Do You Have Enough Confidence? with Mark Fisher

[00:00:00] Hello, my friends on today’s episode, I’m here with Mark Fisher and we are talking about confidence. We’re talking about what happens in your life and in your business. When you don’t have enough confidence, we’re talking about the promise of growing your confidence and how to do it. We also share our own personal experience and becoming more confident leaders and gym owners.

So if you’re ready to level up your confidence game, it’s a great episode for you. Keep on listening.

Welcome to the Business for Unicorns podcast, where we help gym owners unleash the full potential of their business. I’m your host, Michael Keeler. Join me each week for actionable advice, expert insights, and the inside scoop on what it really takes to level up your gym. Get ready to unlock your potential.

And become a real unicorn in the fitness industry. Let’s begin.[00:01:00]

Hello, fitness, business nerds. What’s up. Welcome to another episode of the business unicorns podcast today. I’m here with Mr. Fisher. Welcome, my friend. How are you? I am doing good. Sprinting around. Yeah, I know a lot going on this time of year. We’ll get into it in just a second. Before we get started, I just want to give a shout out to a really exciting free 90 minute webinar we have coming up.

So here’s our pitch here. Friends, too many gym owners that we know stumble into the new year without a plan to grow their business. And if you do try to create a marketing calendar, it’s often overly complicated. The execution is inconsistent. The offers are maybe a little awkward and clunky. But what if you, my friend could take all the guesswork out?

What if there was some done for you system that was simple and effective and you could grab that system from us. You can, we’re offering a free 90 minute webinar with Mark Fisher himself, where he’ll pull back the curtain on all the exact. Plans that he uses for his gyms and our business unicorns clients in 2025.

And as an attendee, you’ll get the marketing plan. That’s super easy to follow and make it clear for you to have [00:02:00] best year yet in 2025. So click the link below in our show notes and claim your spot today. Anything else you want to say about that webinar Fisher? I think it’s going to be one of the most valuable ones we’ve ever offered.

Yeah, I think it’ll be super actionable. I think it’s actually two hours. I think it’s, it might be two hours and not 90 minutes, but Oh, great. I’ll up to my notes here, even more value. Everyone you, but you can leave after 90 minutes. If you come in and you’re just like, I got to go. If you, if it sucks, you can leave it after five minutes.

That’s true. I can’t stop you from your own zoom. You can literally do anything, but I will a quick note. I will be giving a free thing to live attendees that you won’t get. And if you don’t register, you won’t get the recording. So if you want to. Get the recording. If you can’t attend live, you have 48 hours to watch it after it goes live.

Cause this is perishable, but you do have to sign up. Yeah, for sure. Awesome. We’ll go click the link down below my friends. It’s a one that’s really a can’t miss opportunity if you want to crush 2025. And so let’s have in today’s topic, which is really about a very specific kind of character trait that we [00:03:00] think is pretty critical to being a successful entrepreneur and gym owner.

And so Fisher, do you want to tee this one off about why we think this is so important and, you know, what happens when it’s lacking? Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s, I’ve been thinking a lot about this because this is to my mind, one of those ineffable and difficult to quantify components of a successful, not only like gym owner, but frankly, a personal trainer.

Or a leader or an entrepreneur or anybody that needs to instill confidence in people around them, that this is someone to follow in some way. And when people don’t have it, it’s real hard, right? You can do all the right things mechanically. You can do all the right strategies. You can have the right words.

You say in the sales conversation, you can onboard your team with the right systems and just everything just falls flat, super falls flat, but it’s also I’m interested to get your two cents on this. Maybe you have some learnings from the Academy. I gotta be honest. I’m not always clear on what to do to help somebody.

Like I’m a, you know, secret, not so secret and patient Dick, which is [00:04:00] why we do the coaching, but it’s confidence. I want you to be confident. I want you to be confident. And I have many emotional. Deficiencies from my unsettled and unsecure upbringing, but lack of confidence is not among them. Keeler. Yeah.

What do you think? Yeah. I’m curious for your, anything you would add and if you have any help. Yeah. And I think, yeah, I think we can totally dig in, dig into like how you regain confidence or gain it in the first place, but I think it’s useful to pull the thread a little bit more of what happens when we see it missing.

