This fantastic episode features the intersection of physical fitness and crushing goals by taking a whole new approach to the fitness industry: human connection. Noah Snyder, owner and entrepreneur of Ark Fitness, demonstrates how a homegrown gym, despite all the different careers he has, allowed his calling for helping others to become a reality and create a community that deeply cares about each other and the results they receive through a small membership base, but receiving major returns on investment not through funding, but by relationships and connections made along the way.

Guest Bio

After graduating high school, Noah attended HACC (Harrisburg Area Community College) for a few semesters, but quickly realized college was not for him. He began working in various industries such as the car business, retail, restaurant industry, banking, and even IT consulting until he discovered my true passion was being an entrepreneur and starting my own business in the health and fitness realm. Ark Fitness, open since August 2022, has over 13,000 square feet of space in downtown Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania that serves clientele looking for physical fitness and receives, in turn, a human connection that has driven results that have shaken the fitness industry at its core.

Noah's Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/arkfitclub

@arkfitclub on Instagram

• https://www.arkfitclub.com/- Check out the awesome opportunities that Ark Fitness provides in the local Mechanicsburg, PA community, and learn more about their way of transforming the physical into positive, human-driven results. You can also learn more about Next Generation Personal Training which operates a robust program for clients through science-based approaches to delivering results.

Visit Our Website: https://speaking-from-the-heart.captivate.fm/

Visit Our Business Website: https://www.yourspeakingvoice.biz

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Intro/Outro By: Michael Dugan, Podcast Host: Voice4Chefs

Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

This is Speaking From The Heart.

Welcome to episode number six of Speaking From the Heart.

I'm really excited for today's interview, which is with Noah Snyder.

Noah is one of the owners and operators of ARK Fitness, which

is located in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, in the downtown area.

It has a full service gym where it not only has equipment that you can utilize

for your health and also providing, fitness instruction by many of its

trainers with its partner Next Generation Training, but it has a robust smoothie

bar, which I have to tell you, full disclosure, we didn't talk about it in

the episode, but it was really one of those highlights that I enjoy the most.

Noah specifically is a very interesting individual in which he graduated from

high school and realized that college was not something that he wanted to be

part of after a few semesters of going at a local community college, so as a

result of that, he started going into various other businesses and that is

something that we talk about in the episode quite a bit, which includes

the car business, retail, restaurant industry, banking, even IT consulting,

in which, finally then he landed on being an entrepreneur of ARK Fitness.

I really think that you're going to see and hear in this episode a lot

about not only the importance of taking care of yourself, but how that can

create a holistic picture for anybody if you're willing to take a step

back and look at the human centered approach just like Noah has, but

with that, let's get to the episode.

All right.

I am here with Noah Snyder.

Noah, welcome to the show.

Awesome.

Thank you, Josh.

Super pumped to be on here and be one of your first guests.

Yeah.

I'm really excited that you're here.

For my audience.

I have known Noah for several years now, off and on, and I got really

acquainted with him within the last year.

He can tell right now cuz since we're looking at each other that I have

been building a lot of muscle mass.

Even if it is imaginary, it's being built, but-

Hey man, the brain, the brain's a muscle too, right?

Yeah.

The brain is a muscle.

Yeah.

Noah, tell us a little bit about how you got started with the gym,

because I think my audience would really be interested in how that

sort of idea came to play for you.

Yeah, absolutely, and it's hard to even think of where to begin because

it's been such a crazy journey, but we've been open for nine months in

Mechanicsburg, so we opened August of 2022 and it really started because

I used to work at a gym years ago and I fell in love with the industry.

You just are surrounded by so much positivity and generally

people are really happy.

I've been in industries like the restaurant business and retail,

where you're lucky to have anybody that's having a good day come in.

I've also been in IT where literally people only call

you when there's a problem.

To be in an industry that is overwhelmingly positive and surrounded

by people that are trying to better themselves is awesome, but I just never

could find a gym or a gym owner that I worked for that really did it the right

way in my mind, so I left and I got into corporate America, like a lot of

us do, trying to climb the ladder and excel my career, and just always had this

itch that I was meant to do something entrepreneurial, something of my own,

and about a year and a half ago, an opportunity came up to purchase the gym

that I used to work at, and I talked to my wife Hannah, and I said, look,

this is our opportunity to get out of Corporate America and do our own thing,

so we, we took the jump and entered into an agreement to buy that gym, and things

were going great, smooth sound, I'm like, all this business ownership stuff is so

easy, why does everyone say it's hard?

