Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in health and fitness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Zach Bailey, Founder and CEO of EliteSelf Coaching, located in Winnipeg, MB, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

EliteSelf Coaching is a fully virtual fitness and self-development business. We help our clients develop into what they define to be the “Elite” versions of themselves so that they can max out their potential and create the life they truly desire. We are experts in helping our clients get in amazing shape, develop discipline in their routines, create sustainable energy & nutrition, and ultimately 10x their confidence through the execution and results of this development. These areas of development are fundamental to achieving one’s full potential. Our customers are highly driven and ambitious people. They have a MASSIVE vision for who they can become, the life they can create, and the impact on the world they know they’re truly capable of. However, currently, there is a painful sense of stagnancy they’re experiencing because they are out of shape, lack energy, lack discipline, and know they are operating well below what they’re capable of. This is painful for them because they know living as this average version of themselves will never lead to their full potential, and not fulfilling their full potential is one of, if not their, biggest fears in life. We help our clients step into the version of themselves they know they need to become.

Tell us about yourself

In the Spring of 2018, I dropped out of the University of Manitoba, where I studied engineering for two years. However, I can’t really call it studying because I was a super bad student at the time. I had low levels of confidence, discipline, and work ethic. I dropped out not with an ironclad plan but with some combination of faith, anxiety, and optimism that I could become and create something great. In the two years following, I tried various different ventures, including personal training, developing an app, stock trading, & dropshipping. None of them worked out for reasons that are obvious to me now, including simply not doing them more than 2 seconds a piece. Despite the fact that none of these ventures worked out, I had been aggressively leveling myself up over the course of those two years. I had been fit all my life. I can thank my mom and sports for getting that ball rolling as early as elementary and middle school. Fitness has always been the easy thing in my life. The one thing that was constant and a support pillar. However, there were many internal areas of opportunity that still needed developing. So after In addition to the ventures after dropping out, I began to develop my mindset, self-awareness, discipline, education, and value as a person. During this time, core values of integrity, honesty, and trust sifted to the top of the totem pole for me and are still there. So in the fall of 2019, I walked away with nothing really to my name but a much higher-level version of myself. At this point, I decided to start an online fitness business to make a few extra bucks on the side. At the time, it was called Mind Over Matter Fitness, and that eventually turned into EliteSelf Coaching. What started as a project to help people get abs and grow my bank account eventually turned into so much more. Now, The mission of EliteSelf is to help every single person on planet earth develop into what they define to be their EliteSelf, such that they can create the life they truly desire and create the impact on the world they know they’re truly capable of. It’s also a mission of EliteSelf to help solve every single world problem. These missions are two sides of the same coin, and development on one side will create positive ripple effects for the other. But the point is, the team at EliteSelf is unapologetically and aggressively shooting for the stars, and despite the fact that many may think these missions are impossible, we do not share that belief. That is what motivates me. I am following the EliteSelf blueprint myself. I am developing into my EliteSelf, so I can create my dream life and create an impact on the world I know I’m truly capable of.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

My biggest accomplishment is developing into the exact version of myself I am today. If you strip an entrepreneur of everything they have and everything they’ve built, all they have left is who they have developed into. And if you’ll ask any of the successful ones, they’ll all tell you that who they’ve developed into is the thing they value the most. I still have a tremendously long way to go in every department, but I’m proud of myself for who I’ve become and for making it past what I’ve been through so far.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

This list could be a mile long and has so many layers. One of the hardest components of entrepreneurship is the emotional roller coaster that must be mastered. When you start, you’re typically emotionally and psychologically fragile. You attach your self-worth to every win and every loss. This is hard when there are dramatically more losses than wins. You must be willing to eat dirt for an unknown amount of time, be willing to get smacked in the face over and over, and still be willing to operate with a smile on your face. Entrepreneurship is one of the most potent self-development vehicles that exist, and it’s crucial to learn to weather the storm. As Winston Churchill said: “Success consists of moving from failure to failure without loss in enthusiasm.”

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Get clear on your massive vision for your life and the world that excites you. Don’t worry about what’s realistic, what your parents might think, or who might judge you. Life is too short to let that stuff hold you back. When you have a potent mission, it’s much easier to get out of bed and be aggressive with what needs to get done.
  2. Realize the extent to which you succeed is completely dependent upon who you become. The entrepreneurship journey in itself will develop you, but you also need to be intentional with other areas of self-growth as well. Your fitness, health, nutrition, energy, vitality, mindset, routines, and education must be a priority for you, and you must maintain execution in these routines even when you don’t feel like it. Also, work to remove habits that don’t serve you, like excessive porn, food, social media, news, etc. Removing the things that suck your focus and energy is often more important than adding habits that improve it.
  3. Audit your inputs. We are products of who we spend time around and what we fill our heads with. Stop spending so much time around your lazy friends or scrolling BS on social. Start getting in rooms of people who reflect who you want to become and what you want to create. Start to also brainwash yourself with books, podcasts, and YouTube videos of the most successful people, dead or alive. There are decades of lessons, mindset and wisdom compressed into pages and hours of digestible content. Take advantage of it. This will start to shift your mindset, beliefs, and identity in the right direction.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.eliteselfcoaching.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zachrbailey/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zachrbailey/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zachrbailey
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachrbailey/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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