I think you started to. To do that a little bit, I think I’ll just maybe elaborate on what I see is that I think you’re right. It’s a matter. I think you use this word before of kind of conviction, right? There’s people want to follow people who seem to know where they’re going. Yes. I think it’s a pretty broad and simple statement and followers really require that kind of a level of trust.

If you’re going to get behind anyone, it’s some trust that you trust them to trust you. To do what’s in your best interest, the group’s best interest, the business of best interest in this case. And that trust is often won by [00:05:00] a sense of security and confidence that I believe you’re, you’re going to do what you say you’re going to do.

I believe that you have the conviction of your own thoughts and words that you believe what you’re saying. Right. That, that also, I think that also comes with that trust and conviction and confidence comes with the confidence to, to admit when you’re wrong. I think this is not just all about being a blowhard, being like some sort of pig headed unwavering jerk, right?

This is a confidence that, that comes, that I think comes with a little bit of vulnerability, I think, in a best case scenario. Yeah. Right? The confidence to be wrong, admit you’re wrong. But I think when it’s missing, I think, Teams flounder, right? Teams flounder. They’re not as focused. They’re not as, they’re not as united.

I think that strategies don’t get often fully executed, right? People won’t often give 110 percent in the right direction because the direction wasn’t actually very clear. We didn’t have utter confidence that the person we’re following. Yeah. So I think this is an important topic. Do you want to say a little bit more about, I’m curious actually [00:06:00] for you to think other than just the inherent sense of you always had a little bit of confidence, where do you think your confidence came from as a leader?

Uh, yeah, it’s a great question. I don’t really know. Honestly, I think part of it is this. I think when I think back to, I think what happened for me was first of all, I just believed in my deep expertise. I think that’s where it started. So I think about the beginning of let’s say Mark Fisher Fitness, right?

And I would contrast this with my previous career as an actor. Yeah. Yeah. Where by all accounts, I would often choke in the room and I wasn’t capable of doing the good room when I was getting invalid evaluated because on some level, even if I thought I was good, I like I wasn’t sure I was like maybe somebody else is better, but for better for worse.

And this is maybe narcissistic to admit, I was pretty sure you’re not going to actually get better than me as a trainer, particularly when I started. And I remember when I reached this sort of critical moment in my career right now, I want to focus on this. And I remember going to my agent’s office and being like, if you have a client that needs help with fitness.

You are literally hurting them if you [00:07:00] do not send them to me because no one knows more. No one’s going to work harder. No one’s going to care more. No one is going to run through walls to make sure they get what they need to succeed. I beg of you for their behalf, not mine. Please help them. Send them to me.

And that was I think built because of the, my deep belief at that point of my own competence and speaking candidly, my relative level of competence compared to the people around me that I’m selling a huge dick in this podcast. So the most part, I was like, I don’t think they know as much, man. I don’t think they’ve thought about this as deeply.

And I also had developed a track record slowly over time. And I’ll give like one little micro pro tip here that maybe could be, I know we’re not into action steps to solve this yet, but this I think is the underappreciated element of marketing in the beginning, if you have less than 30 clients, you know what you need to do.

You need to beg people to train you for free. But here’s the thing, you can’t even get people to train with you for free without conviction that they believe. Because even if there’s no money, it’s going to cost them time and energy. And that’s another thing that I’ve [00:08:00] recently unearthed from the mists of my memory is before Mark Fisher Fitness was a thing, and certainly before it was more than me, I several times trained people for free for four weeks.

Yeah. In exchange for before and after pictures, testimonials, and I did. everything. And at this point, it’s a little chicken, the eggy, like, did I have the confidence? I was willing to do that because I knew I had the skills or did I develop more confidence? Once I saw, yeah, this works, I know how to do this.

Every time the person does what I say. Now, this is the tricky part, right? If you’re writing a gym behavior change or even a company like ours, you’re If they do what you say is like a big thing and you don’t have unlimited bandwidth to use your psycho spiritual soul force to force somebody to do something even if they otherwise don’t want to do it.

