Tony Feels Stuck and He's Ready to Quit

Tony is just about ready to close his business and start working at Starbucks.

After ten years in the fitness industry, he feels like he’s lost the spark, and he’s not sure what he should do next — he just knows that what he’s doing right now isn’t making him happy.

In this conversation, Nate Green and Jason Lengstorf talk with Tony about what we can do to find direction without having to burn it all down and start over. How can you tell if it’s time to make a major change? If something feels wrong, what would make it feel right? We cover all this, and in the end come up with a surprising experiment for Tony that just might set him back on the track to happiness.

NOTE: The audio on this call is a little janky, with some background noise and lag, since everyone was calling in from different corners of the world. If you can forgive the quality of the recording, we hope the quality of the content makes up for it.

Show Notes:

0:40 — “I’m just at an interesting point … I’m at a standstill.” – Tony

5:07 — “When you talk about your business, you talk about it like you’ve kind of lost the spark.” – Jason

9:20 — “I lost that beginner mindset.” – Tony

10:59 — “Would that fix this thing, or would there still be a big piece missing?” – Nate

12:33 — “Do you have a picture in your head of what you would like to be doing?” – Jason

16:05 — “I feel more connected with who I am and all the people around me.” – Tony

17:32 — “How would it feel to not run your own business anymore?” – Nate

19:14 — “To be honest … I’ve put in applications just for part-time jobs.” – Tony

20:11 — “If you found a way to make it work, would you still want to do it? Or is it something you need to cut?” – Nate

21:41 — “I had a couple conversations with Nate where I was like, ‘Man, I think I might just quit and get a job as a bartender.’” – Jason

26:05 — “How else can I contribute to this field?” – Tony

29:29 — “If you’re ready to walk away, then there’s no harm in trying something.” – Jason

32:39 — “My thought behind the part-time job was to test out something different, and work in a different environment.” – Tony

35:04 — “You don’t need to make it big. … You’re just testing the waters.” – Nate

38:07 — “I don’t actually schedule time for myself.” – Tony

40:24 — “When I get better, it spills out into other areas of my life.” – Tony

41:46 — “You’re creating space for you to live up to your own expectations for yourself.” – Jason

45:58 — “It didn’t even feel like I had to schedule the time. I just changed my mindset about how I was going to do it.” – Jason

46:43 — “I do that a lot, where I’ll lose myself in social media or something, and that could be time where … it’s just time for me.” – Tony

49:58 — “It’s really easy to say, ‘That doesn’t seem like progress.’” – Nate

52:02 — “You control your schedule; your schedule doesn’t control you.” – Jason

54:56 — “I don’t want to be the best fitness coach in my life; I just want to be the best person I can be.” – Tony

57:07 — “Keep a pulse on yourself, and see if just that little change starts to make you feel a little bit better about things.” – Jason