And then, right before we closed on the deal, the gentleman selling the

club, sold it to another business.

He kind of sold it out from under me, and it was devastating at the time, so I was

left with this fork on the road of going back to work nine to five, or I kind

of had this itch like, maybe this is my opportunity to truly start something

from scratch, and, clearly we're sitting here today because I chose the latter

option and from there it was a hundred miles per hour, so we just kind of went

all in and got the right partners and people involved and kind of reconnected

with a lot of the people in the industry I used to know, and it has just been a

wild journey, so that brings us to where we are today and I would even venture

to say we're well past the point of, are we going to make it as a startup

and it's more, where do we go from here?

What's the current membership and all the different types of

analytics you could tell us that you've been able to generate

because of starting up with the gym.

Is there anything you can share with us?

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely, and I'm super transparent about that with anyone that

wants to know, because I hate the secrecy around the industry a lot of the times;

we have absolutely nothing to hide.

When I put my business plan together, my goal was to have less members than

a lot of the other commercial clubs out there, your average chain gyms have

four to 6,000 members in one location, but that's also why they're so busy,

so I set a goal in the first year in business to hit a thousand members and

kind of see where we're at and kind of go from there, so it'd be about

a sixth as busy as, as a chain gym.

We hit that in six months.

Oh, wow.

Which, which I couldn't believe because even in a year, I thought that

was a pretty aggressive goal, but we ended up hitting it in six months and

have taken some actions to actually slow the growth down, but of our a little

over 1,200 members now, as we're as about nine months in, we have over about

25% work with a trainer in some capacity.

Training is huge at ARK Fitness.

Our training team, Next Generation Personal Training is headed up by my

business partner, Brock Waluk, and their focus is really, really personalized

in science-based training, and the other 75% of our members pretty much

have their own plan or their own program, and just pay for a general

month to month membership, so that's kind of the breakdown at this time.

We don't do all the extra classes and frills that a lot of these gyms have.

We kind of just took more of a simple and honest approach and it's worked

pretty, pretty well for us so far.

I guess the expression in the gym businesses, you are going

back to the basics and being able to build it from there, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sometimes simple is better.

Yeah, absolutely.

Noah I let my audience know a little bit about some of your high level background,

and I'm just fascinated about where you have come from to get to this point.

I mentioned to them that you've had been involved with car business,

you've been with retail, the restaurant industry, banking, IT

consulting, all of those things.

What were you looking for back then that really was trying to

fit whatever niche that was?

I think my audience would be really curious to know; I'm personally

curious to know as to how you made the decision ultimately to say,

yes, this is what I want to do.

I want to be able to help people by getting them physically fit.

What drove you to finally land on this?

Yeah, that, that's a great question, Josh, and if I had to

find one common thread in all the different jobs that I've had ever

since I was 14 and, and by the way, my first job was working at McDonald's.

I will proudly say that, it's typically looked down upon as just a starter fast

food job, but I learned more working at McDonald's and you will deal with more

difficult people in fast food than than many other industries, and I'd say the

one common thread was customer service and having an opportunity to make

someone happy or solve a problem for them.

I love solving problems.

I love being able to help someone, and the gym is really unique and cool because

you get to see the same customers or members, if you will, on a routine basis,

and you get to build really, really good relationships with them because you're

seeing them between three and five times a week a lot of times, and it's

awesome, and beyond that, we get to see them literally change their lives, and

our approach is very personal so they're not just customers, they become some of

our best friends and we share stories.

I've cried with members.

I mean, we get so personal with them, it's hard not to, and you get to see

them put in the work day after day.

We help him out with accountability and nutrition and all that, but these people

are showing up and I literally had a guy the other day and I won't mention

his name, but, he's lost over 60 pounds-

Wow.

Since starting, and it's probably been like four months, and he came up

to me and he almost had tears in his eyes and he said, "Noah, if I hadn't

joined the gym and started training, I honestly don't know if I'd be here today."

Oh goodness.

That was pretty impactful, and that's just the way the industry is, man.