But in the beginning when you don’t have money and you have a lot of time, I think that’s worth considering. First of all, because it’ll facilitate your marketing. And second of all, I think if you really are good and you really know you’ve got the chops, I think there’s something really powerful and will further instantiate your [00:09:00] confidence by seeing the results of what sort of.

Change you can create when someone really gives you the chance and commits with you Yeah, I think as we’re talking the kind of word that comes to mind. I think that’s a key ingredient here is credibility Right, like the idea that you are known for being good at what you say You’re good at I think instills a sense of confidence in yourself Yeah.

I know I’m good at this thing. I’ve proven track record of being good at this thing. Yeah. I’ve studied this things for hundreds or thousands of hours. I think I’m the best. Yes. I think that’s it. And there’s a kind of credibility that comes with you also being able to say that to other people. Yeah. So I think if I started with kind of trust as being one of the components here of confidence, I think adding credibility as another component of confidence, I’ll just add a third, which I think is really critical.

Uh, and this is one I think you do really well and acting might’ve been part of it, which is authenticity. Right. I think. People seem confident when they seem comfortable in their own skin. Yeah. And I think both of you and I can say we’re not always confident in our own skin, right? And [00:10:00] not in certainly certain times of our life have felt more or less confident, but I can’t think of anyone.

I think as a confident person, let alone leader who doesn’t seem really authentically being themselves. The minute you get the whiff of someone being a little smarmy or slimy or a little insincere, or then you’re done. That doesn’t read as confidence anymore. That, that reads as coercion. Right. So I think that if I’m constructing here in this conversation, like this kind of three legged stool of confidence, I think there’s something about people’s ability to have great relationships based on trust and people trust you and people think, and your own youth also think that you’re credible, right?

There’s some credibility and there’s some authenticity. I think that those are three components that really matter. And those are things that can be improved. Like, those are things that really You can work on and change. Yeah. Maybe I’ll take a first swing at what you can do about it. If you want to become a more confident person, certainly think about doing in those three areas.

But one of the things that’s really clear in the research about how people change is that often people’s stories [00:11:00] and narratives about themselves actually don’t change starting with them. They change starting with others, meaning that we’re more likely to change our story about ourselves. If other people have a different story about us.

Yes. Which seems maybe a little counterintuitive, right? That, no, wait, don’t I have to think about myself differently first before others? No, not necessarily. And one of the great examples that we have of this one exercise that we often recommend people do, I just recommended it to Abyss of Unicorns client two weeks, a few weeks ago, is to actually do a little, do a little strengths finder assessment amongst some of your most trusted friends and colleagues.

What I mean by that is send out an email, To five different people in three to five different groups of your life and ask them, what do you think I’m best at? What do you think is my strongest suit? What do you think? When’s the last time you saw me thriving? If you were going to make the perfect job for me, what would it be?

And I think getting that feedback from different groups of people in your life about how they see you. And, and you’re always at this point, you’re only asking for positive things. Right. This is not a, this is not a [00:12:00] search for your weaknesses. And I think even that exercise I’ve seen in my own experience of with, through experience of watching and coaching others that can immediately start to impact on people’s behavior.

Personal narrative of how they see themselves and their confidence in the world. When they see that other people have the story about them, that they are one of the best trainers in New York city, or that they are someone they turn to when they have difficult problems, et cetera, et cetera, then that starts to change your narrative and certainly can impact confidence pretty quickly.

Yeah. That’s such a great example. I, I remember actually I did a version of that exercise a, a few years ago and the thing about it is that it’s so interesting and counterintuitive and it speaks to some of the deficiencies in my psychology. It’s actually, it’s almost hard to be like, just tell me the good stuff, right?

You’re like, no, I’m telling you what I’m messing up. But yeah, I think there’s something powerful about seeing other people reflect back to you where they see you at your best and there’s a lot of different frameworks you can find. That’s a John Broadus change maker actually has. Um, yeah. And it’s interesting because I remember, I think it was [00:13:00] Peter Drucker, old timey management consultant.

I believe like one of his big hobby horses was that people actually are much better at knowing what they’re bad at, but people generally are struggle to understand what they’re actually good at. Now, I don’t know if that’s actually true, if that’s held up in 2025 with the sort of research of what’s true about how we move in the world, but I think that was one of Peter Drucker’s like big distinctions.

