What is Your Ideal Work Day? with Ben Pickard

Speaker 1 0:02
Mike, welcome to the business for unicorns podcast, where we help gym and studio owners create a business and a life they love. I’m your host. Michael Keeler, join me and the business unicorns team 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.

Speaker 1 0:36
Hello, my friend. If you’re looking for a business expense paid trip to get out of town, and you want to get around some like minded business owners and maybe spend the weekend learning from me and the rest of the business unicorns team, you’ll really want to check out our next unicorn society retreat. Although this event is really for our members of unicorn society, we always open up a small handful of seats for gym owners who are curious to see what BFU is all about our April retreat is happening on Friday, April 3 and Saturday, April 4, and it’s in Atlanta, Georgia, and it’s all about marketing and sales. That’s our theme for those two days, you’ll learn what the best gym owners are doing to grow their gym month over month. You’ll get a shot of inspiration, some momentum and clarity, and you’ll spend some quality time with some of the most successful, driven and honestly friendly gym owners in the industry. So to get our full agenda and learn more about what the weekend includes, click low in the show notes and you’ll have all the information there. Hope to see you in April. Hello fitness business nerds. What’s up? Welcome to another episode of the business unicorns podcast, and I am back with Mr. Ben Pickard. How’s life up in Canada?

Speaker 2 1:42
Life up in Canada is Canadian. Happy 2026 happy 2026

Speaker 1 1:46
I think this podcast is coming out, probably late January, but this is one of our first ones that we’re recording here in 2026 so how are your holidays, sir?

Speaker 2 1:55
They were fantastic. Thank you. I we, as I told you already, I think we intentionally did very little and took it day by day, aside from some family stuff. But my family is all really close, and it was great. I worked out, I played video games, I read books my son, I walked the dog. It was like it was much needed and wonderful. How about you?

Speaker 1 2:15
Good for you? Yeah. I had a great holiday season. I was with my family in Jersey for Thanksgiving. I was with my in laws in Nashville, Tennessee for Christmas, and I was with a bunch of friends in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for New Year’s Eve, and the first week of January, which was my birthday. So I got around this holiday season, got some extra miles, and all those things were great. I really, it really was a good it was a good holiday season. I don’t recommend traveling that much around the holidays, because there’s a lot of amateurs in the airport getting in your way. I got all the fast passes and things that you need to try and get through the airport quickly, so I was mostly fine. I might have elbowed a few old ladies, but that’s okay. It’s the price of travel during the holidays.

Unknown Speaker 2:54
We don’t get elbowed at an airport on around Christmas.

Speaker 1 2:57
Are you even living? Just walk faster. Get out of my way. You’re standing where people walk. Let’s dive in. Today’s topic is actually your idea. So maybe, why don’t you introduce what we’re talking about today?

Speaker 2 3:06
Yeah, so I’ve been thinking about this for a couple weeks, and I want to be clear, it’s a hypothesis, possibly just a theory. Yeah. Talk to a lot of business owners, and one of the themes I think I see for the people who are, let’s say, successful, whatever you define that as, is that they build a business around the type of work they want to be doing and their particular strengths. Yeah. And I don’t think this is something that’s talked about a lot, which could mean I’m either onto gold or this is a barren field, and I’m completely wrong, but I’m open to being called

Speaker 1 3:38
out on a podcast. I think you’re right. There’s a there, there, yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 3:41
Like a perfect example is you, Michael, from day one of me knowing and working for you, you have been very clear that you’re the things you love most in the business is coaching human beings and creating content to help those human beings. You love it more than almost anybody I know, and you’re fantastic at it. It’s no surprise those two things are aligned. Thank you. And yes, and it’s true. It is true. I’m giving out fake praise.

Speaker 1 4:05
Michael, no, Praise is true. It’s true. That’s what I like the most. But thank you for the praise.

