IAM1571 – Coach and Human Builder on a Mission to Bring Genuine Human Connections on Social Media

My mission is to connect, train, and evolve, with humans around the world by bringing humanity back to social media. After all, that’s all any of this is actually about — genuine human connection. To remind you that this life is yours, we’re all a little messed up and that’s okay because you aren’t alone. Together we can truly make life happen for you.

• CEO Story: Mac is a serial entrepreneur who runs through the bloodline. She has a passion for fitness. People do not just go to the gym, they called and wanted to talk with Mac, and that’s where she found out about coaching and not just about fitness and making a difference in the lives of other people.
• Business Service: Fitness nutrition lifestyle mindset. Nutrition is the foundational layer.
• Secret Sauce: Caring about the life of the client. Giving the support system.
• CEO Hack: (1) My “human” is my business partner (2) Being grateful knowing everything you have now is enough
• CEO Nugget: You don't have it all together and that's okay
• CEO Defined: Being a leader, not just a boss

Website: humanbuilder.com
Instagram: the_human_builder

Episode Link: https://iamceo.co/2019/01/01/iam141-coach-and-human-builder-on-a-mission-to-bring-genuine-human-connections-on-social-media/

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Transcription

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00:20 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share precisely the information you're searching for. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:45 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Mac Brazena of Bemac Fit. Mac, it's awesome to have you on the show.

00:54 – Mac Brazina

All right, thank you so much for having me. This was, like, a really cool experience. I'm just sitting here. I do have Kira with me. If anybody follows me, I do have my dog, who's begrudgingly sitting with us today.

01:05 – Gresham Harkless

Your dog's name is Kira. Kira. So we have Kira and Mac on our podcast, so thank you. Kira, you're the very first dog to be on the podcast that's supposed to be on. My dog hops on every now and then, but she's not supposed to be on, so appreciate you for being on. What I wanted to do was read a little bit more about Mac so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

Mac's mission is to connect, train, and evolve with humans around the world by bringing humanity back to social media. After all, that's all any of this is actually about. Genuine human connection to remind you that this life is yours. We're a little messed up, and that's okay because you aren't alone. Together, we can truly make life happen for you. Mac, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:45 – Mac Brazina

I guess so.

01:47 – Gresham Harkless

All right, let's see. So the first question I had was just to drill down a little bit deeper and hear about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

01:54 – Mac Brazina

CEO is a really interesting term because I'm just a coach. That's just what I tell people. I'm just a coach. I'm a coach. First and well, a human first, coach second, coach first, and the CEO thing, like running my own business was always just a non-negotiable to me. I'm from a lineage of female entrepreneurs. My grandma was an entrepreneur. She ran the number one plastic surgery recovery facility to the stars in Beverly Hills. My mom ran her own photography business which wanted to be international and do celebrity weddings, which is pretty rad. She is a writer as well.

I grew up around a lot of really relentless women and that is what instilled in me, that relentlessness that no matter what I was going to do, it was going to be on my terms. Fitness fell into my lap and that's a whole other story. But the Bemac fit happened. I was coaching and I was training people at LA Fitness and people would sit down and I would be like, okay, but why are you here? They're like, well, I don't like this about me I want to change this. Aren't you that?

I'm like, why are you here? I just told you I don't like this and I'm like, shut up. Why are you here? Why did you call me? What about this makes you light up? What about this is something that you absolutely need to do and accomplish and why are you sitting in front of me right now? Then eventually they break and they start going, oh well this happened or it all started minus 8, or this, that the other thing, or this trauma led to this, or whatever. That's where I found the magic in coaching and personal training, where it was so much more than just that one workout. It was everything.

So really that's what all led up to now, where I, in the last eight weeks or so officially segued out of personal training into doing this full-time, which is pretty crazy. We were joking before about the lights and all this crap that's in my house now and getting to write and actually be there for these clients and these human beings and those other 23 hours of the day rather than just that one personal training hour. So it's nice to actually practice what I preach that way and know that what I'm doing is actually making a difference in their lives. Not just about one hour in the gym because your physique can only get you so far. That's it in a nutshell, I guess.

04:00 – Gresham Harkless

No, that's awesome. I know that we of course talked offline when we first connected and talked a lot about, understanding what your why is. I love the fact that you've been able to drill down like you said. Somebody says, oh, I want to lose my gut and you ask, why? Why do you want to do that? Why do you want to do that? Why do you want to do that? You really drill down to get an idea of like, what a person's focus is, what their mission is. Then that can really be where you start to make impactful change, I think.

04:23 – Mac Brazina

Well, I think that's where the relationship develops if that makes sense. So for me, that's everything. The relationship is everything. They become my babies for a reason. I've cultivated this name, Mama Mac, which like, never in a million years thought would be associated with my name. She used a little too, too many profanities to have a mama in front of my name. But it worked. They become my kids everywhere.