Questions? Yeah. Yeah. That’s true. And frankly, there’s an idea that’s been around for a long time in research. It’s a whole branch of research called appreciative inquiry. Often before AI and stuff called AI and appreciative inquiry is all about the idea that it’s like a whole framework for us learning based on what’s working right and how we pull down on following the models of things that are good and we actually just don’t worry much about the things that suck.

Wow. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I think that there’s something really useful about that when it comes to confidence. Don’t worry about the places where you suck. Just learn from people. What are you great at? What do they see you [00:14:00] as being great at? And can you fan those flames and pour more fuel on that fire?

Not that you don’t ever wanna care about your weaknesses. Right. I, I actually think that’s Yeah. Would be insane. And even appreciative inquiry doesn’t say that’s, it’s the holy grail and you should never, but, but I think there’s something about that approach that is often not counterintuitive, especially because as.

Entrepreneurs as business owners, we are so rewarded for being problem solvers. We’re so rewarded for finding like the stickiest issues and finding solutions. It’s part of what we’re good at. It’s part of how we thrive and get rewarded in many ways. So to focus on the positive is tough, but I think that’s maybe the first kind of path to more confidence that I recommend is some exercise like that.

You gather all the things you do well from the people around you. Yeah. And it’s such a practice. I get it. It reminds me of the gap in the game, which is a book that you’ve maybe read by now, but a book that encodes, I think one strategic coaches most blindingly, stupidly obvious frameworks, but one of its most important.

And it’s really just that it’s like you can either measure the distance between where you are and where you want to be, [00:15:00] but you’re never going to get there. It’s always going to be an asymptote or you can measure where you are compared to where you’ve come from. And there’s always things you can look to that are.

going well that you can focus on. It’s certainly one of the ways that we’ve codified this. And this doesn’t speak necessarily your personal confidence. I think it would relate is all of our meetings start with what’s going right. All of the one on ones that the agenda that I give people in the Unicorn Society, certainly all of my one on ones with anyone I work with, I’m going to start with what’s going well.

And it’s interesting because in the traction EOS system, they start with a personal, Win or professional win. And I think that’s cool. And I like that. I think that’s good for being human with each other and making sure you’re actually being humans and not just like work robots together. But when I do my one on ones, I actually really push them.

I really, I want a professional win that you did. I didn’t want to know a thing that’s going well, I want to help build your confidence and capability by forcing you to find something this week that you didn’t so we can fan those flames. I think that’s a great kind of number two strategy here is that not only can [00:16:00] you go ask a bunch of people around you what you do well, but add to all of your meeting agendas the opportunity for you and the people around you to start by saying, here’s something I’m proud of the last week.

Here’s the thing I did well, here’s something I learned, here’s something I’ve leveled up, here’s some problem I solved. And that in and of itself starts to give you. Evidence every single week, more and more evidence that you’re good at stuff, how to win in some areas might not have been in all of them, but there’s some areas where you really can succeed.

And I think that is a big confidence booster. I’ll share another one. I know that you’re going to resonate with this one hard, which is some people appear. To have a lack of confidence who actually are just poor communicators. And I think I can point to real life examples of people who I won’t name. But there are people in our lives that we’ve all known who are really so smart and really confident in what they do, but they actually are maybe not good public speakers or they’re not good in front of a room or they’re not good at summarizing their ideas.

They’re not good at having a. Pithy response. And so because of that, they come across as not having confidence or [00:17:00] focus, or, and so I think something that some of you might consider, especially if you’ve gotten the feedback before that, that you don’t communicate enough or clearly enough for people, um, or you are, you know, that you’re afraid to stand in front of a room and pitch a vision or make a sale.

Um, then I think you do need to have a acting class or an improv class, like Toastmasters, or I think that’s, that’s That’s really valuable. I think Mark and I, we both came up a little bit in acting in theater and by no means was I ever a professional actor, but I wasn’t afraid to stand on a stage and talk.

Yeah, and while I don’t think I’m the best at it, I know that I don’t suck as much as some other people and I think there’s a confidence I think I can have standing in front of a stage of people that I know is really hard for others. I think that that could be a barrier for some folks. It’s just the ability to communicate your ideas clearly and succinctly.