There's not a lot of other jobs I've had where you can truly have that kind

of emotional entrenchment every single day, and yeah, I've experienced nothing

else like it, so I said, "Why don't I just do this every day in my life?"

And I think a lot of people don't get that opportunity to really

say to themselves, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

They get stuck in a nine to five job.

I heard somebody, I had a friend of mine say, I get stuck in these W2 jobs, the

actual tax document that you get back they are sucking the life out of me, and

it's encouraging to hear you say that because it sounds like it's a true success

story for you as to what you're building as maybe you right now being a local

empire, but it's going to be a big, vast empire of all these gems that you're doing

too, which empire is a good term, just so everybody knows; it's not a bad term.

I'm curious, as you said something that really, struck a chord with me that it's

about the emotional connection and trying to get to where people are really feeling,

and I think for both the personal and professional development realm which I

typically deal with, it's really hard sometimes to change that mindset and try

to get people to go in a direction that makes them feel like they're empowered,

so for you, you've probably met a lot of clients already in the first nine months

that have said, "I don't know if I can keep doing this; I just don't know what

I need to do", and I'm sure that there's a lot of resources specifically for,

from the gym, but for you particularly, what has been some of the things that

you've learned as lessons that help you to overcome some of those barriers that

maybe have been either erected, either by others or by yourself, or just the

natural course of doing things and take it any way you like, whether it's

the personal or the professional side.

I'm just curious how have you overcome that?

Yeah, another great question and I would say, people generally

hate going to the gym, right?

Most of our society, you have like the 3% that are freaks and they love it

and they get their energy from that.

The rest of us, it's a means to an end because we want to feel good,

we want to have energy and do all those things, and I can't tell you

how many people are terrified just to walk through the front door, right?

And there's this stigma about a lot of gyms, so one of the things that we've

done and I believe so far, pretty successfully to overcome that, is we build

that relationship, we make it welcoming.

One thing I learned from a previous boss of mine was to learn everybody's name.

I don't actually know everybody's name, but I know quite a few, and I don't

have a good memory, but if you take the time to learn someone's name and get to

know them, it makes them feel welcome.

It makes them feel valued, and when they're sitting at home deciding if

they're going to go to the gym or not, and all the obstacles are running through

their mind of reasons why they can't go, or they don't have time, or they don't

have the energy, if they're like, oh no, but if I don't go, Noah's not gonna

see me, or you know, at least if I go in, somebody that knows me is going to

acknowledge that I showed up that day.

I believe that does make a significant difference, and we've seen it kind

of play out where people who started out in that camp of, "I hate the gym.

It's a chore.

I don't know what I'm doing".

They end up falling in love with it, right?

We eliminate that fear that feeling like you're out of place in a

foreign land by making you feel like part of our community, and then the

second obstacle for a lot of people with fitness is accountability.

Let's be honest, most of us, and I will include myself in this camp,

are not motivated or organized enough to keep ourselves accountable

to stick with a fitness routine.

I actually, myself, work with a trainer four times a week.

Wow.

And I'm there every single day, but, it was even hard for me, even though I

was there every day to set aside enough time to focus on myself when I was so

busy trying to serve everyone else, so the only hour a day that I truly dedicate

to myself is that with my trainer, and he keeps me on track, otherwise I'm

like, "Oh, I should go clean that floor over there, change this trash bag."

It's like, "No, no focus.

You can do that when you're done."

For a lot of people, for most people actually, they need that level of

accountability and someone actually checking in with them and helping

them through the exercises and things they don't know to truly see those

results, and I've managed to have, I mean, I can honestly say I'm in the

best shape of my life as a result of that in a pretty quick amount of time.

Yeah.

Is it both the physical and the mental that you feel better about?

Is it a combination of both?

What specifically has changed that makes you say that?

That you feel like you are at the best?

Everything.

Because everything's connected.

If anything in our life is out of balance, we feel it.

If we're not staying active, if we're not working on ourselves, our energy levels

are down, our confidence, for me, I'll be very honest, I'm self-conscious and a lot

of us are, and it's something we don't like to talk about, but, the way that

we feel impacts every part of our life.