Speaker 2 4:11
Conversely, there’s the person who really wants to be on the floor training clients, and that’s their favorite thing in the world, and they end up building a business that requires them to get off the floor, and they feel some friction, as you don’t expect with that, yeah, when you know I have, there’s no rule that says just because you own the gym, you aren’t allowed to be doing the training job. Just means you probably need to hire like a Pete Dupuis, the same way Eric found a Pete and so anyways, I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, but there is something around, yeah. Like, what do you love to do? And you’re you can change your mind, you have kids, etc, like, changes, but there’s something around instead of just building, what is objectively the best business, what’s subjectively the best business for you?

Speaker 1 4:53
Yeah, I think it’s a great question. Ben, I think more people should be asking it, and I have a lot to say about it, so I’ll try not to take up our whole time. Time, but let me start here. I was having a conversation with a friend recently who was trying to navigate their career, trying to figure out what’s next. And there’s someone who has a lot of skills, a lot of experiences, they could do a million things, and they were coming to me for like, friendly advice and just talk through how I’ve navigated my career. And one of the things I’ve said that I might have even said before on this podcast, but who knows? We’ve had so many episodes. I don’t know what I’ve said on this podcast at this point, but one of the things that has really been a mantra in my life when I think about navigating my career is asking myself the question, what do I want my days to look like when I wake up in the morning and I see what my schedule is or how I need to spend my time? What version of my calendar would I be so stoked to see every day? What is the work that I get up and would really look forward to? And then I try to make all decisions about business based on that. And I think entrepreneurship gives you somewhat like the ultimate freedom to decide how do you want to spend your days. And I think too many people from my perspective, and I think this happens a lot with Jim Mars and all industries. Frankly, I’ll give you another example that I saw recently, but is they make decisions based on what they think they’re supposed to do, and they think, because I’m the owner, I have to run payroll because I’m the owner, I’m the one that has to do all the hiring and firing and managing, because I’m the owner, I’m the one that has to and none of that is true, because either owner, you have to decide who does what, to some extent, but you can make any job you want for yourself, and it’s one thing that you know in early years. And Mark will tell you this. I think I’ll speak for myself. I think I can speak a little bit for him here too. I think we both struggle with that a little bit, because my feeling about it was like I was like I was being too selfish by making a job that I wanted sometimes at the expense of other people, meant that maybe I was being like too much of a selfish boss. It’s not that I wasn’t willing to do the hard things. I took out plenty of trash and mopped a lot of floors and did a lot of shit I don’t want to do, and to some extent, there’s still stuff on my plate that I don’t love. But one of the reasons I’m an entrepreneur, one of the reasons I take the risk of being self employed, is to chart my own future and build a day and a life and a business that I love. And part of that means deciding what, what’s a day of work that I’d be stoked for. And as you said, for me, that answer is mostly coaching people, one on one, in groups, running workshops, creating content. That’s the stuff that lights me up. If I have a day of just that, I’m fucking stoked. I’ll give you a quick example. I went to for my birthday. Just a week ago, I went to a very fancy, like two Michelin star restaurant. And part of the thing that happens often in Michelin star restaurants that are fancy like this and run like a chef, like a French brigade, there’s a very strict hierarchy in the kitchen, and is you often have executive chef who’s like large and in charge, who always, never touches food anymore, like chefs often get elevated in fancy kitchens like this to be an executive chef, where they help develop the menu and they’ll taste things, but almost do no cooking when they’re at the top of the heap. This is true in a lot of very fancy fine dining restaurants. Chef’s coat is always perfectly white, because the joke is, they haven’t cooked a meal in years. But I went to this kitchen, and I won’t name restaurants, just in case this is something that’s not common knowledge or but, but one of the I was in the kitchen, and they give you a little tour and and I noticed that the executive chef was, like, really hands on, like, really engaged in cooking on all the lines. And I was like, what’s up with that? They’re like, yeah, actually, that’s their preference. They don’t want to be the person who’s just standing in the front barking order. So they actually have that person over there, and there’s a different person. I think it was like their sous chef, or, I forget the title they gave them, but they hired someone else to stand there and basically be the expediter and person barking order so the chef himself could go around and keep cooking with people. So whether you’re a personal trainer who, like, really wants to be on the floor with people, or a chef who really wants to keep your hands dirty and get in front of the stove and cook like you can decide to do that if you’re in charge. I think all too often we create a role for ourselves that think is something that we have to do or ought to do. I also think there’s a skills gap. People are afraid to hire people who are sometimes don’t have the money to hire people who are already good at things that you’re not good at. So you feel like you have an owner. Have to go first to learn about it. Anyway, I said I have a lot to talk about in this topic, but I just want to normalize the fact that I went through that as well. I see it happening across industries. And I think real perk of being self employed is you really get to create a once you’ve gotten to a certain point, you get to create a job for yourself. For yourself that really represents at least mostly the work that you love doing,

