this is how you build wealth

Summary

weird pattern I started noticing on the road. the cheaper the hotel, the emptier the gym. the more expensive the hotel, the more people in it. that’s not a coincidence.

fitness for an entrepreneur is a superpower. better mental health, better stress tolerance, more energy across more hours. every input that drives long term business performance gets better when the body does. people who keep building wealth into their 50s and 60s are almost always the ones who held their fitness together too.

the trap is treating personal development as something you’ll get to once the business slows down. it never slows down. you train through the chaos or you trade your future health for short term cash.

the wealth I’m aiming for includes the body that can enjoy it. if next year’s plan doesn’t have your training in it, the plan is incomplete.

Transcript

introduction: rethinking success metrics for entrepreneurs

The most impactful business is the business that genuinely improves another human, a better human business. And to grow a business like this, you have to continually improve yourself. This podcast is a documentation of that thesis, scaling businesses and also personal growth. My goal is for you to shortcut this journey. So if you’re ready to try hard, subscribe. If you like what you’re hearing, please share and enjoy. So let’s talk about hotel gyms and what it has to do with your income potential as an entrepreneur.

This is the Better Human Business podcast. I’m Jerred Moon, and I threw this out on social media recently and actually got a lot of great feedback and interest in this idea overall. And here’s the gist. So I’ve stayed in all sorts of hotels. I’m sure you have as well. I mean, from the cheapest hotel that you could possibly think of to some of the most luxurious expensive hotels that you can think of, you know, Motel 6, La Quinta, Hilton, Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons, all these kind of things.

the pitfalls of chasing vanity metrics and redefining success

And you know, you’ll never really see a gym at like a hotel or a Motel 6 like in all honesty, they typically don’t have them. If they do, it’s like a really scary treadmill in a closet. It’s like not something you want to be a part of. But anything past that, you know, the you know, the La Quinta, the Hilton and then especially the luxury hotels. You’re going to get to having a hotel gym. And it’s just something I’ve noticed, I would say for the like, like last decade and a half.

I don’t know why I’m always making this mental note of it. But I always want to see how crowded the gym is. And it’s normally the first thing I do when I go to a hotel in all honesty, I will check in. And then if the gym is close by or downstairs, whatever, I’ll typically check that out. Before I even go to my room, you know, unless like I’ve got my kids with me or something, we just need to like set up camp as quickly as possible.

how personal health plays a crucial role in sustainable wealth building

But that’s the first thing I do, I want I’m interested in a gym. And here’s the thing I always notice is the higher the nightly rate, the more people in the gym. So the more you pay for the hotel, the more people are working out. And it’s always been so interesting to me. So interesting, because you end up with this chicken or egg question. And it’s like, does money make you fitter or does being fit make you more money?

So if having money gives you the ability to be more fit, so you just you’ve stacked cash, you’re doing well. You know, it’s just going to be the typical same old story of like, yeah, they have more disposable income. They can hire trainers, they can have, you know, purchase nutrition plans, coaching accountability. Maybe they have more free time so they can actually focus on fitness a little bit more, you know. And if that’s the case, and I don’t think that’s always the case, it’s not like every successful entrepreneur I know out there is like super fit.

observations from hotel gyms and their implications on wealth and health

But you know, they does that. Is that the case? If it is that, you know, that’s super predictable. That’s boring. That’s just like privilege access, all these other kind of things. But what if it’s the other way around? What if being fit makes you more money? And that would make more sense to me because fitness is a superpower, like it really is. And people don’t look at it that way because most of the time people are only looking at fitness as a way to look a certain way, lose a certain amount of weight.

And that’s kind of it. It’s just this aesthetic, you know, element to their life. And that’s it. That’s all people think about. But in all honesty, you know, it’s going to help you live longer, which most people don’t actually care about. They care about making more money than they do about living longer. But you have better mental health. You’re able to deal with stress better. You have better energy levels to be able to tackle problems. So just think about all those tools you’re putting in your toolbox as an entrepreneur.

the impact of physical fitness on professional success and income potential

You know, being fit is a superpower to being an entrepreneur. And what if just what if over time, that’s the true, like. You know, competitive advantage for you is maintaining a fitness level. What if that keeps you in the game longer? Because I work with a lot of younger entrepreneurs in their 20s, early 30s, and they don’t even know what’s coming for them. Like in all honesty. And I’m not trying to sound like the old guy here, but energy levels will start to decrease with age, you know, and if you’re not fit, you know, hormonal levels decrease, which, you know, you can pretty much hit the easy, easy button on those things to stay these days.

But energy levels will decrease. Your drive, ambition will decrease. So all these things are going to go down over time unless you do something to combat it, which could be just maintaining a healthy diet and a really strong fitness, you know, really high fitness level. So what if that’s the case? Because all the really successful entrepreneurs I know have a lot of these things squared away or at least the entrepreneurs I want to be like. And it’s really the entire thesis for the Better Human Business podcast or idea is that if you want to grow your business, you have to grow yourself.

strategies for integrating health into your business and personal life for long-term success

You have to take care of yourself. And so all the really successful entrepreneurs I want to emulate, they have families and they spend time with those their families and they take care of them and they have high energy levels because they’re really fit and they’re able to maintain, you know, the lifestyle that they want to live. And they’re also making a decent amount of money. And you know, another thing that they do is they read and they develop themselves.

All of these things go hand in hand. And I don’t think it’s a mistake. I think there are entrepreneurs who get lucky and they couldn’t repeat that. That happens to some entrepreneurs and they might be incredibly unhealthy, terrible relationships, you know, all the things that you wouldn’t want to emulate. But that’s not how they got there. They got lucky. But all the people who are building big things, scalable things and able to repeat that process, they’re taking really good care of themselves.

closing thoughts on aligning health and business goals for holistic success in 2025

So I only want to bring that to your attention as we are heading into a new year is how much are you actually focusing on yourself? And you’re like, well, you know, it’s a it’s a growth stage of the business. I really got to double down here. If you’re saying anything like that, you’re just missing it. Like, seriously, you’re missing the whole damn thing that I’m talking about. You’re missing every single bit of it. And I hope you understand that if you’re lying to yourself about being in some growth stage or being busy or whatever, like, oh, I just got to get through this.

I’m going to I’m not going to work out today. I got to focus on reaching out to my leads. Do you not understand what I’m saying or what I’ve been saying for the last several years on this podcast? In all honesty, do you not understand it? Take care of yourself. Develop yourself. Get fitter. Get smarter. Take care of yourself. Take care of your family. When all of those things that are alignment and they’re moving in the same direction that you want to go, your income will grow.

That’s the whole thesis of this podcast, and I feel like some people have missed it because I know a lot of people who listen to this podcast and they are still not taking them taking care of themselves to the level that they should be. And so I have to ask the question, are you missing the point? You have to take care of yourself. If you want to make more money, go run a faster mile time. If you want to make more money, go spend more time with your family and make sure that your mental health is in alignment.

Do you want to make more money? Go read more books. It’s not always about doing the work. Doing the work is important, but it’s not going to get you to the next level. You really have to take care of yourself in every capacity, and once you do, I guarantee you your income level will grow in the long term. In the short term, you might have to give up one extra lead, one extra sale. You might have to give up some short term income, but if you want long term growth, you want true wealth.

You need to focus on developing yourself in every single way. Try harder.