That might be something where you stand out. you start with just an actual class to practice. I have maybe one more rabbit hole, maybe before you start to bring us to a close here that relates to that. I’m just curious for your hot take on, right? Because with [00:18:00] love, if I’m thinking about like the archetype of the person, like, yikes, tough, I’m thinking like wet noodle, right?

And you’re right. It’s, it is communication. It’s also like an energy. It’s a sense of just like you just feel like they’re tired and it’s interesting because it doesn’t mean you need to be getting on chairs, right? Because I think that one of the things that has made you and I so effective as a duo is stylistically we’re very different so one things I’ve observed is part of what’s made us so effective is between the two of us a very wide spectrum of people are going to be attracted to one or both of us to some extent.

There’s not going to be a lot of people that are outside the bandwidth of some interest because even the people that are maybe not the other’s cup of tea are almost definitely going to be able to lock in more with the other, right? So certainly I obviously have a very high energy approach, right? And yours is not low energy and certainly has a lot of confidence, but it’s a different vibe.

So I’m just wondering, I have maybe one other thought after this, but I’m wondering if you can just speak to. Is there something about the way the [00:19:00] energy shows up in communication? Cause again, it’s not necessarily speaking loudly or your face moving. Like I’m not saying be me. Cause again, some people are going to hate that anyway.

It has certainly has worked for me, but it’s not the only way to do it. Right. So I’m just wondering if you have any thoughts on, well, I think, I think you’re putting your finger on the pulse of really what I think of as great leadership. Cause you know, this, and I’ve talked about this podcast before you can go back and listen to past where I talk about, I think, what is leadership?

And I think we really. I’m remind people that we want to toss away the idea that that leadership is like a confident, tall, handsome, loud speaking white man, right? That’s like hero model of leadership, which comes from our military history, in fact, and, and it’s just not actually how leadership works these days.

And so I think there’s not one style. We often talk about in marketing, right? Different bait catches different fish. Yeah. And so I think different styles of confidence will appeal to different people. So I think you’re right in saying we both have different approaches in terms of how we communicate and because that covers a lot of grounds, we’ll [00:20:00] attract a lot of different people.

So I don’t think there’s a really right energy level. I, cause I do think there’s people who even would like a more introverted leader. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And different contexts, yeah, different moments, different people require different mode. It would be wrong to be like, I’m firing you! And I want you to like me anyway!

Yeah, you think of the kind of, you think of the kind of the quiet leadership required of a brain surgeon in the middle of surgery. Yeah, yeah. you don’t want to be like, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cyber caffeinated. Let’s go operate on your brain. Don’t want Tony Robbins. Yeah. You don’t want Tony Robbins with a scalpel.

Yeah. That’s just not it. But I, so I think that the, the style of what I care most about and what actually my research is focused on at this point in school is relational leadership and the fact that people want to follow people who they can feel like they have a relationship with in some way and that relationship is really doing the leading.

Yes. And so confidence, I think. Depends on the kind of confidence that you’re attracted to. And I think context here really matters, the history and relationship of the person and [00:21:00] how you perceive their confidence really matter. So I think that there’s something to the idea that there’s not one right model for what confidence looks or sounds like, but depending on your approach, you will attract her or detract different people.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, because obviously when you’re talking to people one on one, I think another recollection from the mists of time of my trainer days was being aware that in acting we have a term called reciprocal characterization, which just means you are who you are partly because of who’s in the room with you, which is what we’re talking about here, or a friend scene is what’s called an acting, and a friend scene is a scene that is bookended by the characters on stage, because the premise is, you know, Even if one character leaves, it’s now a different scene.

And I can remember, it wasn’t that I was ever being inauthentic to your point, but I was bringing forth the version of me, that person in front of me, the beginning of the relationship, I could get in with, right? Was it more professorial Mark? Was it party boy Mark? Was it like loves musical theater Mark?

And they would get Authentic version of me, but and I don’t want to [00:22:00] make it there was nothing conscious about it, but I just was intuitively try to meet their energy again, not to be manipulative, but it’s an act of I want them to feel comfortable. I want them to feel, uh, Yeah, it’s active service, right? I think at its best.

