This week on the Easton Staff Podcast, our host, Mike Tousignant, sits down with Easton co-owner Eliot Marshall, who joined the company in 2011 when he retired from fighting. Starting with opening and running the Denver academy as its first GM, Professor Eliot has helped Easton Training Center successfully expand into a multi-academy community conglomerate.
Our latest episode covers everything from the mettle you need to persist at your dreams, investment, code and conduct when running a business, and the price of admission.
Listen to the episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
When Eliot invested in Easton and came on board as an owner, he made the choice to actively lay down everything he had for the belief that Jiu Jitsu can change lives and would change his.
In Eliot’s case, his investment in the company bought him a full-time job where he now had to work the floor in order to build up what he believed in. This meant 80-hour weeks doing everything from admin and sales to coaching and payroll.
Every business owner knows the difference between working in the business versus on it. Most people start something because they enjoy the thing itself – however, every other aspect of a business still needs the same attention to grow in sync with its offerings.
When you first start something, or join something new – you may likely find yourself doing all the parts. Unless you have a role as a passive investor, you can’t sit back and wait for the money to roll in. You have to actively partake in each piece of the puzzle.
That said, sometimes you may not see results for a long time, and even when you do reach the level of success you envisioned, this success won’t come without its share of struggle.
“It’s going to be a miserable, amazing experience,” says Eliot.
Often, success in a workspace and an elevated position means a higher emphasis placed on how you behave in the world. In many ways, the price you pay becomes partly your social life.
Whereas before you might have joked more casually with coworkers and staff, now you have to really consider your role and your surroundings. Other times, you may have to upset people because as a leader you had to make the right choice, and the right choice isn’t always everyone’s favorite. It can feel lonely at the top, so you have to keep perspective.
Leadership also means far less time in general, so the time you do have gets divided between your top priorities – usually family, health and rest. It’s not that you don’t love your friends and your community, but you just simply don’t have the time to spend hanging out. That’s a cost.
“The whole ride-or-die idea is great when you’re in high school,” says Mike, “or you’re in your twenties and your boys are right with you. But as you get older and mature, you realize that doesn’t work because it doesn’t set up anyone for success, ‘cause then you can’t hold anyone accountable to your standards, to your expectations, and it’s really bad for the company. It can be wildly toxic for everyone involved.”
We’ve seen this before and for this reason, at Easton we like to emphasize our identity as a team, not a family. When you begin to conflate the personal with the professional, boundaries get blurred and this bends a crucial infrastructure. It becomes harder to get work done and easier to dilute your impact.
Don’t worry – you don’t have to completely lose your individuality and become a robot to make a good leader. In fact, the opposite usually happens.
When you have to find nuance in your personality and learn how to show up authentically in a variety of ways and settings, you begin unlocking levels of yourself, your potential and become the master of your energy.
