in my life as far as fitness and making you guys fitter and sexier and just better human beings all together you guys can go to crossbitchock.com click shop and you guys have access to all of my ebooks including the very popular height.

2:32.5

Intensity interval bodybuilding that I personally invented and is my own signature style of training that I do on the daily basis I mix in some of the crossbitchock workouts in there as well the ones that don't include things that kind of bothered my knee I have a knee that kind of bothers me on the regular but the interval bodybuilding stuff is right up my alley it's stuff that I really really enjoy and I really think you guys are going to dig it so use code real chalk and all capital letters you guys get 20% off all those books I even have a 30 day kettlebell only book.

3:02.5

That does really well that a lot of people dig it's not your traditional kettlebell stuff that you see everyone doing all those weird flows and just stuff that I cannot stand to watch but I have like real legit cross it workouts in there like real legit like strong man workouts in there like bodybuilding workouts in there that are all kettlebell related so it's it's very very unique I promise you if you don't even like if you don't like these for any reason just email me and I'll just give you your money back because there's no chance that you're not going to like it another thing is the chalk online programming is just like that I'm going to do it.

3:32.5

This is growing like fire it just gets bigger and bigger every year it's you know by far the the thing that makes me the most excited in my life right now like it's just benefiting so many people but not only is it great for individuals or people who work out in the garage or people who go to a gym and have open gym they just want to do a really cool workout that's really really fun.

3:52.5

It's great for affiliate owners you don't have to make workouts for your gym anymore you don't have to sit there on Sunday night and stare at the computer screen for an hour to five hours to six hours like sometimes it takes me just an ungodly amount of time I spent three hours on just one workout before like multiple multiple times I actually don't really want to talk about it but you guys can go to cross with chalk dot com click sign up and you guys have access to my chalk online workouts and you guys will have a mobile app.

4:22.5

You'll be able to compare your scores to everybody in my gym everybody that's on the online gym.

4:27.5

You'll be able to track your workouts you'll be able to just see everything and then once you sign up you also have access to my interlint library of every workout that I've ever made in the last like five years so you're getting a serious serious logbook here and you're getting access to everything that we do in the gym not only the cross workouts but you're also getting the sweat workouts which are.

4:50.5

Really really taking over right now I think as far as the membership goes it's not a lot of the heavy barbell stuff it's more of the dumbbells the kettlebells the cardio stuff it's the lean and mean fighting machine type of workouts and that's also another thing that I like to incorporate my workouts a ton and it's actually kind of gaining the popularity of some of my crossfitters in the gym people love the sweat workouts and they are exactly what they sound like they are just sweat so you get in there and you are sweating perfusely.

5:18.5

Anyway you guys can go ahead and go to crossdog.com and sign up for that you guys can go to Ryan fish RY AN FISCH my Instagram click the link in my bio and you guys can sign up for the online program as well it's $20 a month yeah it's a really really good deal and it just gets rid of any sort of guessing on workouts you can also go to the date on there spin it I call it chalk roulette and you can just land on any workout and that can be your workout for the day every Saturday we do team workouts.

5:47.5

There's a ton of ton of stuff on there it's very very very worth the $20 all right so before we get into the show I just want to say I love you guys and I hope you guys enjoy it and Vince has a great story and if you guys need anything else from me you guys want to hear from someone specific out there or you want a question answered remember you can DM me Ryan fish on Instagram or you can email me Ryan RY AN at crossfitters.com

...

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