18 min
Ep 339: How Craig Schulze's Personal Brand Story Started The Leadership Stack Podcast
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- Management
Sean: So, Craig, usually I start the podcast with the founder's journey. What led you into entrepreneurship and what allowed you to hone your leadership and management skills?
Craig: So I left home to get a good education, to get a good job. So financially, I've been self-funded since the age of 17. I became an engineer, and I didn't have a burning desire for trading time for money, so I fired my boss when I was twenty-one years of age to follow my dreams and passion. And that was a fitness industry. So 21, I knew - I bought about a fitness club. I knew nothing about business, probably at 21, not too much about life. But what I lacked there, I made up for the will to do whatever it takes to have success, and that meant personal development, growth. I would read books on sales, marketing, you name it. Every single night I'd fall asleep with a book across my face and I learned how to build a business.
Craig: Three years then, I was a multi-award-winning trainer, so imagine one of the states of Australia. I was the number one guy in that state, and I started building up notoriety, which is one of the keys to success. And what I do coach a lot now, is to be that leader in your niche, that market leader in your niche, and more opportunities will come your way. Moving on from there, I set up five fitness clubs, sold 22 franchises, started investing in property. And in my mid 20's I'm like, "Wow, business is easy. Yeah, this is an easy game for me." I would start a business, build a business, make money investing property and so the wheel was working.
Craig: And I hit my first speed hump in business, which was a global financial crisis. And at that time I nearly lost everything. To give you an idea of what happened is banks stopped lending me money so I couldn't sell franchises. Banks stopped lending me money so couldn't pay for the renovations to the hundreds of thousands of dollars to start a new gym. Banks stopped lending money, not just that my gym clients were going "Craig, we love you, but we're going to - we're worried about our income." A lot of people right now are worried about their income same back in 2008, so I lost a lot of my clients and then the US dollar to the Australian dollar changed that much. My equipment cost went up hundreds of thousands of dollars overnight, and this is one of my biggest lessons in business was risk management. So I was an aggressive guy that everything went really well and I nearly lost it all, and it took me three years to come out of that.
Craig: Three years later, I was making more money doing that than owning five gyms. And then in 2011, a company said, "Look, Craig, we've heard about your success. We'd like you to help us expand our product range around the world." And for the next 10 years, which is to where we are now. I built a business into 100 countries and over six million US dollars in that time traveled all around the world. But in 2014, I went through my biggest challenge in life, which changed my whole vision and perspective of life, and my wife and I, we lost our first son. He was a stillborn baby. And from that, that led to me building out a personal brand, and that was around the whole idea, which is what I said in my son's funeral. "My son didn't get one breath on the planet. We're all in the game. Go out there and make the most of your one shot at life." And you know, it took me four years before I launch out. In 2018, I wrote a book called You've Got One-Shot. And then I had a podcast where I interviewed over a hundred and fifty of the biggest thought leaders in the world.
Craig: I have invested very heavily in myself. So I've worked with some of the biggest names in the world, invested about half a million dollars into my personal growth and journey.
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack
Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack
Sean: So, Craig, usually I start the podcast with the founder's journey. What led you into entrepreneurship and what allowed you to hone your leadership and management skills?
Craig: So I left home to get a good education, to get a good job. So financially, I've been self-funded since the age of 17. I became an engineer, and I didn't have a burning desire for trading time for money, so I fired my boss when I was twenty-one years of age to follow my dreams and passion. And that was a fitness industry. So 21, I knew - I bought about a fitness club. I knew nothing about business, probably at 21, not too much about life. But what I lacked there, I made up for the will to do whatever it takes to have success, and that meant personal development, growth. I would read books on sales, marketing, you name it. Every single night I'd fall asleep with a book across my face and I learned how to build a business.
Craig: Three years then, I was a multi-award-winning trainer, so imagine one of the states of Australia. I was the number one guy in that state, and I started building up notoriety, which is one of the keys to success. And what I do coach a lot now, is to be that leader in your niche, that market leader in your niche, and more opportunities will come your way. Moving on from there, I set up five fitness clubs, sold 22 franchises, started investing in property. And in my mid 20's I'm like, "Wow, business is easy. Yeah, this is an easy game for me." I would start a business, build a business, make money investing property and so the wheel was working.
Craig: And I hit my first speed hump in business, which was a global financial crisis. And at that time I nearly lost everything. To give you an idea of what happened is banks stopped lending me money so I couldn't sell franchises. Banks stopped lending me money so couldn't pay for the renovations to the hundreds of thousands of dollars to start a new gym. Banks stopped lending money, not just that my gym clients were going "Craig, we love you, but we're going to - we're worried about our income." A lot of people right now are worried about their income same back in 2008, so I lost a lot of my clients and then the US dollar to the Australian dollar changed that much. My equipment cost went up hundreds of thousands of dollars overnight, and this is one of my biggest lessons in business was risk management. So I was an aggressive guy that everything went really well and I nearly lost it all, and it took me three years to come out of that.
Craig: Three years later, I was making more money doing that than owning five gyms. And then in 2011, a company said, "Look, Craig, we've heard about your success. We'd like you to help us expand our product range around the world." And for the next 10 years, which is to where we are now. I built a business into 100 countries and over six million US dollars in that time traveled all around the world. But in 2014, I went through my biggest challenge in life, which changed my whole vision and perspective of life, and my wife and I, we lost our first son. He was a stillborn baby. And from that, that led to me building out a personal brand, and that was around the whole idea, which is what I said in my son's funeral. "My son didn't get one breath on the planet. We're all in the game. Go out there and make the most of your one shot at life." And you know, it took me four years before I launch out. In 2018, I wrote a book called You've Got One-Shot. And then I had a podcast where I interviewed over a hundred and fifty of the biggest thought leaders in the world.
Craig: I have invested very heavily in myself. So I've worked with some of the biggest names in the world, invested about half a million dollars into my personal growth and journey.
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack
Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack
18 min