Jim Rowley has spent over a decade at the helm of gym chain Crunch Fitness, which operates over 400 locations. Rowley maintains that the trappings of modern work—work-life balance, life hacks, corner-cutting—are illusions. He works on nights and weekends, and he tracks the granular details, because he insists that hard work doesn’t come to those who aren’t serious.
00:00 I don't know that there's ever preparation to become a chief executive officer, but along the way you find different skill sets.
00:06 And to be honest with you, most of those skill sets I learned in the Marine Corps.
00:10 It's some of the best training in the world because you're really working with their physical,
00:14 you're working with their mental, but you're working with their belief and a shared sense that we're here to really help each other.
00:20 If you can take some of those things and transfer that into business, it works.
00:25 My name is Jim Rowley, I'm 57 years old and I am the chief executive officer of Crunch Fitness.
00:31 I generally wake up at 6.30 in the morning and I try to reflect a little bit on either the day ahead or just be somewhat grateful, right, for the opportunity.
00:42 It's not lost on me that I get to lead this organization.
00:46 Like I don't have to lead this organization, I get to because my partners, my team, my investors trust me with that.
00:53 And it's not lost on me. I take a lot of responsibility with that.
00:56 So I want to show some gratitude in the morning.
00:58 After I use the bathroom and so forth, I will go turn on Fox Business.
01:04 I want to see how the markets are doing.
01:05 I'm an investor. I always have one cup of coffee in the morning.
01:09 I'm on email by 7 a.m.
01:10 So I'm checking my email because I live on the West Coast and my home office is on the East Coast.
01:15 It's already 10 o'clock to them.
01:17 So I'm usually I've got quite a few emails to catch up on.
01:20 And then usually by 9 a.m. I'm in meetings the rest of the day.
01:24 I zoom a lot. I do work from home.
01:26 Yeah, I have an office in New York City.
01:27 So I come here every six weeks for a week.
01:29 And but I work from home the rest of the time or I get or I get out to my gyms.
01:34 So I'll go to Texas. I'll go to Florida.
01:36 We've got gyms in California that I drive to.
01:38 I can be there in three hours from 9 to 1230.
01:41 It's usually zoom after zoom after zoom at 1230 on Mondays.
01:45 I change into my t-shirt and my shorts and I head to Pilates, which is like a five minute drive.
01:50 It's also it's the greatest blessing in the world because I've been married for almost 30 years.
01:55 We met as teenagers.
01:56 So in the middle of the day, it gives me great joy to take a Pilates class with my wife.
02:00 Then I'll come back and then I'll shower and then I'll eat protein.
02:04 Generally a protein shake, some chicken, some tuna salad, whatever it might be.
02:08 I don't eat a lot of breakfast in the morning anymore.
02:10 I follow kind of a modified low carb diet.
02:14 I wouldn't say it's keto, but I try.
02:16 I feel like I do better with less carbohydrates.
02:19 But I also know that when you're training, you need carbohydrates, you need macronutrients.
02:22 You have to have protein, fat and carbs.
02:24 But I am a proteinaholic.
02:26 Like I really I try to get I weigh 230 pounds.
02:30 So I try to get plus 200 grams of protein a day.
02:33 And sometimes that's like I'm just shoving eggs down at the end of the day.
02:36 I love cheat days because it looks like a cheeseburger and I love cheeseburgers.
02:39 I'm not a massive like cake, pie, cupcake, candy person.
02:43 That's not a big deal for me.
02:44 Like if I'm going to cheat, it's going to be a smash burger or cheeseburger or whatever
02:49 it might be.
02:50 That's joyous for me.
02:51 And then the rest of the day from 2.15 is when my assistant starts booking again.
02:56 So from 2.15 till 5.30, 6 o'clock, I'll continue on and then I'll take a break, usually go
03:03 for a walk.
03:04 We live right by Lake Tahoe, so I get joy in going down to the lake and kind of having
03:10 sat in an office all day.
03:11 Kids could get outside and breathe some fresh air.
03:13 We dinner somewhere around 7 p.m. and then I'm back on email from usually 8 p.m. till
03:19 9, 9.15.
03:20 Before I go to bed, I usually catch a little bit of sports or the news.
03:26 I try to read as much as I can.
03:28 I mostly find I'm reading on the weekends, not work days.
03:31 I still work.
03:32 I do.
03:33 I'll do emails till 11 o'clock at night.
03:35 My mind continues like even when I'm in shutdown mode or trying to be more passive.
03:40 Look, I love business.
03:43 I love it.
03:44 It fuels me.
03:45 It's not my entirety.
03:46 My family is like my world and I love fitness and I love exercise.
03:53 The team building and winning, man, it just fills me.
03:57 It fills my cup, to be honest with you.
03:59 So I'm relatively consumed by it, to be honest with you.
04:03 So for fun in my free time, I'm an avid snow skier, not a snowboarder.
04:07 I'm a snow skier, keeping it old school.
04:09 During the summer, we jet ski, we wakeboard, we wake surf.
04:13 We're out on our boat as much as we can on the weekends.
04:16 And if I have a light day, my wife and I will sneak out on Lake Tahoe and go for a jet ski
04:21 ride when nobody's out on the lake during the week.