And it’s interesting because the dynamic there, which we won’t have time for today, but maybe in a future podcast is how one does this, I think in a room, right? Because when you’re, I can talk sometimes to hundreds of people, they’re going to get the aversion of Mark. We still going to try to ride the wave.

I’m still going to try to vibe in with the room, but obviously that doesn’t allow for the ability to be, you know, quite as precise. Yeah. As far as titrating the version of me to connect with this person. Yeah, I think on some level we’re all chameleons, right? We’re all chameleons. We all do some level of code switching based on our context.

Based on our ability to read a room. Some of us don’t read a room enough. It would be weird not to. Yeah, 100%. And I think all of that can appear authentic as long as you are authentically connected with those parts of yourself. Right. I think there’s certainly some times when I [00:23:00] do some code switching and I can show up in a room, for example, a really, a really masculine straight bar with a bunch of dudes in there makes me actually a little nervous as it came out of being honest.

And I have to show up in a way there that’s like not very authentic and it doesn’t feel good to me. And someone watched me that knows me well would know that I was looking and feeling awkward, but I’m doing that switching for a reason where there’s other moments where I have to make big switches. It’s like, Being on stage, I have to be maybe a little louder, a little more high energy than I’d like, which is very authentic for me.

I’m doing that from a place of wanting to connect with the people in front of me. And so I think, I think you can be a chameleon and be authentic. And we all do some version of that every day. Yeah. Every day. All right. We covered a lot of ground. We can keep going on this all day, but I think, let me just recap what I think I remember from this conversation.

It seems like some of the components of leadership that seem to really matter in our conversation or your ability to, to generate trust with the people around you that gives a sense of confidence when you have a trusting relationships with others, when you have some credibility, when you yourself think you are credible and have real [00:24:00] value, and that translates to the people around you.

I think when you can show up authentically, even in a chameleon being different things at different times for different people. But do it authentically, but that also indoctrinates a sense of confidence. I think we gave a few ideas for what to do. I started with talking about asking about your strengths to some core group of people around you that you trust.

You mentioned adding like gains and wins to your team meetings to make sure that you’re talking about the things you’re doing well and tracking your wins. We also mentioned maybe like some acting classes, speaking classes, anything I missed. No, I think that’s great. I think that maybe the final thing I’ll share just as a reflection.

Which I’m not necessarily suggesting, but I would say maybe part of my own recipe and part of like my strong suggestion listeners I’ve often reflected like if confidence is a strength of mine. I am aware at what doesn’t always work for me Is there’s a deep desire? To please a deep people pleaser in me, but I think taking that has been such a core of a savage amount of success because this deep [00:25:00] energy and confidence I can do it in a desperate desire to land the plane.

I just want to publicly say, if you’re listening to this, forgive me to be so bold. If you are not working with us and you want to help grow your gym, if you like this podcast, and if you like this podcast and you like this vibe, you will not find people. We are hitting our stride right now. And further I will do anything for you to succeed.

But like even Jim growth blast off right now, like I, I will be your chief marketing officer. Like I am all in and if you want to do the, it’s not going to get cheaper from here on out. Raises are, prices are going up for these things. So I just want to say, if you like us and you want to get on this train, let me model some of that confidence and say, you’re, I’m not saying that nobody’s better.

I’m just saying like, man, I’ll put up how much we care against anybody and I’ll I say like we are ready to go right now. So if this sounds of interest, I’m going to go to the link in that description box when you sign up, this is your opportunity, let’s go. Particularly if you want to work with me, cause Jim growth blast off.

I’m not doing it forever. The next round starting in January, hit us up on Instagram. The [00:26:00] link will be down there. Let’s go. Yeah, go click the link, my friends. We’d love to work with you. And if you’ve enjoyed this podcast at all, go sign up for one of those things. We’d love to talk to you and get a little closer and, and always keep listening.

Cause we’re here to keep adding value to your life. So keep listening to the podcast. We appreciate you. All right, my friend, thanks for a great episode as always and listeners. I’ll see you on the next one. Have a good one. Bye bye.