Join Dan Uyemura and Nick Reyes — former gym owners and PushPress's CEO & CRO — in the brand new PushPress Podcast. Combining off-the-cuff dialogue and expert insights, each episode will help you scale your gym with confidence and thrive in the competitive industry.
Where to find Dan: https://www.instagram.com/danielsan
Where to find Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-reyes21
Where to find our free community for gym owners: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PushPressUsers/
00:23 What is a clique anyway?
01:17 How cliques function in the fitness Business
02:33 Group size expectations
05:42 Toxicity in cliques
08:04 How to create Inclusive groups
10:30 Real-life examples and strategies for gym owners
Nick Reyes: [00:00:00] I actually think clique are good for your fitness business. Oh, they're good for your gym. You are now listening to the PushPress Podcast, helping gym owners succeed one episode at a time. Today's podcast brought to you by Dan Kanye West.
Dan Uyemura: Ain't nobody fucking with my clique, clique, clique, clique, clique.
Nick Reyes: All right.
Nick Reyes: Ain't nobody fresh, man. Uh, I want to ask you a question to start this show off, and that is, what do you think a clique is?
Dan Uyemura: A clique. I'll tell you this much, when you say the word, I feel some negatives. I think a clique is a group of people who are exclusive and exclusionary.
Nick Reyes: Okay. Merriam Webster says, A clique is a narrow, exclusive circle or group of persons, especially one held together by common interests, [00:01:00] views, or
Dan Uyemura: purposes.
Dan Uyemura: Well, they said exclusive, so I got it half right. But that did not mention exclusionary. It did not mention exclusionary. Unless, unless exclusionary by topic.
Nick Reyes: Which could be, but not necessarily by openness. Okay. In today's episode, I want to come with the viewpoint that I actually think cliques are good for your fitness business.
Nick Reyes: Oh. They're good for your gym. Interesting. And so the definition is important because I do believe that there's this negative connotation around, uh, what were we talking about before was the, was mean girls. It's like. No one's allowed, you know, just us against, you know, everyone else. We don't talk to other people.
Nick Reyes: I mean, that's how cliques are portrayed. That is how they're portrayed. And I, I think that there's what we see in, you know, various gym ownership groups are, I have cliques forming in my 5am. And all of a sudden all the owners come out of the woodworks and it's like, you [00:02:00] should never allow cliques to exist within your business.
Nick Reyes: And it's this very, like. Black and white advice. You should never allow cliques to exist in your business. And that's what I want to challenge.
Dan Uyemura: Okay. Okay. I will say like my ephemeral reaction to that is that. Like if I heard a 5am clique was deforming, that would be my feeling. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, this will be an interesting conversation.
Dan Uyemura: Alright.
Nick Reyes: So, uh, as normal, we have a list that will guide us through this conversation. Sorry, our backdrop just blinked. Caught Dan and I off guard for a minute. Uh, the, where I want to start things are what I would call group size expectations. How many people do you think you have in your immediate friend circle?
Dan Uyemura: Ha ha ha. Uh, this will be pretty telling because I'm, I don't think I have a lot of friends. Uh, probably like fives. Okay. Is that pathetic?
Nick Reyes: I actually think I'm probably right around in there too. Oh, okay. Um, a few very, very [00:03:00] close friends. And, uh, have you ever been in that situation where it's like, and again, maybe not now that you have five, right?
Nick Reyes: I think some part of this happens as you get older, right?
Dan Uyemura: Five includes my mom and my kids and my wife.
Nick Reyes: Damn, bro, I didn't make the list. I don't think I have any very close friends. Eh. Have you ever been in a situation where it's like, I've got, I've got, I want to invite four people, but then I got to invite this fifth one, and then this sixth one, and then next thing you know, the list is at, the group is at ten, and it's like, well then shit, who do I, who do I not invite?
Dan Uyemura: Do you want to know something sad? I don't feel like I have that problem. Damn it, Dan. Okay, so. I mean, it's just because I don't, I just don't have a friend. Yeah, friends. No, I think this is, this is.
Nick Reyes: Somebody send me a friend, please. Phone a friend. I, I think this is a common occurrence where. You know, it's like you, you, maybe you're in the 5 a.
