Luke Carlson of Discover Strength: The Power of Flexibility; How I Was Able To Pivot To A New Exciting Opportunity Because Of The Pandemic

As a part of this series called “How I Was Able To Pivot To A New Exciting Opportunity Because Of The Pandemic”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Luke Carlson.

Luke is the founder and CEO of Minnesota-based boutique fitness company, Discover Strength. Discover Strength’s personal training studios are among the highest volume and revenue training facilities in North America. Luke speaks around the world on leadership, management and evidence-based exercise.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?

I was raised by an amazing and loving mother and father and grew up with an older and younger brother. My father was a police officer and a Golden Gloves boxing coach, so from the time we could walk, my brothers and I would accompany my dad to the boxing gym, which was located on the upper level of the police station where I would watch the boxer’s practice and work out. My father’s modeling of exercise played an instrumental role in my passion for it; a passion that has turned into an incredibly rewarding career.

I grew up boxing, playing football and was involved in student council. I’m so grateful that throughout elementary, middle school and high school, everywhere I turned there was a dedicated teacher who served as a role model. From the time I was in middle school, I knew I would live a life committed to leadership; I loved leading as a captain of the football team, a member of student council, and eventually, that would turn into leading a business.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

A quote by James Michener defines how I live my life and how I always want to live my life: “The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both. ”

When I came across this quote about seven years ago, it stopped me in my tracks because it perfectly describes how I live my life. There is no such thing as work/life balance; we are always living, and work and “life” aren’t competing interests.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I love watching films and listening to podcasts, and reading books is one of the greatest joys in my life. Famed motivational speaker and writer Earl Nightingale said that we move in the direction of our dominant thoughts. As such, we are wise to constantly immerse ourselves in great books, podcasts and films to shape our thinking — and I try to live that advice every day.

When it comes to films, “Rocky” made quite an impression on me, not only because of my love of boxing and exercise but also because of its broader themes. It’s the ultimate underdog story; a story of transformation and reinvention, as well as love and friendship. Although not as critically acclaimed as the original (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), “Rocky IV” is also a favorite; it’s an inspirational movie with a great soundtrack!.

I listen to so many podcasts, but my go-to is “At the Table with Patrick Lencioni.” Lencioni is my favorite management author, and this podcast always shapes my thoughts about leading and managing in new and exciting ways.

And the book that has had the greatest impact on me is Jim Collins’ “Good to Great.” It might not even be my favorite book of all time (it’s in the top 10 for sure), but it was the first business book I ever read and very much shaped the formation of my company, Discover Strength (and sparked my passion for reading business books). I read it in a Starbucks in 2004 and daydreamed about how I would apply the principles within the business I would create. I still love the book, but I might actually like his newest book, “Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0,” even better.

Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Can you tell our readers about your career experience before the Pandemic began?

In 2006, I founded Discover Strength, a chain of boutique fitness centers. I recognized that busy people don’t have time to waste on workouts that don’t work, so at Discover Strength, we deliver 30-minute strength workouts with an expert trainer that allow people to look and feel their best in a fraction of the time. Over the last 15 years, we’ve grown to seven locations and spent the last two years building a franchise company. In fact, we just awarded our first two franchises in mid-July 2021.

What did you do to pivot as a result of the Pandemic?

Like all fitness centers, restaurants and so many other non-essential businesses, our doors were forced to close on March 16, 2020, due to the shelter-in-place orders. This meant we immediately dropped to zero revenue. In Minnesota where we operate, our doors were closed from March 16th to June 10th and then again for one full month in November to December. By March 23rd, we launched Virtual, 1-on-1 Personal Training with an incredible response from our clients. Our real organizational strength (our differentiating capability) was the expertise of our personal trainers; we were able to pivot and play to this strength but in a virtual space in which we trained clients from their homes using Zoom or Google hangout on a laptop or tablet. Every week of the shutdown our key performance indicator of “sessions” and revenue grew.

Can you tell us about the specific “Aha moment” that gave you the idea to start this new path?

We were closed down on a Monday night. On Tuesday, I met all day long with my leadership team; we told all of our personal trainers to take the day off, relax and we’d circle back with what our plan looked like. We had the same conversations so many companies were having: “How much cash do we have, and how long can we survive?” “When do we start lay-offs?” “How do we weather this storm?” It was a great discussion; however, it wasn’t the right discussion.

Later that evening, I sent a text message to my leadership team and said we needed to jump on one more quick phone call. I told them, “When you wake up tomorrow, we are a Virtual Personal Training Company. We are going to behave, make decisions and conduct ourselves as if we are the greatest Virtual Personal Training Company on earth.”

We needed to mentally “burn the ships” and avoid acting like the launch of Virtual training was a bridging of the gap. Of course, at that time, we thought we would be closed for only two weeks; we could have never anticipated that we would be closed for four months of 2020.