I have like seven, or eight different time zones or something crazy. I've connected two clients from Australia to Kansas. It's like, no, we're just human beings. It's not that, like anything's wrong with any of us. We're not too fat, we're not too mean, we're not muscular enough or that. This is the other thing. Like my whole thing is that you're enough as you are. So why aren't we just talking about that and building you from here out so you can appreciate the physique, not seek the physique so that you receive that validation in return? That's not where the work is done.

The work is done here and here. So that's the way it was for me and my journey for sure, dealing with anxiety and depression my whole life. I found that that was a lot of my baby's journey. So I figured that it had to be affecting more people than just me and just my small group of clients and that it had to be something bigger. My whole thing is, we're all fucked up, so why aren't we talking about it? That's where the real transformations happen. That's where you can really set goals and attain them. Real goals. You can go big or go home. That's where the real growth happens. That's what I find really lights me up about coaching, is that ever-present growth and being a part of it every step of the way.

05:52 – Gresham Harkless

That makes perfect sense. Now I wanted to hear a little bit more about your babies, as you call them, as your Clients, and how you help, support,t and serve the clients. What are some of the things that you do? I know you touched on a little bit, but could you drill down a little bit deeper?

06:04 – Mac Brazina

Yeah, absolutely. So basically, the way my coaching process works is you have fitness, nutrition, lifestyle, and mindset. So I tell all of my clients, all of my 2B nuggets and babies tell them. I don't know. The client is such a weird word. That's why I don't use it. I use clients because they become family they're friends and family and they become a part of this mafia for life. That's really the way it works. You get a band of brothers and sisters around you, and that's really where we start you off, understanding that you're not alone.

There are other people that are going through it. You are going to be connected with, people that are going to be able to support you. It's myself included, and try to make myself as available to my clients as possible. But you know that you're not alone. There's a band of people out there that get it and that love you no matter what. So that's the foundation of it all is that mafia term that we go with. Then we take those vials of fitness, nutrition, lifestyle, and mindset and we measure them out based on the individual.

I'll get people that are really into fitness, like getting the workout in is not the problem. I really enjoy that. But it's how they feel about themselves, how they talk to themselves. Maybe they're dealing with relationship issues, trauma, sexual abuse. There are any number of things that are going on on the inside of a human being that no matter how fit you might look aesthetically, still need work. You can't have a complete human without any of those four entities. So that's why I made it my mission to build humans, not just physiques, because the physique comes after you balance all of the other ones. Nutrition is heavily, heavily monitored by me and is a major foundational layer. I would say that's probably the second layer of this take for sure, is nutrition.

I coach nutrition for the gut-brain axis. I believe that you can. I'm a walking testament of it, that you can actually heal your mind and any illnesses, anxiety, or depression through your nutrition. So not only are you fueling this beautiful machine that you've been given, but you're also benefiting other aspects of your anatomy that might be lacking.

We have nutrition, we have routine, and lifestyle, which I manage every step of the way for you, and then mindset. That's just the daily battle. That's the goal setting that goes through your daily wins, understanding that it is a process. But more than anything. But your workouts are all goal-oriented and they're all about moving your body and connecting with your body from the rain to the rest of your anatomy.

08:18 – Gresham Harkless

There you go. I love Mastermind and Mad Sciences. So what I wanted to do is now ask you for what I call your secret sauce and you might have already touched on it, but what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you a little bit unique?

08:27 – Mac Brazina

There are so many coaches out there that just don't give a shit about their clients. Bottom line. They want to give them a workout, send them on their way, and hope that they don't talk to them throughout the rest of the day. That's not how I work. I've worked with those coaches, I've seen those coaches. I witnessed it and it's like frustrating. It makes me want to pull my hair out because I'm like, these people are giving you their lives, literally, and they're giving you all of their insecurities on a pl.

For somebody to disrespect that is just, oh, no, just get in and get out. That's not the way I roll. Like, once you're in, you're my baby. I'm going to get these weird little ESP kind of things where I'll be like, what's wrong with you? Why haven't you reached out to me? They'll be like, oh my God, how did you know? I haven't been doing this. I need you. I know why I'm here. So I manage all of that through daily check-ins. When I told my team that that's what I wanted to do, they were like, that's fucking crazy. That's gonna be a lot of work. I care about your life and the other 23 hours of the day.

That one hour in the gym is awesome and I'm glad you're doing it. But what about the rest of you? Like, I guess that in short, I just want to be that person that I wish I had throughout this process and cultivate other human beings that can be there for other generations of these mafia members. So I always connect clients when they're similar and give them their own support system. That's not just me because that's what this is all about, that's the human experience in a nutshell. Learning, growing, evolving, and then sharing It So if I can be a part of that, then I think I'm doing something right.

09:50 – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

09:59 – Mac Brazina

Good one. Okay. This one kind of applies to all aspects of life. I think that's like probably where my superpower would be, like lifestyle and mindset and all of that. But this has made the biggest impact on my relationship actually. My human is my business partner. So I can't say anything about business, but I can't say also affects my personal life. Expressing gratitude is a huge, huge thing that I've integrated into my life. It seems so simple, it seems so campy. You should be grateful. Like no shit, I know that.