Speaker 2 9:27
yeah, at least the work you think you love doing in this moment, until you change

Speaker 1 9:31
your mind, and I have and will keep changing my mind if you move around for some of that,

Speaker 2 9:38
yeah, you’re no you were my point of contact for the guilt I was going through, and I realized I didn’t really want to be doing the day to day in my gym anymore. It’s like, I love getting people results, and I just like, don’t care what the reason you couldn’t make your session is. Just rebook on the app. Please. Don’t care. Is even not quite true, but you know what I’m getting at. I don’t want to be involved in that. You can just I want. Get sorted and I want nothing to do with it. Both are true. And just because you don’t want to do a job anymore doesn’t mean there isn’t somebody else who wouldn’t be, like, grateful and passionate about that. There’s things I love doing at BFU that I’m sure you’re like, there’s no fucking way I’m touching that at BFU. And I’m like, oh my god, I got to make this that’s why you’re here. I genuinely like it. An example of recent examples. I was talking to a BFU member a couple days ago who was like, I need to do the bookkeeping. So we had a big TLDR here is, no, you don’t, because, to your point, even if you know, you might not have the money to bring on a full time in house accountant. Most gyms probably don’t need that. But I bet you have the time to bring on the equivalent of like at most, a fractional CEO, CFO, who’s going to like, aka bookkeeper and accountant for like, under a grand a month. For sure, you’re going to get world class service if you do things right, and it’s going to be done exceptionally well, and probably actually save you more than a grand a month in taxes. Yeah, just because you’re the owner doesn’t mean you have to do that. There’s people who own businesses like, think of the local restaurant you go to sometimes, or even the restaurant chain, I bet you don’t have a clue who owns that, and you probably go on a regular basis. Yeah, my favorite clothing brand. No idea who owns it. Don’t need to meet the owner. I just love their shit. Yep, 100% Yeah.

Speaker 1 11:15
I think you’re I think you’re spot on. I think that’s maybe. I think when I talk to people who have this kind of resistance, I think often it is this idea that as a leader, I need to be just as good, if not better, than most people on my team so I know how to manage them. And I think that’s really and I say this with all compassion, really small minded, right? When you think about people who run giant companies, you know, 1000s of employees, millions of employees. Even there’s no way that anyone at the top of that pyramid knows how to do most of the jobs in that organization, especially when you talk about ones that are highly technical or whatever, there’s folks a really great leader could probably lead Google without having coding experience at all. And so I think the idea that, like I need to learn how to do payroll first, to learn how to hire someone to do it, well, not true. I need to learn how to manage people and be the best manager before I can hire someone demand. Not true. I think what you do need is to know what that job is responsible for, enough to know whether the person is doing a good job. That’s it. And when it comes to bookkeeping, all you need to know is, I can hand my books to my accountant to do my taxes into the year, and they have what they need. Every month I get a P and L and things are organized properly, like that’s all you need to know that a bookkeeper is doing a good job. I might add a few more, but the list is not very long. I know how

Speaker 2 12:37
to click any of the button in QuickBooks that do anything, but I know how to tell if the stuff is in the wrong category, and I know how to email my account. Yeah, 100%