No, I'm not a bodybuilder, I'm not trying to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I definitely don't have his genetics, but if I at least feel good in my own skin,

I'm going to perform better at work, I'm going to be different around my wife,

I'm going to be different around anybody that I'm talking to in a positive way,

and then I'd also feel like I'm more equipped to help other people because if

I'm not taking care of myself, who am I to expect anybody else to do the same?

It all plays together and you sleep better, you have more energy,

for me, food is my weakness.

I love to eat, but-

I think we all do.

When I'm- Yeah.

Right.

Let's, yeah, and you don't have to, I'm gonna tell you, we, even

when we work with trainers, you don't have to cut out everything you love

to eat, but I think when you're on a regular workout routine, like you

tend to make better food decisions.

I just worked out, I probably shouldn't go eat a whole pizza pie.

I followed up by a ice cream sundae.

You know, maybe a slice and some frozen yogurt, mix it up a little bit, but I

think it's just all about the mindset and when the workout is the hardest

thing in my day, everything else is a little bit easier too, so, it's-

I love that.

I love that thought because it's so interesting for some people to be able

to latch onto something that you've just said, which is just being self-conscious

and trying to take that to a level where we are all feeling positive and all

feeling interactive of each other, and a gym certainly supports that when it

comes to the environment that you create, and I know that you really value that

so much, and I've seen that personally one-on-one with not only you, but even

some of the people that I've visited when I have gone to the gym myself, which yes,

full disclosure folks, I am a paid client of ARK Fitness and Noah is so happy and

proud of me for doing that, but I think I-

I do appreciate your support, brother.

I know you do brother, but I want to pivot on this thought, when you see

other people or even other individuals that are saying, "Well, you need to pay to

find out what's going on here", or, "You need to invest in this product so that you

know what it's true intended consequences are", but yet there's no trust, there's

no accountability with maybe that, what they're claiming as those statements.

What do you say to somebody, especially that is thinking about, "Well, I

don't know if I really should join this gym or not", or, " Whether I

should really do this thing or not."

Has there been a rule of thumb that you've told people to think

about when it comes to their own wellbeing or their own health?

What kind of tools have you given people to empower them, because I think that's

lacking a lot, especially when you hear advertisements about, go to the gym, it's

only $9.99 a month; no commitment fee, and then you find out there's a lot locked

down into it and you get into the weeds.

I often wonder, what do you think are some of those things that you often

hear or what you tell from others about that sort of practice or that process?

How do they dispel that?

Well first of all, I've been in jobs where I was supposed

to sell something, I was in car sales, so do anything you got

to do to sell a car, right?

It becomes very difficult to trust when you say all the right things

and it's like, "Okay, what are you saying that's actually true?"

From the beginning, I've been really intentional about not trying to sell

anything, and we don't sugar coat it.

It's hard work.

It's not for everybody, and I'll tell people, you know, if you're not

sure that you're ready to take this on, it may not be the time to do it.

You're going to have to commit, you are going to have to do the work.

We're going to be here to help you.

I often even turn around and joke with people, because sometimes people

come in, "Why should I join your gym?"

I'll say, yeah, maybe you shouldn't, or, they say, " What's great about

your gym?", and I'll tell 'em, look, gyms are the worst, right, but we're

maybe the least terrible, and, and they usually chuckle a little bit, and then

I say, look, we are a gym, we have equipment, we have treadmills, we try to

keep it clean, but, what's different, I think about ARK Fitness is we're going

to take the time to get to know you.

You're not just a number.

Our model is very personal, so yeah, we charge more than

the the chain gyms out there.

The "Globo" gyms of the world.

I said Globo gym cause it's a Dodgeball reference.

I'm not going to actually-

Yeah.

Yes.

-Help anybody cause yes, I got any gym is at least there.

Yes.

No, no, no copyright strikes on that, and by the way-

Yep.

Anybody that's listening.

Thank you.

Yep.

Unless there's actually a gym out there called Globo Gym in

that, in which case, I'm sorry.

It's just about being more personal.

Our model, we're going to charge a little bit more, but we get to serve

fewer people better than trying to overcrowd the place and making it a

bad experience for a lot of people.

That was a difficult thing to do because, yes, I could have kept selling

memberships, keep the cost at 10 bucks a month or something like that, but it

doesn't serve our vision, and a lot of these chain gyms, they're hoping that

you don't show up and that you can just pay your gym tax and never step foot

through the door, which by the way, people do sometimes pay and not come.

