Tomorrow’s Health & Fitness Leadership Today [Podcast Series]

• [:55] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Lynne Brick

  • Lynne Brick is Co-owner, President, and Founder of Brick Bodies, Co-owner of Planet Fitness Growth Partners, and Co-Founder of the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation.  

• [1:14]  Bringing the healthcare and health & fitness sectors closer together

  • “It's always been my vision, my dream, to merge the medical world with the movement world....However, we need to get more people to believe [exercise is medicine], to live it, to prescribe it, to create an organic means to help prevent disease.”

• [2:35]  Changing the perception of the health & fitness industry

  • “The first step is to change the conversation and remove the fact that the health club industry or recreation centers are considered just that, recreation. Like, just for fun. And once we change that conversation, that perception, we're able to sit at the table with docs and physical therapists and other essential industries.  The bottom-line is that we do help save people's lives and in essence help them to improve their health and well-being, help improve their longevity, help improve their resilience.” 

• [3:44]  Changing the self-perception of the health & fitness industry

  • “I think that the whole industry must unite and focus on collective intelligence of incredibly smart people in the industry and also in other industries to help collaborate on how we can help shift the conversation, shift the whole movement toward movement.”

• [4:57]  Building confidence of healthcare in the health & fitness industry

  • “If we can somehow incorporate organic movement as part of a care plan, part of protocols the medical world prescribes, then we are at the table, we can help shift the conversation there. But there has to be the confidence and the evidence-based research to back up what we say, what we believe. And again, making sure that everyone in our industry does believe that exercise is medicine.”

• [8:22]  Reaching the other 80%

  • “We have successfully as an entire company reached out to what we call the other 80%, people who have never been in a health club before, have overcome the Big Five Fears of joining a health club or being involved in a community that is surrounded by health, and the more information we can gather from those folks, the people that are changing their lives and losing not just 50 pounds, but 100 or 200 or more pounds and getting off their blood pressure medication, the data that we can gather from those folks will help shift the medical community and make them more trusting, as you mention.”  

• [11:04] Leading during a disruptive time

  • “The most important thing about being a leader in this disruptive time is that you're not alone. And I do lean on our entire team, leans on each other, to help learn more, and create these collaborative conversations so that we can learn more and how to utilize best practices.”

  • “One of the things about trying to be a better leader every day is trying to pull out the greatness in other people, and that is what we really tried to do, is to pull out the greatness in other people.”

• [14:54]  Female leaders in the health & fitness industry

  • “I think that’s one of the things women bring to the table is this concept of mutual respect, and of course, empathy. We lead a lot of times, not just from our head and our gut, but from our heart. And I think that that has been a great asset to the industry.”

• [20:04] Family leadership lessons

  • “The things I hoped that I was able to pass on to Vicki is, lead by example. And be willing to do whatever it takes to get your hands dirty too, so that you are in the trenches with your team so that they know that you're on their side.” 

• [21:37] Building evidence-based research connecting physical activity and mental health

  • “But our focus is to create a collaborative club and work with organizations and other researchers like yourself to help make people much more aware of the mental health issues.”

• [28:04] The future of the health & fitness industry

  • “How will health and fitness change for the better? It's a great way to end this incredible conversation and of course, sanitation and respect and empathy are going to be key elements to success for the future for the health & fitness industry. But what I think is also evolved out of this is the need for incredible leaders, more—much more—diversified leaders.”

  • “It's just the nature of what we are going to see, not just from our industry, but every single industry, the strong will survive.  But we need to help to cultivate the best of the best, the Top Gun of our industry. So through diversification, through education and financial backing, and the future is bright, and I think that we all need to keep our positively positive attitudes to help create the new world.”