Nick Reyes: m. We'll keep using the 5 a. m. reference, right? And you're at the 5 a. m. group, [00:04:00] and there's, you know, 15 people that work out there routinely. And maybe you guys are gonna go get coffee on, you know, a Tuesday morning after. Well, do you invite all 15?
Dan Uyemura: Well, let me tell you something. So, I'm on the other side of this.
Dan Uyemura: And again, I might be exposing myself as well. Dammit! I would go to 5 a. m. class at a particular gym that I was going to. And they did have a clique and it was like, I wouldn't say I like actively tried to break into it, but I, I was friendly to them. I didn't never get invited out to coffee. I never, you know what I mean?
Dan Uyemura: Like I was on the other side of that and I was like, well, kind of like, I don't care if I remember this gym, you know what I mean? Like I felt that way.
Nick Reyes: Right, right. So did you, and you ended up leaving the gym. Was it because of the clique?
Dan Uyemura: I, I mean, I had no ties to it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I basically just, I feel like I just fended for myself everywhere I go.
Dan Uyemura: I, like, took whatever spot was left, they would reserve spots for each other. Right. You know, like that kind of stuff, right?
Nick Reyes: Yeah, I mean, I guess ultimately where I'm going on the group [00:05:00] size expectations piece here is, I don't think it's reasonable. For anyone to expect for a fitness community of 100 plus people for everyone to always get an invite to everything.
Nick Reyes: I'm going to have a house party. Let me invite all 15 people from the 5am class. Like, well, shit, I'm not inviting 15 people to my damn house. Like I'm going to invite four. Okay, well, then who's the closest four? And instantly you're down the path of starting to clique, right? Of having a smaller group circle.
Nick Reyes: Now it doesn't mean that you shouldn't open talk to some other people. But again, I think it's unrealistic to expect that everyone's going to be friends with everyone in over a hundred people type membership type of facility. Now, to your point, when it goes into being toxic, Now that, that's when we have a problem.
Dan Uyemura: I wouldn't say it was toxic where I was at. I wouldn't go so far as to say that. But it was definitely not, uh, they did not manufacture inclusivity.
Nick Reyes: Okay. And now that's a key point. And [00:06:00] we'll, we'll pin that one in for later. Okay. The toxicity piece of CLIQS is very, can be very, very real in my opinion. And that is the, um, we don't talk to Dan type of thing because I'm too busy in this conversation and I'm not paying attention to what you're saying.
Nick Reyes: And That is, I think, that feeling that you were describing of like, I didn't feel welcome. I didn't feel like I ever got a part of it. There's a difference, I think, between like, we go do stuff together on Saturdays and our families hang out together as we form this, this, uh, uh, this exclusive circle over common interests and views, and we don't talk to someone.
Nick Reyes: There's, there's a range of, uh, of conversation between those, right?
Dan Uyemura: Yeah, I, I would say there is something with the, it's just that line is so gray. Yeah. Like, Oh, this person wants to talk to us. We don't do that. You know, like we're not, you [00:07:00] know, like blah, blah, blah. I don't know. Yeah.
Nick Reyes: It goes back to, uh, what we mentioned in one of our earlier episodes, which is, you know, and I, and I think in the episode I used a man, but I'll say in general, like a person should never be.
Nick Reyes: Intentionally rude, right? So again, there's a new guy, his name's Dan, he's in the gym, you can have a conversation with him. You don't have to invite him to the, you know, the freaking lake trip you're gonna go on next
Dan Uyemura: weekend. On the flip side of it, it would be weird if it were like, hey, uh, me and my wife are gonna go out tonight, you wanna come?
Dan Uyemura: That would be weird too. So there's boundaries to it all, but you know.
Nick Reyes: Yeah, yeah. And so, they can become toxic when they become toxic, or hopefully a gym owner should stop them from ever becoming that, but 100 percent agree, toxic groups that do not talk to people, do not have conversations with people, do not welcome people into the gym, do not help people understand the rules and the culture of the gym, that's not fair play.