It's not for nothing, at least I believe in our case because

I look at it like insurance.

You pay for car insurance every month.

Just because you didn't use it, doesn't mean it's not valuable,

because when you need it, it's there and it's accessible for you.

I kind of look at the gym the same way, and when your car crashes and

your insurance pays out that claim, they're able to do that because

of all the other people that are paying their monthly premium.

A gym is the same way; your monthly dues, whether you're there or not, are

allowing us to have six figures worth of gym equipment accessible for about a

dollar a day to hundreds of local folks and people don't always think about it

that way, but when you do, it's like, wow, okay, I'm not just throwing money away.

I'm actually helping to support this community and literally making it possible

for us to keep serving the people we do, and then whenever people are able to

come in, whenever they're ready to go, we're there for them, and that's kind of

been our approach, and I'm also proud to say our usage ratio is incredibly high.

Oh wow.

So, we'll see on any given day, 25% of our member base through the door.

It's still not too crowded because we've kept the numbers down, but, we have a

very active user base, so the people that are paying are actually using it.

For me, I'm proud to say that.

Some gym owners would actually be proud to say that they're collecting a lot of

money that people aren't using the gym.

That's not us.

I love your human-centered approach to this because I think that in

this world, especially, we get so easily disconnected from having the dollars in

our bank account or having the top of the line equipment, which my goodness sakes.

I hope that my equipment is safe that I'm using at the gym, but you take it as

this equipment is for everybody and we are giving this back as something that

will help everyone, and I find that so invigorating to hear because normally you

do hear in the world of gyms, "Well, I'm giving you value", and you giving back to

this person, well that's all I need to give, but you're taking it a step further.

Noah, what, what makes ARK Fitness different from some of

your competitors, you would say?

Yeah, I mean, one, I hate contracts, a lot of gyms still

are clinging onto contracts.

Many have gone away from them because they've seen how damaging they are to

relationships, but we don't do contracts.

We don't trap people in memberships; like, go to most gyms and try to cancel

and, send 'em a message online, they're going to say, "Well, you have to show

up in person on a Tuesday afternoon.

It has to be below 60% humidity, and we also need your grandmother

there to", you know, it's like-

Wow.

Obviously I'm exaggerating, but they make it so difficult

because they're trying to keep people paying and hopefully you'll forget

about it and it'll just keep going.

We don't do that.

We make it super easy on people to come and go as as they wish.

We don't charge extra fees throughout the year like a lot of gyms do.

It's just super transparent and I think our members really appreciate that,

when you're experience leaving is as good as it is

coming, you're either going to come back someday if it serves you, or at least have

positive things to say when you leave, and as of this recording, I will say we

currently have a five star Google review.

That's incredible.

We're going to get a bad review someday; probably someone doesn't like

what I was wearing someday or something.

I don't know.

You know, my, my, my hair offended them.

You can't make everybody happy.

Um, but you, I would venture to say you're never going to see anything on

there about, unfair business practices or lack of transparency because I

take all that really personally and it's all reflection on us and, and

the way that we do business, so I'd say that's a big differentiator.

We have that trust with our members.

If people have a medical issue or something happens, we'll put them on hold.

They can stop paying while they're not there until they can get

better and get back to using the club; just little things like that,

and I value our staff tremendously.

We pay our staff really well, and I think they make the gym better.

You go in, they know they greet everybody by name, they go around, they check

on everybody, see how they're doing.

They're cleaning, and by paying them more than, you know, the typical 10, 12 bucks

an hour that you're going to make it a desk job at a gym, they actually take a

lot of value in what they're doing, and that allows Hannah and I to actually go

home at at 6:00 PM a lot of evenings, and not have to worry about what's going

on in there, because I know our staff is awesome and they're taking care of it,

so that's been a huge relief as well, and I think like the last differentiator

that would set us apart from other gyms is our community involvement.

It's just something I've always been passionate about.

We're always finding a different nonprofit locally that we can support with

member dollars, so we actually reinvest member dollars back into the community.

I'm a sucker for the sports teams donations and all that.

