The Thane and Friends Podcast-Episode 42-Mike Schiff

Episode 42-Mike Schiff.mp3

Thane: [00:00:01] Hello. Welcome to the Thayne in Friend Podcast Episode 42 I am your host, Thane Taylor. As a guest today we've got Mike Schiff. You can find him on Twitter at Mike Schiff, CHF. Mike, thanks for joining today. How are you doing?

Mike Schiff: [00:00:19] I'm doing great. How are you?

Thane: [00:00:20] I'm doing very well, thank you. I know you've got a lot going on. You've got. You're a father of two kids. You got your own gym. You got a bunch of stuff going on. Training for a half, half Ironman. What do you want to get started with, man?

Mike Schiff: [00:00:36] Uh, anywhere is really fine. I think we can start with the fitness stuff and see where that takes us.

Thane: [00:00:44] Let's do it. So kind of more recently, within the last year or two, you start, you open your own gym. Is that right?

Mike Schiff: [00:00:52] Yeah, we officially opened our doors in November of last year, so 22, November of 22. So we've been open about roughly four months.

Thane: [00:01:01] Okay. Is that the first business you started, or have you been involved in other entrepreneurial endeavors?

Mike Schiff: [00:01:09] Myself, personally, it was the first business. I mean, I started doing coaching online prior to opening the gym and that kind of spurred the gym. The gym has always been a dream of mine, but then my family has had small businesses and been self employed for my parents for decades. So I've got a little bit of experience or at least some insights as to what it what it takes to make that happen.

Thane: [00:01:39] Yeah, I know, I know how that's like. I grew up above my mom's restaurant, which is a tied family run business, so I know exactly what you're going through. You're kind of the entrepreneurial bug is kind of genetic. I think. So. That's pretty sweet. Yeah. With the gym. How is that going? You got, like, a bunch of equipment and everything. Is there anything that you bought that you like have no use for? I barely ever touch.

Mike Schiff: [00:02:06] Um, honestly, no. I get a pretty good amount of use out of everything. Um. But when I started the gym, I kind of wanted it to be my my dream space, so to speak. I had a vision in my mind of like if I was going to create my own gym away from home. It's basically a home gym away from home for me. What would it have? And that's what what I built and I. You know, I look at it as if people come and want to use it. Great. If not, I just have a really nice home gym that I drive to.

Thane: [00:02:45] That's awesome. I kind of did the same thing. I've got a commercial property and I set up like a 400 square foot space and I was like, If I'm going to have an ideal home gym type setup, what would I put? So I kind of did this the exact same mindset. There's one piece that I never use as a barbell, like a specialized barbell, so I might switch that off at some point. But overall, it's awesome.

Mike Schiff: [00:03:08] The piece that you didn't drop, you know, 4000 on it.

Thane: [00:03:12] No. You know what? I made a ridiculous investment in Dogecoin and it paid off. So that's what I use used to build, which is honestly, it's so ridiculous. But it's true.

Mike Schiff: [00:03:22] That's wild.

Thane: [00:03:23] And I ended up cashing out on it, which a lot of crypto people don't. So I got paper hands, but you know, it seemed to work out for me.

Mike Schiff: [00:03:30] Nice.

Thane: [00:03:31] The best piece I like is a mars bar, which is if you if you haven't had use of a mars bar. You should check it out. It's like it's like a super sub and you don't have to balance it on your hands. You could do like a lot of different variations with it. So you can use it for squats, French squats. If you turn it around, split squats, everything is awesome.

Mike Schiff: [00:03:54] Oh, nice. Yeah.

Thane: [00:03:55] So definitely check that out. You know, one of your motivations I know is to be an in-shape dad. And why is that so important to you?

