Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast

Blind Faith and Building from Zero

• Taylor

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After a hiatus, we're back with the solo segment of the Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast, now called "Unleashed Mindset with Coach T." This episode explores what keeps us motivated and driven when building something from scratch, particularly during the challenging early stages of opening a gym.

• Reflecting on the first three months of owning CrossFit Hungry Dog Athletics in Norristown, PA
• The challenge of slower-than-expected growth when starting from zero
• The concept of "blind faith" as internal motivation when external validation is scarce
• How witnessing client breakthroughs provides reciprocal energy that fuels motivation
• The importance of giving the energy you hope to receive from others
• Current promotions including founding memberships at $150/4-weeks
• Special intro package: $50 for two private sessions and three group classes
• Upcoming Super Total Year Five event on April 26th from 9am-3pm

Come lift, volunteer, or spectate at our Super Total event on April 26th at CrossFit Hungry Dog Athletics from 9am to 3pm!


Speaker 1:

What's up, dogs? After a few year hiatus, we are finally back with the solo segment of the Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast. I always want to use this solo segment as a way to talk about the things that keep me hungry and motivated and as an outlet for a lot of the thoughts that are going around in my brain and, of course, inspire you guys to always pursue your own outlets as well. Now, with all that said, I want to welcome you guys to Unleash Mindset with Coach TD Kidd. Chances are pretty high. I think it's pretty safe to assume that, if you are listening to this, you know already that I own a gym. I own my own gym, crossfit Hungry Dog Athletics. We're located out in Norristown, pa. The Hungry Dog brand has been around since COVID there. That's another theme that we'll talk about a lot, not necessarily COVID itself, but how some of the best parts of our lives can be born out of the toughest situations. So, yeah, the bread has been around for five years, but this is the first time that I'm out on my own, opening my own gym, and we are, by the time you're hearing this, we will be going on month three of officially being open for business, and any logical person knows, before they jump into an endeavor like this, that growth is going to be slow, especially in the beginning as you build up momentum. But you can never truly know how something's going to go until you're actually in it for the first time. And I will definitely admit it's been even slower than I could have imagined beforehand and tougher to generate something out of nothing. Over these past five years of being a full time coach, I've reached a certain level of success and I think I'm a pretty high level and efficient coach and people enjoy the experience that I provide in class. But it's definitely a different beast to have my own gym and be managing the full side of things.

Speaker 1:

I said I want to talk about motivation and what keeps me hungry and driven, and it's been a while since I've been at the day. One of something started up from the very ground floor and it is tough. It's tough to stay motivated and stay in it when you're at such a beginning stage and you can't see how you're ever going to get the fruits of your labor to bear fruit right. How do you keep going? I want to say something that I think most people won't say. It's a lot of head down and blind faith, having an internal belief in what you're doing and an internal passion for what you're doing, and that, even if it's the smallest little flame ever out there if you ever watch Pokemon, when Charmander had his flame about to be extinguished by the rain out there and Ash was helping him, he had the smallest little flame, even if that gets super, super light like something, something right, like having that always internally inside of you. That is the biggest factor I think that so many like-minded driven people possess and that so many people need to cultivate. Like a lot of people look for hacks of so many things and they come and they listen to shows like this and they search things up on Google and Pinterest and Reddit. I say Pinterest, I think that is, they search quotes and stuff like that and they they read books on the sidelines of the game. Shout out to AJ Brown, like trying to find some external motivation, find some external motivation.

Speaker 1:

But, man, I 100% believe inside of myself that a lot of the time, a big portion of that motivation has to just be a blind faith. Right, you can see what's not there. You can almost feel, without it being physically there, the motivation and the passion that you possess and other people tell you that they feel it as well. That's my unleashed mindset thought of the day, the blind faith. On another level, there are certain things that happen. They're few and far between, especially in the beginning when you're working with low volume that will help fan the flames and keep them going. Being able to be in this crossfit space, weightlifting space that's kind of my expertise. Able to be in this crossfit space, weightlifting space that's kind of my expertise.

Speaker 1:

Um, I've had the instances where I'm working with a 13 year old girl and she's been missing a lift, failing and dealing with whatever she's dealing with with her family, her sport, dealing with the world. That doesn't let girls have that same competitive, braggadocious edge as they do for their male counterparts, parts of the same age. Be able to be in front of her where she overcomes the failure that she had and succeeds at a lift, and give her the feedback of like hey, you look strong doing that and see the light and motivation come back to her. You know so they would have been there for people that have just literally done something that they've never done before and I think that, on that note, the only external motivation that you could get.

Speaker 1:

That's not just blind faith or an internally driven thing is reciprocal energy from people. We all need the same things to keep us going. It's very hard to describe or put a word to any of those things, but you know it when you are around it. So I just try to live my life realistically, reciprocating the energy that I need back. I'll never know who I'm going to be around when they need it. I never know when I'm going to need it from someone else, so I try to just reciprocate it as much as I can. So there's, like my deep thoughts of the day.

Speaker 1:

On the other stuff, outside of the slow growth of the membership, it is starting to pick up right now. The gym has been going well. I'm enjoying being able to, like I said, touch people, liking those stories that I just told, but also, more than that, enjoying the beginning stages of collaborating with other small businesses and understanding what it means to truly be a small business. All that stuff is fun. We're going on month three and some stuff that you guys can expect. We are still running our founding memberships. We still have a couple left of those.

Speaker 1:

So if you're out there, you're a current CrossFitter or you know a current CrossFitter looking for a home, throw them that information. It is $150 every four weeks Sweet deal, probably one of the best membership prices you can get in this local area. On top of that, if you are looking to kickstart your fitness journey here, we are running a special intro promo package. For $50, you could get two free private or semi-private sessions where I teach you the fundamental movements that make up our CrossFit methodology. After those two free sessions, you're going to get another three free group classes where you can come and put those fundamental movements into practice with our group classes. And then after that, that $50 is going to become an investment into your first month membership here. Yep, you're going to be getting that back. That money will be coming right off your first month membership. So I don't think there's any reason not to enjoy the gym unless you live a little bit too far out there.

Speaker 1:

If you know any friends again that are either fitness people right now looking for a new home or looking to kickstart their fitness journeys, send them this information, tune them into the podcast. Let's get them going. Let's grow the pack. Other things that we can look forward to we have a super total year five at the end of April, april 26th there. That's going to be the first year of the new home and it's going to be a blast. We have a full house of lifters, with some heavy hitters that just signed up to register last minute there. Take a look at the super total page on instagram.

Speaker 1:

If you're not coming to lift, come volunteer. If you're not coming to volunteer, come spectate. Watch those heavy hitters clang and bang all day. Again. Saturday, saturday, april 26th, crossfit Hungry Dog Athletics. The action is going to be going on from around 9 am in the morning until somewhere around 3 pm. I guess in the future I'll talk some more about the CrossFit world there, but that's about all I have for this first episode Back. Hope you guys enjoyed it. This was Unleashed Mindset with Coach T the Kid Peace.