I hate saying no because I just love seeing the youth in what they're doing

in our community, and I will say I try to limit it to people that are already

members and their kids and their families, because you can't do 'em all, but we

support the local, you know, Northern softball team and some of the booster

clubs at Cumberland Valley, and the Mechanicsburg Wrestling Club, and I

don't know if anybody's going to see a banner and come in and join because of

that, and I really don't care because these are our members that have already

been supporting us and so we can reinvest dollars to help support the

things that they're passionate about.

It's a win in my book.

We've also been really involved with the business community, so a huge part

of how we're even able to raise funds to start the gym was through business

sponsorships, so we have, dozens of sponsors that stepped up and helped

us and supported us, and we gave them some marketing and return, but it's

created this referral network too.

Anytime somebody comes in, they're like I need a deck done, who do you recommend?

I'm like, Chad Hopple with West Shire Decks.

He's awesome; he did our handicap ramps.

I'll give him a shameless plug, or you know, who should I use for

print and marketing materials?

Hot Frog was one of our diamond sponsors, so they've done a lot of our t-shirts

and apparel and things like that, so we've utilized these businesses in return

and they've supported us, and then I know anybody that's sponsored us is

already somebody that's more community minded to even do something like that.

It's just cool you got so many business owners and

professionals that come to the gym.

It's, and the greatest thing, Josh: everybody there, regardless of their

status, their income, you know how wealthy they are or poor, we're all

just there wearing gym clothes, right?

Everybody's equal.

It's super cool.

That's the collection of all those people with various backgrounds

being able to work on a common goal, which is something that I've even

been trying to generate in my own business with people finding their

own voice to be able to tell that sort of story regardless of what it is.

Noah, before we wrap up here, I have one last question and I want you to

think long and hard about this one.

I'll stall for a moment or two so you can think about it.

Sure.

I know you've been open for more than nine months, and that was

because of the pandemic, and there was still a lot of restrictions for some

businesses when COVID was around and you were helping people even virtually

for that matter, either through the Next Generation Training with Brock as you

mentioned earlier, your business partner and even with what you were providing.

Who is that one person that you can think of right now that has envisioned

and just taken everything that you have given them and has tremendously

transformed themselves in this period since you first started thinking

about the concept of ARK Fitness?

Is there anyone that comes to mind, and please don't mention their name,

but mention just some characteristics of what you've seen about this

person, if you could, because I'm really curious as to how you've been

able to make this transformation for so many people come alive and I'm

sure you have one person in mind.

That is an excellent question because there's been so many people

that we've connected with and been able to help in so many ways.

I would say, and even thinking about it gets me kind of emotional, but, the

people that we've helped, it's funny how- yes, they've gotten more fit and

have made progress in that way, but the emotional portion of things has been so

huge and there's someone I've spoken to and I know these people pretty well

so I can tell when something's off and there was someone at one point and they

were just not themselves, and I could tell something was weird and we were

busy and I thought, man, this person is not in a good emotional state, and

so I said, "Hey, do you need to talk for a minute?", and I expected them to

say no or no, I'm fine like we usually do, and they looked at me and they're

like, "Yeah, that'd actually be cool."

We kind of went over and sat down and they told me what was going on and I

don't usually do this because I try to keep my business pretty separate from

my my personal life, but I asked if I could pray for him, because I just felt

like they needed something, and I just asked their permission and they said,

"yeah, that'd be awesome.", and we sat there and we both just about ended in

tears and they messaged me later and they said I can't tell you how much

I needed that, and I don't know what the full impact of that was, but it's

those type of interactions and those things that go so much deeper than the

physical component of things that I really think what we're there for and

the lives that we can touch in that way.

So it was a cool reminder of why we're doing what we're doing.

It's more than the money, it's more than just the health and fitness, it's

like these are real people's lives and we truly had this opportunity to look

deeper past the surface level that we so often stay at when we interact with

people through our work and through our daily lives, and that's the coolest

thing for me, and it gets hard sometimes.

It's a challenging industry.

It's competitive.

It's always changing.

There's days where I question, "What have I gotten myself into?", and moments like

that are the reminder, "yeah, keep going.

It's worth it."

I'm getting teary eyed over here just thinking about what that interaction

might have felt like and just knowing that you could at least instill some

words of wisdom or even just be there as a present being for that other individual

that you were just discussing about.

That's incredible-

Yeah.

