Lessons From MashElite
Yesterday I was working with a new family that signed up as a small group, and I noticed that the dad was looking around in amazement. I was curious as to what he was thinking, and he simply told me that he had never seen any of the exercises/activities that were going on. I took the time to look around, and I was taken back a little also. I guess when you are in the daily routine, sometimes you miss the awesomeness that is taking place. As I looked around I saw athletes Clean & Jerking, foam rolling, performing core exercises with a cable machine in a half kneeling position, jumping on the vertimax, overhead squatting, deadlifting, sprinting with sleds attached, performing various glute exercises and many other activities. At that moment I realized how much our program has evolved over the past several years. I say “our” because we are a team. I might have the last say in things, but input from our key players is always taken into consideration.
The key here is to surround yourself with brilliant team members. Number one on that list is of course my beautiful/brilliant wife. Her creative brain is constantly coming up with ideas to improve MashElite. Lately her ideas have almost doubled our business by appealing to the young ladies of the world. Her new “Tush & Abs” group is a big hit! The girls love it, and they are forming functional movement patterns, increasing mobility, and getting stronger while having fun. It doesn’t hurt our image that she is the strongest girl powerlifter in the gym, and in my opinion the most beautiful.
My two young exercise science whiz kids are Greg Nuckols and Rebecca Gerdon. These two bring so much to the table in terms of programming, speed development, mobility, functional movement, mechanics of the lifts, and both write a mean blog(I am going to list the blogs of all the staff at the end of this blog). Another huge addition that they both bring to the table is that they are both at the top of their perspective sports. Greg just broke the all-time 242lb Powerlifting Total World Record last weekend at only 21 years old. Rebecca just made the Muscle Driver USA Professional Weightlifting Team after only two years of training. She will be training full-time to make the USA Weightlifting Team. There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t learn from these two. The moral of the story is don’t be afraid to learn from these young people. Remember they are reading all the latest research, and if they are good like thee two, they are doing their own studies because they love their craft.
I have two marketing experts on staff Lindsey Ruble and Caleb Tilson. Lindsey is the fiancé of Greg Nuckols, and just became our fourth girl to deadlift over 300lbs. Lindsey might be the most efficient person that I have ever met. She is a big part of the new look to our website www.MashElitePerformance.com, and every time that I ask her to add something she has already done it. It is like she reads my mind. Greg seems to be my big picture guy, and Lindsey makes the picture come to life. Caleb is in his senior year at UNCG, and he is a Business Major with a concentration in Entrepreneurship. His focus is thinking of new a creative ways to get our message out to the public. We have a lot of different aspects to MashElite with Athletic Development, Crossfit, Tush & Abs Group Training, Personal Training, Weightlifting Club, Powerlifting Club, Smoothie Bar, and Social Club. The one common theme is that we are one big family, and it doesn’t matter what your goal is just work hard to reach it. We are going to cheer each other on, and then we are going to do life together like God intended. That is the message that Caleb is trying to get out to the world. This is what makes us different. This is what makes MashElite special. This is why our athletes and clients do better than yours!
Eze is a young man that not only helps others transform their lives, but he has transformed his own. Eze moved to America from Nigeria when he was 16 years old, and he is still learning the American culture. He barely played sports growing up, and when I started training him, he wasn’t much of an athlete. Now he is an up and coming Weightlifter Snatching 245lbs and Clean & Jerking 305lbs. He also has a gym high 42 inch vertical leap. The guy is sold out to MashElite, and to helping all of our MashEliters reach their goals. He is at MashElite from 5:30a to 8:30p everyday, and he is set on being the best strength and conditioning coach in the world. Now he has a long ways to go, but I have no doubts that he will get there. He is like my son, so if he is going to be my son, he better become the best coach of all-time or else!
Now we have one of my best friends Chris “Ox” Mason acting as our COO. He will be in charge with implementing and growing some of the new sides of our business like seminars, camps, MashElite Certifications, after school programs, and we are going to start Franchising the MashElite name, program, and strategy. This will be a delicate situation because I will only trust the most qualified individuals with my name. If they are not interested in being the best at what they do, then there is no deal. We will be announcing more of this as we get closer to finalizing our criteria. Chris is an Exercise Science Major from Appalachian State University, and one of the best powerlifters ever in the world. Chris is very knowledgeable in nutrition, performing all lifts, and programming, and he loves what we are doing to help people understand athletic performance, movement, and overall health.
The rest of our cast of characters include Rabbit, Brandon, Sam, Poppy, Nanna, and all of our MashElite Family. They all share in what we are doing to bring all of our athletes and clients the best experience possible. We do this by loving all of our MashEliters, and by providing them with the very latest in all aspects of Exercise Science and Strength and Conditioning. Our motto is to coach every rep of every set! This is what makes us different. If you want to be successful in this industry, then take all of this advice and implement it. If you don’t love what you are doing, then do all of your clients a favor and quit! I personally thank God for the opportunity to help others achieve their goals and to live a better life!