Nick Reyes: Like, [00:08:00] they should go, in my opinion. Okay, so then how do you do it? I think there's a couple of key takeaway or key points to dive in here. One of them's creating open groups. And one of the things that I like to do as a gym owner is connect with the ring leader of the group. How do you find those? So, generally they're going to be the ones, uh, you'll see them, they're the most outspoken.
Nick Reyes: They, they come across as a little bit of an alpha in a group a lot of the times, right? But like, Make a point to connect with them. They are typically the ones that are in the ears of people. They're making the plans. So like hub hub, if you think hub and spoke. Correct. Absolutely. And so in this case, if you are a ringleader and I'm a gym owner, I want to, I want to connect with you.
Nick Reyes: I want to know what you're doing because the next part of this is that. As a gym owner, what I do with like events should make sure that it includes everyone in the gym. So then for me, I want to know when, when are you and all the boys going to the, you know, going skiing? Oh, you're going and you know, [00:09:00] these dates.
Nick Reyes: Cool. I'm going to schedule the event for the next date. You think you can come, right? I want to get you to the event. And I want to get the other people who are not in a clique at the event as well.
Dan Uyemura: Do you think these cliques are mutually exclusive in the fact that like, I mean, you got my brain turning now.
Dan Uyemura: Like, okay, a clique is a group of people who are organized around a common interest. Let's say that common interest is snowboarding, or mountain snow shit, right? That could be a clique. Mm hmm. But then there's the, uh, oh, we go to the lake. In the summer and these can overlap and then it could be, you know, like, you see what I'm saying?
Dan Uyemura: Like there could be all these things and it's like, these people can look, this isn't like mean girls, hot dudes clique where you're either in or you're out and there's no cross barriers, right? Like I'm almost thinking about, I remember that show. Hey thing that we were talking about, you could almost like, fuck man.
Dan Uyemura: I always just go back to manufacturing stuff, but it's like, you could say like, Hey, to run successful gym, I need [00:10:00] eight. I need these. And I need people into sports to go to sporting events. I need people to go, who like to go out to fine arts events and cultural, whatever. Oh, right. And then you say, this is the ringleader for each of them.
Dan Uyemura: And they build, they build their own, those circles don't have to be eight, but like they build their own circles, but people can be in multiple circles.
Nick Reyes: It's uh, it, it really is just groups of interests. And where do you gravitate to? One group loves festivals, right? Like, you know, whatever it might be.
Dan Uyemura: Yeah, I could, I could actually see this working now.
Nick Reyes: One of the ones that I found interesting or what I, what I found interesting over, you know, my 10 years of ownership at Kansas Athletic Club was that, uh, Cameron and I were some of the very, uh, first parents. Yeah. That were members that, you know, that were at the gym and there was the younger group, they went out, they went to bars, they party, they did all those things.
Nick Reyes: And we hung out with the parent group. You just want people to go to the pumpkin patch. Yeah, that's exactly right, dude. It's like, who wants to go look [00:11:00] at Christmas lights with us? Right? Like now I'm aging myself. Uh, and so what's interesting is that as I found that, uh, some people have, uh, in that, in that younger group have grown to have kids.
Nick Reyes: There's a new younger group, and they all hang out. Now that group that had kids, now they're hanging out, and now they started hanging out with us. It's like, oh, hey, all get to the pool together,
Dan Uyemura: right? And pretty soon, once your kids go to college, you'll be the party group again. Yeah, exactly.
Nick Reyes: It'll
Dan Uyemura: be a
Nick Reyes: circle.
Dan Uyemura: Okay, okay, so now how I'm seeing this, where I can see this working, is it's not cliques around like, oh, the 5am group's gonna go do this. It's more like, the people who are into doing adventure racing are doing an adventure race this weekend. That makes a lot more sense to me. Although I think naturally you clique up with the people you see every day too.
Dan Uyemura: With the
Nick Reyes: time, right? And so there was a really interesting, and actually this was one of the ideas for the topic. There was a gym, and I'll have to find them and give them credit in the show notes, but they were doing a competition of the 5am [00:12:00] class versus the noon class versus the 4pm class. And it was like, four or five different big teams.