And I think it just shows Noah, the testament of yourself, and as I

mentioned to the listeners earlier, I've gotten to know you a long time, and

I think that you are one of the more genuine people that want to help people

wherever they're at it and it just shows from some of the actions that you've

just even talked about in this episode about helping people with the community,

helping people just see that they can physically transform themselves, and

you do everything in between that, and I feel like there's never a day that

you ask for," I need to thank you", or, you're so selfless, and I think

that really has shown a lot, so, as we wrap up here, I want to give you a

few moments to just pitch ARK Fitness.

Tell us where you're at; let the members know; well, let the

members, let the audience know.

I hope they become members, by the way, but let our audience know.

How can we reach out to you if we're interested in

hearing more about your gym?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Josh, and appreciate all your kind words, man.

It's been an amazing building relationship with you over the years and just seeing

both of our lives kind of develop, but, ARK Fitness is in downtown Mechanicsburg.

We're on York Street next to Hops & Barley and Sal's Pizza, and in a

long brick building, and we have 13,000 square feet of open gym space.

It's clean, it's spacious.

We do monthly memberships, and I would say for anybody that's interested,

you can go to our website, which I know you're going to, you know,

put in the links, but it's www-

Yeah, no, no, go ahead.

Go ahead.

I was going to say, I'll put in the show notes, but go ahead Noah.

You want to give it to them?

Yep, sure.

It's just arkfitclub.com; all the infos on there.

We're on Facebook, we're on Instagram, so you can DM us through those platforms,

but what I would just say is just stop by, you don't need an appointment.

We've always got some staff there that be willing to help you.

I pretty much live there, so chances are you run into me, uh, if you come by, or

my wife Hannah, who's there full-time as well, but we would love to take

some time to show you around, show you that not every gym is scary and dark.

Our culture's really important to us.

Respect; so ARK actually stands for accountability, respect, and

knowledge, so we don't profile anyone based on the way they look.

We judge you based on your actions, again, I won't mention any chain gyms,

but we are not a judgment free zone because I don't think that exists, but

rather we judge our members by the way they treat people, so as long as you

come in with an attitude of respect and you take care of our environment, which

our members do because it's like their home, it'll be a great gym for you, and

we have a ton of equipment, but most importantly, we're going to get to know

you, we're going to help support you in your goals, and Brock and his training

team are some of the most knowledgeable and passionate trainers that I've ever

experienced, and they don't do contracts.

They don't ask you to sign something; it's not a sales pitch that they're

going to sit you down and try to get you to sign the dotted line.

They're super informative and helpful, and I have pretty high standards, so, I won't

let anybody like that into our area, or partner with them in any way because at

the end of the day, it's our name on it.

Come by and check us out.

If you have a goal in mind or you're just trying to get more active if you

already go to the gym, or if you just want to feel better and have more energy

and improve every other area of life, spend an hour a couple times a week with

us and I'm pretty sure you'll find that you'll get all those things and more.

You're building something in the Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania community that

I hope that my listeners, whether they are in Pennsylvania or worldwide, listen to

the importance of your wellbeing and your healthy alternatives that you can instill

and I think you shared that so much.

Thank you to your wife, Hannah, and to you and to Brock and his wife,

all you guys building this awesome opportunity downtown and just

revitalizing so many people's lives.

Noah, it's been a pleasure talking to you today and I look forward to keep on this

conversation some point because I think you have so many awesome things to share

with my audience and I look forward to continuing to hear from your heart because

this was really an awesome opportunity to explore some of that with you.

Yeah, thank you Josh, and, and the one last person that I have to take

a moment to mention because they're so crucial to our existence, is one of my

other business partners, John Neifert.

He owns Babineau Opticians in Mechanicsburg.

The gym wouldn't exist without him, I would say for anybody that's thinking

about doing something like I've done, if you believe in it enough and surround

yourself with the right people, they will find you and make it possible,

and that is exactly what John was.

He's one of the most selfless people I've ever met, and he actually believed

in me before I believed in myself.

Surround yourself with people like that and you can truly do almost anything.

Awesome.

Thanks a lot too for John and his help with getting you started,

but Noah, thanks so much.

I appreciate our time.

Hey, thank you Josh.

It was awesome.