But really being able to express that and feel grounded in your heart and knowing that everything that you have right now is enough. I think that the biggest issue with the CEO mindset or the entrepreneur mindset is not being grounded in what is now.

Trevor and I will stop each other and I'll go, baby, what are you grateful for? It can be something really simple. Generally, it's when we're winding down at the end of the night, both of us are exhausted. He works 10-plus hours a day. I do it as well. You might as well just start taking appreciation for what is in your life, those smaller moments and just watching everything grow from there. Take love in the process.

11:10 – Gresham Harkless

There you go. No, I love that CEO hack. That's a great reminder. Now I wanted to ask you another good one. I wanted to ask you for a CEO nugget. This is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

11:23 – Mac Brazina

You don't have it all figured out, so shut the fuck up and listen.

11:29 – Gresham Harkless

Hey, can you tell my younger business self that too?

11:35- Mac Brazina

Yeah, that is like, take some magnesium and chill the fuck out. It's going to be fine. No, I mean in all seriousness, I think one of my larger wives for starting all of this and wanting to talk with you, because that younger self, that younger me, is so fucked up or was so fucked up that it just is self-worth and everything else and relationships and all that, not really knowing where my place was in this world. I think that everybody can just take away that Your place in this world is right where you are, and it's exactly where you need to be. You don't need to be a minute behind or a minute forward.

Like right where you are is right where you need to be. Because there's a lesson for you to be learning. There's a person that's trying to teach you something. If you can live your life right, then you're going to be able to serve that past self and that future self by just being open to it right now. So that's how I try to live my life.

But yeah, anybody who is a young entrepreneur that is starting out, which is exactly what I am, or something weird to say. But if you are just starting out or you want to start a business, or if you are a coach and you're doing work and you're hustling, you're grinding, you're doing the thing, just know that you don't have it figured out and be open. Like, let that brain just be an open basket for information and goodies and God needs to live and just grab all that shit.

12:45 – Gresham Harkless

There you go. I love it. I love it. Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. I know you touched on it a little bit, but I wanted to ask you, Mac, what does being a CEO mean to you?

12:55 – Mac Brazina

Being a leader. That means not just having a title, not just being a boss, because people think being a boss is being bossy or telling people what to do. Because you can't. I can explain it the same way I explain coaching. Like some coaches would sit there with a whistle, sitting on the bench going, why are you doing it wrong? Whereas I'm in it with you, going, no, this is how we're going to do it. I'm in the trenches with you, not just yelling from the back. That to me is what makes a good leader a CEO and a coach. I don't think that CEOs and coaches are that different. I think that you have a group of people that are looking up to you.

You have a group of people who trust you to lead the way and to write the battle plan that will be the most successful. You have a responsibility to be an example. Like, I don't get to just go out and go drinking. You know what I mean? Like, I don't get to just indulge. I will on occasion because I'm human. But my responsibility is to set the example, to be the leader, and to take the steps that I'm suggesting to my team that make sense. I can't tell people to do one thing and then have them do something completely different. That wouldn't work out.

I need to be in it with them. I need to be walking the walk and talking the talk to the best of my ability and with as much humility as possible as a CEO. So as the thing grows into the empire I've always wanted it to be, I've always wanted to do it for the right reason. I don't ever want to get caught up in the bullshit reasons of materialism and all that jazz. That's all gravy to me.

But I try to savor each individual evolution and each individual team member that I have right now for who they are and what they bring to this project. Because I know that it's not just me. So if you can keep that mentality that it's not you, not about you, it's about your bigger why, your bigger message, then you're going to be incredibly successful. But if you make it about you and everything that you have or you are doing or how you can make a quick buck, you should just quit now.

14:43 – Gresham Harkless

There you go. That makes perfect sense. I think that's an incredible definition. So, Mac, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out. What I want to do is pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and then also can get a hold of you.

14:56 – Mac Brazina

I just want to say thank you. This is very new to me doing this like, podcasting thing, but I'm very grateful for it. If you're watching this, I'm very grateful for you and I would love to get to know you more. Maybe one day I'll learn how to talk, but I love my job to bits and pieces and I would love to be a part of your evolution in any way possible. So go ahead and just reach out to me on Instagram E Mac Fit. Just me and my partner, my assistant. So please just reach out. That's all you have to do.

All I need is a will and want and I can make magic happen. But reach out to me through Instagram if you're on there at Benac fit B, E, N, A C, F I T. So on the website you'll see the coaching application, the members area, the whole nine. If you have any questions, I'm just one message away, just a dm. It really is just me and I don't know you yet, but I love you so it's going to be fun. I'm excited for this adventure.

15:43 – Gresham Harkless

Well, awesome. I think we know you a little bit better, Mac, so I appreciate you and we'll make sure to have all those links in the show notes. I'm definitely gracious that you were able to take some time out and give us all this incredible insight. I love what you're doing, especially helping people to remind themselves that they're not perfect. But at the same time, we do have enough to do whatever we want to do. So I truly appreciate you and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:03 – Mac Brazina

I appreciate you. Thank you so much. I'm really grateful. Thank you.

16:08 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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