Miguel Carrasco is a fitness coach, entrepreneur, a loving son, father and husband. With just a vision and countless hours and hard work, he was able to scale his fitness empire to generate $35 million in sales and transform millions of lives along the way. We dive into his success principles and inspiration he received from fitness that turned his life around.
1. How did you get started into fitness?
I was still working as a Computer Consultant and 240 lbs at that time. I was working out very little and taking clients often for lunch and dinner which resulted in over eating. One day I didn’t fell good and the left side of my body felt numb so I went to bed early. My wife knew that I wasn’t that kind of individual to sleep early. She decided to do some research and some of her peers suggested I go to the hospital. I decided to go to the hospital and doctors started monitoring my health and the vital signs as there were probable symptoms of a heart attack. Doctors didn’t find anything but this incident resulted in me thinking “Why do I need to wait to change my life around?” I started thinking about my life and decided it was time to change my habits. I thought about my wife and kids and those close to me- I couldn’t die early and used that as an emotional anchor to workout on a daily basis which resulted in me transforming my health and life.
2. How did you develop the motivation or habit to workout daily? For some it can be difficult to get some physical activity in their day?
My advice would be to focus on visualization and find your why which is a certain component. However, I would also add having an emotional anchor because most people say “It would be nice to get fit” vs “I have to get fit”
With my clients, I would take them through a process of visualizing what it would be like to achieve the result and then incorporate emotional elements that will persuade them strongly to achieve that fitness transformation goal.
Business Lessons:
(1) Surround yourself with people that want to see you succeed. The truth is when you first start a new endeavour, it will be difficult to go through the tough times if you don’t have the right group of people supporting you. Your environment is extremely important and you will be a product of it by default- if you have people around you that are smokers and overweight, you will be influenced by those bad habits and it will difficult to make a change. A second example is, there will be skeptics- friends and family that may want you to fail in your entrepreneurial endeavour so surround yourself with winners!
(2) If you want to get something in your life, help others get what they want. You have to be in a serving mentality and focus on giving to others by helping them achieve their goals.
(3) Realize that it is your dream. You need to have that internal drive and motivation to want to succeed. No one will make those sales calls or workout for you. You have to be the one to make your dream a reality and will have to outwork everyone and be the best that you can be in your industry.
Personal Development Lessons:
(1) Believe in yourself- the truth is most self-help books preach one message: self confidence. It is important to get rid of the emotional baggage from within because people carry a lot of baggage with them as they grow older. Whether it be an abusive relationship, a father that despised them and taunted them for being useless and worthless- certain incidents in our lives break our confidence. If you can empower yourself internally- whether it be changing your environment and forming a support network of like minded individuals, I promise you- you’ll be in a much better place but please just start with believing in yourself because that’s what will help you get through the dark times in your life.
(2) Find someone and model their success. When I wanted to improve my presentation skills to scale my income in my corporate career, I asked the successful presenters their routine, books and any materials they used to enhance their presentation skills. When I transitioned into health and fitness, I applied the same philosophy and was studying successful people which led me to replicating their model with my own twist and recipe. I would suggest- study 4-5 successful people in your industry and see what their routine is and model their success. At the end of it, you will pick 1-2 things you like from each and make your own recipe that is built for you.
(3) Be so good they can’t ignore you. At the end of the day you will have people that don’t like you and will hate you but you continue to progress and move on because at the end of the day their opinions don’t pay your bills.
5. Everyone has different versions of success- what does success mean to you?
I want to make the world better for everyone and my kids that came into contact with me in some form. For me, success isn’t materialistic. I have a good home; a great family and I work with the people that I want to work with on my own schedule- that to me is freedom. I don’t need a home the size of Buckingham palace or an office at the top floor overseeing the city with 100 employees- is it a great thing to strive for? If that is your goal- absolutely go for it. For me, I am living the life I want and at this point- success is just continue to inspire and help more people on a larger scale while setting my kids up in the best position to succeed for the future.
Everyone has a different legacy for themselves but the most important thing is to make an everlasting impact on every person you come across- I believe that to be the most important legacy.