Listening to Noah really invigorated me that there are definitely

genuine people in this world that want to help each other not only see the

bigger pitcher, but also want to take an approach of not just the physicality

of an individual, but wants to give everyone an equal opportunity as well to

help achieve their dreams, especially in the fitness realm, so I wanted to give

a special shout out again to Noah and being able to just create this vision

on a piece of paper and turning into a reality based on all the things that he

has been able to do throughout his career, especially being that he has overcome so

much with deciding what is most important.

There are a lot of things that I could talk about, and we definitely talked

so much about the importance of not only accountability in this episode,

but understanding that we want to be able to help each other by seeing the

acknowledgement and understanding of someone else and what they're going

through, and what really touched me was the story that he had at the end

when I asked him the question about the person that he has seen change so much,

and I think that for many of us, we often think, especially in the business

realm, that as long as I exchange the dollars and I provide the services that

I guaranteed to the customer, then I'd done everything that I needed to do, and

I think Noah is turning that tide of the business franchise that is about gyms.

It is so easy to get into the mechanics of figuring out why somebody wants

to join, and we could have a lively discussion back and forth about how you

can do this by helping each other create some of that value through not only

the exercise programs that they offer and even the smoothie bar, which again,

we didn't talk about in this episode, but I think that biggest thing that

really resonated with me was that you can have self-consciousness be a tool

in your toolbox, which will help you to see what is immediately surrounding

you and taking action where needed.

Someone reminded me recently outside of this episode about the importance of

self-care, and it's something that is becoming more of a topic, especially in

our society when we are discussing the needs of somebody that might be going

through a traumatic or heartfelt situation that requires them to take care of some

of the things that take them away from work, and I think Noah's story about how

he has transversed all these different things to be able to become this best

version of a gym that takes care of each other, but also when it gets really

busy and you see someone struggling, you drop everything and you help them.

It really resonates with the core of what we all are human,

and we are all humans in this.

If we're willing to understand and eliminate the fear and the insecurity that

might be about approaching somebody and having just that conversation, especially

when it comes to physical fitness, we can start to make strides about ourselves

and our overall being that helps us to not only wake up in the morning feeling

refreshed, but we're able to have energy throughout the day to dispense and

be able to utilize for the activities that we are gaining influence over.

That means if we are able to take the time to pray for someone, whether that

is for thinking about them and helping each other become really something that

they never thought they would be able to do, or even finding people that you

surround yourself with that help you to become the best mentors to help you go

to the next level, especially with his business partner, John, that he talked

about at the very end, it really helps you to understand the bigger, more

systemic issue that we're all facing.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of saying, "I know that I need to do this.

I know that I can do this, but I don't know if I can really do this.

I don't know if I have what it takes.", and it's also so easy to say that

these relationships are not helping me and we push them away, but what

would it look like if we actually turn those relationships into strengths,

things that we know that we can push ourselves to the next level?

What if we took it and we used it as confidence?

We use in ways in which we can create some of that value that we often are looking

for when it comes to having relationships with others, but, what if we took all

those things and we be able to push ourselves, become determined to see the

best changes of not only within ourselves, but also with the people that are all

around us, rooting us on every single day?

I think Noah is demonstrating a good point for all of us in learning the vast

importance of understanding what it takes to just take it one step at a time, and

it's not just about the steps but it's also about what you are able to do by just

building something that is connecting.

It makes you feel warmth inside your soul.

It radiates it within your blood vessels and makes your heart beat out of your

chest knowing that you're doing such an awesome thing and it's taking you to new

heights that you never imagined before.

I think Noah is a prime example of someone that has really shown and demonstrated

what it can be when you're able to surround yourself with those resources,

so if you ever think that you can't do it, I think that Noah has certainly proved

that wrong today and continues to prove that wrong for all time because I think

if we're able to see that best version of ourselves, especially when it comes

to understanding how we can build heart and character through all the experiences

that we go through, nothing's impossible.

We can be what we want to be.

We can set ourselves out into that magical journey where anything can happen.

As long as we see that value, that's all that matters, and I think that for

us, that value starts with learning how to be able to create not only the

benefits of accountability, but to gain respect, and to learn knowledge.

That is definitely the ARK way.

Thanks for listening to episode number six of Speaking From the

Heart, and I look forward to hearing from your heart very soon.

Thanks for listening.

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