During tumultuous times, I think one of the first principles of leadership is: Turn toward the customer. Ask yourself, “How can we create value for our customer?” In tumultuous times, our instincts are to do the opposite; we turn internally and focus on ourselves, our cash, our people, etc. Those are important, but without an outward, customer-facing approach, I don’t think it’s possible to effectively innovate. I should also add — necessity IS the mother of invention. I NEVER would have contemplated Virtual training prior to the pandemic.

How are things going with this new initiative?

It’s awesome! We grew Virtual training significantly during our four months of shutdown, and now, with all seven of our locations back open and thriving, Virtual training still comprises 20% of our revenue and allows us to serve clients around the world.

It worked because when we asked them to switch to virtual, they trusted us thanks to the 14 years of trust and equity we built with our customers. Our clients were incredibly loyal to us, and for that, I’ll forever be grateful. Our clients are the heroes of our story and pivot.

Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Since 2003, it has been Joe Cirulli, the founder and owner of Gainesville Health and Fitness. Joe is one of the greatest leaders of people I’ve ever known. He is a model of humility, work ethic, growth mindset and intensity. He runs one of the most impressive businesses in any industry, and people from around the world travel to visit him and his team.

When I was interested in starting a business, I flew down to Gainesville to have lunch with Joe, and he was incredibly gracious with his time. Among other things, he turned me on to the right books and inspired me to become a reader.

The person I’m the most grateful for since the pandemic hit is actually three people — our leadership team: David, Jessica and Hannah. Their unwavering commitment, resilience, flexibility, capacity and concern for our staff, clients and health of the business has been incredible. WHO you have on your team is more important than WHAT (strategy and tactics) you do. And I had the right WHO around me.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started in this new direction?

The most significant outcome of our pivot is that we didn’t have to lay off or furlough a single employee; this is absolutely unheard of in our industry. 30 years from now, I’ll still look back at this and be proud and filled with gratitude for what we accomplished during this unprecedented time.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started leading my organization” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

1. You don’t need a partner. Oftentimes, we think we can’t do it alone. It’s true we can’t do it alone; we need employees, mentors, colleagues and teachers, but that doesn’t mean we need a partner. I started with a partner and went through a separation that caused a lot of pain. Ultimately, it resulted in a win-win, but there was a lot of pain in the process.
2. There is no overnight success. Or more aptly, most overnight successes are 20 years in the making. It takes time, commitment, focus and sacrifice. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of those things, but we need an understanding that financial reward can be very much delayed. A “long-game” mentality is foundational.
3. People will be your single greatest source of pain, as well as joy. Your struggles with employees will keep you up at night, break your heart and challenge your confidence. On the other hand, the journey with the right people will be your biggest source of joy, gratitude and satisfaction.
4. Surround yourself with the right mentors, teachers, influences, peer groups and coaches. We move in the direction of our dominant thoughts, and we become the sum of the people we spend the most time with. This is a cliché, but it’s largely true. As the demands of the business grow and evolve, we need new ideas, inspiration and ways of thinking, and perhaps most importantly, we need people to challenge and push back on our ideas. I have a business coach I work with; I’m in a peer executive group; my leadership team has a coach with whom we work, and I make a point of staying very close to many colleagues in my industry and all industries.
5. Learning fuels passion (not the other way around). We always assume that if we are passionate about something, we’ll go out and learn more about it. I’ve found that this is actually inverted. The more we learn about a topic, the more our passion grows for that topic. This lesson has been instrumental in me growing and rekindling my own passion but also for instilling a deep-seeding and authentic passion in our staff. My personal favorite way to learn is to read books.

So many of us have become anxious from the dramatic jolts of the news cycle. Can you share the strategies that you have used to optimize your mental wellness during this stressful period?

The three things I’ve focused on during this time are:

1. Adopt the Stockdale Paradox, which was developed by James Stockdale during his time in a Vietnam POW camp: Face the brutal facts of the situation (for him, the brutal facts were not getting out of the camp by Christmas) and have unwavering faith that you will prevail. The idea is to avoid being a blind optimist; face the brutal facts but ALSO maintain steadfast, unwavering faith.
2. Work in my circles of influence and control and completely ignore things that fall into my circle of interest. During this pandemic, I’ve seen so many leaders and smart people spend so much intellectual and emotional energy on things they can’t control. I can’t control the president, the governor, the virus, the media, etc. But I CAN control my responses, my attitude, my strategy, my tactics and about one thousand other things. I always want to spend my energy in my circle of influence/control.
3. Read the right books, watch the right movies and listen to the right podcasts. I re-read “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl. I wanted to immerse myself in stories of leaders and people demonstrating resilience against all odds, and history has so many examples of this for us to learn from.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

Engaging in intense, safe, and time-efficient strength training would truly change the world. Strength training, more so than all types of exercise or activity, wards off disease, improves cognitive function, increases our functional ability and expands both our lifespan and our healthspan.

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

No question, Patrick Lencioni. He is my all-time favorite author, and I’d love to go deep in discussion with him around all things leadership and management. I would also like to thank him for the incredible impact his books have had on me.

How can our readers follow you online?

Instagram: @lukecarlson3070

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.