"I remember the first time I heard the words 'Westside Barbell.' Jim Wendler uttered those words to me and it changed my life forever. From that moment on, I studied everything Westside Barbell, elitefts, and conjugate training."
In this video of his introduction to his presentation at the elitefts Fitness Professional Summit, JL Holdsworth shares two stories: the time he heard the two words that changed his life as a lifter, and the time he heard the two words that changed his life as a businessman.
He begins by discussing the first time he heard of Westside Barbell from Jim Wendler. Within three years of discovering that Westside existed, JL lived in Columbus, Ohio, his name was on the record board at Westside Barbell, and he had the fourth highest powerlifting total of all time in his weight class. Just two words changed his life forever and gave him a new form of guidance.
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JL had a similar experience two years ago — this time with his business, and this time with the phrase, "That's it?" One day a new member of The Spot Athletics named Randy came to train with JL for the first time. He stepped into The Spot Athletics, looked around the room, assessed the facility, and asked JL how much it would cost to buy all of the equipment in the room. Proud of the size of his gym and the work he had put into it, JL responded by telling him $200,000. But rather than being impressed, the man laughed and said, "That's it? Why don't you have four of these?"
From that moment on, JL's perspective on running a business completely changed. He had a lease on space, he had a facility full of great equipment and even had staff members that worked for him. But until he heard that phrase, JL says, he wasn't running an actual business. Until he saw things from the perspective of that's it, he didn't really know what it meant to grow a business.
JL, of course, had experienced something very similar to this that's it perspective, years ago at Westside. But at Westside he was on the other side of the conversation. Lifters would come in with, for example, a 500-pound deadlift. They'd be the best in their town, gym, or maybe even their state. They'd come to the gym, work up to 500 pounds, and pull it. They'd look around pridefully and set the weight down, but everyone else in the gym would respond, "That's it?" When you're not around strong people, you don't understand what strong is. Once you're around these people, your understanding of strength changes.
The same is true in business. For JL, it wasn't until he made a change and really started spending time with other businessmen that he realized what it meant to run a business.
Two years after JL's that's it experience, he took what was essentially a small garage gym and transformed it into two 20,000 square-foot private training facilities, and The Spot became nationally known as a leader in the industry. He even went on to co-found another business, Reflexive Performance Reset, which is already an international brand that's changing sports performance.
None of this could have ever been accomplished without that simple phrase: that's it?
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