Nick Reyes: And if you frequented that class, and I think people could potentially hop, but no one would cause it to your point, the noon class rolls together type of thing. Right. And so if you are in the noon class, but you're not in the, the, the, the cool crowd or whatever you want to call it, but now all of a sudden it's us against everyone else.
Nick Reyes: You've just made that small circle inside the noon include the entire
Dan Uyemura: new. So if they would have done that a mile, Jim, maybe I would have been. Included with the five hammers. You just have to manufacture it
Nick Reyes: and embrace it and think about People wanting to belong to a circle with common interests and it's not always about excluding people as much as it is Got it circling around areas of interest.
Dan Uyemura: Okay, so Deep this out. So it makes it sound like i'm talking about somebody in Nevada take note of that one. So you could have [00:13:00] had me longer. So,
Nick Reyes: uh, you know to wrap this up It's not, it's not really reasonable to expect groups of 70 to exist. Right. At least not where I live. I think it's unrealistic. Uh, they should never become toxic groups, become toxic as an owner, you, you veered off course and you've gotta stomp that out.
Dan Uyemura: Do you have any tactics specifically for making sure inclusivity, like your fa like this is, this is almost an anomaly you're asking to happen. Like, I want cliques to form, I want them to be inclusive. Mm-hmm . Because, because how do you not make that go to 70?
Nick Reyes: Yeah, no, I think, I think you have to make introductions and you have to introduce those common threads.
Nick Reyes: Do
Dan Uyemura: they have to be narrow focus? Like, what if you just say like, we like sports.
Nick Reyes: I
Dan Uyemura: think
Nick Reyes: you could do all kinds of recreational outdoor things.
Dan Uyemura: I mean, you're in Kansas and you're like, hey, we're going to form a clique around the Chiefs. It'll be the whole damn gym. It wouldn't be the
Nick Reyes: whole damn gym. Still
Dan Uyemura: have some that
Nick Reyes: aren't.
Nick Reyes: You have to do some royal stuff, you know. But you get together for different sporting events, right? Like, oh, it's cold, it's college football's on. Hey, we're going to watch [00:14:00] the college football games, guys. Or is it like when the clique gets so big it's a gym event? When it gets so big, it would be a gym event, but you can do those smaller gym events.
Nick Reyes: So we've done college football watch parties, where, you know, It's not
Dan Uyemura: at someone's
Nick Reyes: house,
Dan Uyemura: you
Nick Reyes: do it at the gym. You do it at the gym, and in the gym, and you know, KSAC's been a screen user for forever, so we've got like 12 TVs in that place, and you can put on 12 games. And it's like, yeah, watch whatever game you want.
Nick Reyes: And then people will still clique up in there and watch some watches. Well, they'll watch K State. But all of a sudden, it's like, oh, but you watch K State and I like K State. You go to the 5 p. m., I go to the noon. Hey, I'm Nick. Now you're starting to tear the walls down and introducing a new common bond.
Nick Reyes: Alright,
Dan Uyemura: alright, okay.
Nick Reyes: Okay, so, uh, what I would want to know is what clique has formed in your gym that's been positive. If there's been one that you can think of that's either done something great for the community, people that have formed around a charity, something like that, I would love to hear the story.
Nick Reyes: Email podcast@pushpress.com.
Dan Uyemura: And on the flip side of that, I would [00:15:00] like to know, Just for my own humor sake, what is the worst clique that's ever formed in your gym? What is the most horrific story of a clique forming? And maybe me and Nick will have this debate again because I don't know if I'm sold yet.
Dan Uyemura: I'm kind of there, but I don't know. We'll see.
Nick Reyes: Stand by for part two. All right. And thanks for listening,
Dan Uyemura: guys. Thanks for listening to another episode of the PushPress Podcast, where we help gym owners, entrepreneurs, and fitness enthusiasts. Thrive with actionable insights, inspiring stories, and strategies for growth.
Nick Reyes: Don't forget to follow the show to stay updated on new episodes. And if you're ready for more, join our free Facebook community for gym owners. Check the show notes for the link and we'll see you next time. Keep raising the bar for your business and community.
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