Momentum Shift

At forty years of age, Ellen Latham was in the prime of her life.

She was a single mum, working in her dream job as a fitness instructor at a high-end gym in Miami, earning good money.

And then unexpectedly, she was fired.

She was absolutely devastated. It wasn’t just the loss of income but also the loss of face because she doubled as a TV personality as well.

She eventually found work at a local gym, but the money was way short of what she needed to look after her nine-year-old son and pay the mortgage. So she hatched a business plan.

Latham turned her lounge room into a two-person pilates studio to help supplement her income, and it steadily grew.

About a year later, she leased some office space and converted it into a studio where she could run bigger classes. Her classes became so popular, there was often a line of members waiting outside to join the next class.

Latham continued operating her studio until the age of fifty-four when one of her members convinced her to expand and open up more studios.

She agreed and in 2010, ‘Orangetheory Fitness’ was born.

By 2018, Orangetheory had grown its revenue to $1 billion dollars per year, comprising of 1,400 studios and more than 1,000,000 members worldwide.

Not bad hey!

Fired at age 40, launched Orangetheory at 54 and today, at age 62, Ellen Latham is worth approximately $200,000,000.

BTW…she still runs her own classes!

In a recent interview with NBC News, she was asked, “how did you do it?”

And her reply was simple.

“My father was a physical education teacher at the local high school, and he often spoke about a sports psychology theory called, ‘Momentum Shifting’.”

The essence of Momentum Shifting is focusing on what you have instead of obsessing about what you don’t have.

“So when I lost my job, I momentum shifted ‘up’ and focused on what I had, which was a background in health and fitness.”

Amazingly, she achieved her success in an industry that was already saturated with competitors.

Orangetheory doesn’t do any paid marketing either. Its referral driven with a strong focus on local communities.

But most importantly, Latham didn’t invent anything ‘new’.

The Orangetheory concept of…’work for 1 hour and burn (calories) for 36 hours’ is based on an ‘afterburn’ theory that’s 40 years old!

Ellen Latham drew on what she knew and found a way to deliver it that was different from everyone else.

She continually focused on what she had, not on what she didn’t have.

This week COVID reared its invisible head again and it seems the Delta variant is more contagious than any variant prior.

And to most people’s frustration, it means more restrictions.

But we have a choice. We can focus on what we have or what we don’t have.

Have a great weekend!

Adam

Back paddock – speaking of start-ups, when Howard Shultz bought Starbucks in 1987 with two mates, it consisted of 6 coffee shops. There are now 32,000 stores worldwide and they’re currently opening a new Starbucks shop every 15 hours!