Mike Schiff: [00:04:05] You know, I grew up. Well, pretty much everyone in my family is relatively not the most healthy people. And a lot of people, you know, accuse me of having good genetics and, oh, it's easy for you. And like, if only they knew the whole story. Right. And I'm not trying to throw my parents on blast or my siblings or my entire family. But it definitely kind of motivated me to kind of, um. You know, the buck stops with me kind of thing, right? Like, I want to make sure that my kids see what having a healthy parent does. And both my I've lost grandparents in their fifties, You know, it's like I want to live to see my grandkids get married and all that stuff. And then also just set a good example for my own children. So I think all of that plays into it. And then, you know, I really I really believe in that, especially as Dad's setting, setting the example for our kids.

Thane: [00:05:21] Yeah. I'm. I'm along the same page as you. I've, you know, once you build that overarching, like, deeper purpose for why you want to work out and why you want to stay in shape, it really sticks. You don't have to worry about being consistent once once you find something that really resonates with you. My bigger purpose is like, I don't want my physical abilities to to limit my life experiences. And if that means, you know, you get old, then you can't like, you know, play football or, you know, throw around a ball with your kids. You know, that's meaningful If that means like you have to work out to, you know, in your seventies, you don't have to worry about falling over breaking something, you know, that's meaningful, too. So I really like where you're going with that. And, you know, you got you got really little kids. The more you can expose them to, you know, live in a healthy life and just showing them what being strong can do for you, that's, you know, they're going to be better off for that.

Mike Schiff: [00:06:22] Oh, yeah, absolutely. And my kids already, they love coming to go to my go to the gym with me, go to Atlas there. They call it Daddy's gym. They're like, Can we go to Daddy's gym? You know? And they they get in there and they're just sprinting around the place and climbing all over equipment. And I love it. The blast.

Thane: [00:06:39] They asked me to come to the gym the other day too, and I just loved it. I didn't prompt them or anything like that and pay him to say that. But they asked me out of the blue and I'm like, Absolutely, yeah, come on. I mean, even if they don't do anything. Being exposed to that environment and just kind of watching me do it, it'll pay off in middle school, high school and further on. Hey, tell me about this. This thing you're training for. Four and a half, half iron Man. What got you into that? And why are you moving in that direction?

Mike Schiff: [00:07:08] Yeah, so I played college soccer at a pretty high level, and after I got done with soccer, cardio was just like, No, I'm not about this. Like, I, you know, running until you get sick or, you know, I just shin splint injury where I had a stress fracture in my shin just from running so much because you had to write. I kind of wrote off all forms of cardio up until I kind of made this switch. And I'll credit Zach Hummel and kind of all those guys that did the Florida Ironman last year. Zach tried to talk me into doing it with, I think it was like two or three months before the full Ironman and I was like, I was really tempted to sign up, but I'm kind of glad I didn't because I think I would have been in The Hurt Locker. But I said, You know what? Actually I'm going to go ahead and I'll register to do the half because there was a good amount of guys that are doing it this year here in Indiana. And it's been really fun still getting back into running. It's not my favorite thing at all, but it feels good to get moving. Swimming's been a lot of fun. I've always liked biking. I used to ride, rode bikes and stuff, so that's been a pretty easy transition back in the biking for me. But yeah, it was just kind of. I wanted to do something different, to challenge myself, to kind of get out of my own comfort zone, of going to the gym and lifting six days a week. And this was a. Enough of a challenge that it scared me a little bit, but I feel that I can actually do the. Do it and finish it. And then. The jury's still out on whether or not I'll sign up to do the full one. I think they're doing Florida again this year, so that's a couple of months after I do the half. So it's still on the table, but we'll see.

Thane: [00:09:11] I like what you said about the mindset of doing a half, half Ironman where it's where it gets you out of your comfort zone, but it's still something that you know, that you can accomplish. So I think that's the sweet spot. Some people do like things that that they have no business signing up for and it's just too far out. You know, they may be ambitious, but they just know that it's they're not going to be able to get there. So at some point they stop. So I like that sweet spot that you got. Yeah, I. That marks the time we got. 17 seconds. What are your final thoughts? Something that you want to leave the listeners with?

Mike Schiff: [00:09:49] I just want to encourage all the dads out there to take care of themselves and push themselves and focus on being a good role models for their families.

Thane: [00:09:59] Love that. I appreciate you, man.

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