Speaker 1 12:46
I think that’s exactly it. And even just go back to you as a perfect example, it’s like, I know how important data and metrics and all that kind of stuff is to organization and tracking and organizing that and making that all make sense in a spreadsheet drives me nuts. It’s like it’s work to try, and you genuinely love it. And you get excited when the idea is, I make a new spreadsheet, you get stoked about it. And so it’s, this is what we mean when we talk about having the right people in the right seats, right? And that includes you as the owner, dear listener, right? You also need to find the right seat for you so you can do a job that lets you thrive. That’s not to say that we all have to eat shit once in a while, not eat shit once a while, and do things you don’t want to do, but if the majority of your day is you just eat and shit, it’s not sustainable. You’re not going to do a good job. You’re going to be resentful, and you’re going to hold back the organization for having someone in that seat who genuinely likes being in that seat. And you’ll just get farther faster when you find that alignment

Speaker 2 13:41
100% and yeah. So I guess for the to leave parting thought here, yes. And I’m curious of how much is happening in your gym or not happening, which is because you think you need to, you should do it, or you ought to do it a specific way. And in reality, you’re like, hey, I actually just don’t want to become, I don’t want to manage people. I don’t want to learn to manage people. I don’t even want my organization to include really managing people. That’s probably a good indicator that you want to go to try to do like a renting space model, or maybe like you

Speaker 1 14:13
were referencing that. Tony’s conversation with that podcast came out already, right? Yeah, as of this one, yeah, yeah. So go back and listen to the podcast with Pete and Tony gentle core, and Tony mentions exactly that is, I didn’t want to model, I didn’t want to manage people, so I created a gym that’s all full of contractors, yeah?

Speaker 2 14:29
And it’s genius. It’s four minutes in. He’s like, here’s how I thought about coming and I’m like, wow, that’s a really good point. Yeah, versus, if you do want to, hey, I want to be a manager, or I need to, I’m gonna have a gym that’s heavily reliant on management, then you’re either going to have to learn to do it, and you may like it or not, learn to do it and just know the accountable, responsible aspects and seek out someone who’s got management experience, which that’s exactly what I did. Turns out, if you can manage a McDonald’s, you can manage gym in your sleep and Lisa crushes it, yeah.

Speaker 1 14:56
And for the context, for those of new listeners who don’t the context, but Ben. GM Alicia, who’s been on the podcast before. Go listen to those episodes. She’s fantastic. Her previous experience before running Ben’s gym was managing McDonald’s. She got tons of great, like, years of great management training experience running McDonald’s, and so she come and brings that experience into running the gym. Nails it. Like totally nails it. If you don’t want to do the thing in your business, go find someone who does, and if you can’t afford them, find someone who does at least a little bit more than you for now, and start with someone else on your team who just hates it a little less, and that itself could be progress. And then stick with filling your days as much as possible with the things that you know you’re best at. And if you got to eat shit, you got it, you got to do the do what needs to get done. Once in a while. We all do. But I think just paying attention to that balance, I think, is really critical. Yeah, agreed. Any final thoughts for our listeners here, Ben, I

Speaker 2 15:50
don’t think beyond what I said. Just maybe, just encourage you to get curious with yourselves around where, what does your ideal day look like, and is your current trajectory aligned with it, if not, what needs to change?

Speaker 1 16:01
Yeah, I think it’s always a great exercise. Sit down and spend 10 minutes, put a timer on your phone and spend 10 minutes just describing in great detail what like your ideal work day looks like. You might not get there today or even this year, but it gives you some North Star to reach for what you want your days to look like. And it’s a moving target. What you want today might not be what you want in a few months or years from now, but continuing that conversation with yourself and continue to have that self awareness about how aligned you are or not with your ideal work day, that’s, I think, one of the gifts of self employment and entrepreneurship, and they might as well take advantage, because when you work for someone else, you don’t get as much flexibility. Yeah, you really don’t Awesome. Great topic. Ben, you brought this one, and we didn’t even talk about it much before, but I think it’s a really good one. I think it’s a lot of great takeaways for our listeners. So I hope you enjoyed it. Dear listeners, thanks again. Ben, great conversation. Y’all have kick ass week, and I’ll see you on the next one. Thank you. You you