IAM1904 – CEO Provides Access to Mental Health and Fitness Resources

Why it was selected for “CBNation Architects”:

In this episode of IAMCEO podcast, Corey Lewis, CEO and Founder of 1AND1 LIFE, shares his journey of promoting mental health and wellness, particularly among the African-American community.

Corey's platform, 1AND1 LIFE, is dedicated to curating and customizing content, tools, and products that address the lack of mental health and fitness resources available for African Americans, especially men. The content curated by Corey and his team seeks to define what mental health and wellness mean to the Black Community and aims to break the associated stigma.

Besides mental health advocacy, Corey is also passionate about performance and fitness. An accomplished athlete, he played football in the Big Ten Conference at The University of Illinois. Despite facing significant challenges, including four ACL surgeries and seven knee surgeries, Corey pushed on to become a certified personal trainer and motivational speaker.

Key insights and lessons from the podcast include:

CEO Story: Motivated by the gaps in mental health resources for African Americans, Corey founded 1AND1 LIFE to address this issue and ignite essential conversations within the community.
CEO Hack: Corey emphasizes the importance of a structured morning routine for maintaining productivity and focus.
CEO Nugget: He underscores the challenges of entrepreneurship and suggests hiring a CFO to structure and streamline back-office operations.
CEO Defined: As a CEO, Corey sees himself rallying his team, streamlining processes, and genuinely understanding the needs and strengths of his employees.

Corey L Lewis 00:00

The entrepreneur life is fine. It's great to go build your own business, but, it's going to be hard. There's gonna be a lot you need to learn. I would have hired a much better CFO early where, in the beginning I was doing a lot of the financials and things like that.

Intro 00:19

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I am CEO. Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:46

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the IAMCEO podcast. And I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year, and we're doing something a little bit different.

Where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics or as I like to call them, the business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, business owners, and what I like to call the CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month, we are focusing on operations. The systems will set you free. So think about systems, think about flow, sustainability, potentially working out in your morning routine, waking up early e-commerce, and different business models. Think of the operations in the models that basically set up the foundation to allow the creativity within organizations, but also to make sure the trains are running on time and things are going as they should.

Now, this is extremely important because we often can turn to the sexy parts of business and forget about the operations and how. So I really want to focus this month on this specific topic. So sit back and enjoy this special episode at the I am CEO podcast. Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gretchen from the I am CEO podcast.

I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Corey Lewis of one-in-one life. Corey, it's great to have you on the show.

Corey L Lewis 02:04

It's a pleasure to be here. I've been tuning into you guys and stuff for a long time and always great. And just happy to be one of the guests and happy to be on and excited to talk all things entrepreneur and just everything that's out there in the business world.

Gresham Harkless 02:20

Yeah, absolutely. And super excited to have you on as well. So you have loads and great information. We had a phenomenal kind of intro call where we first connected a little bit and talked a little bit as a teaser of the podcast and all the awesomeness that's definitely gonna come to follow. And so before we jumped into everything though, I wanted to read a little bit more about Corey. So you hear about some of those awesome things that he's doing.

And Corey is the CEO and founder of 1AND1 Life, a black-owned mental health and wellness performance platform that curates and customizes content Tools and products to inform, guide and empower its community. Due to the lack of mental health and fitness resources provided by provided for African Americans specifically for African-American men.

Corey saw the need to address this issue by simplifying the options, creating accessibility information and disrupting the wellness landscape as a whole. In turn, a majority of the content curated by Corey and the one-on-one life team is powered by the discussion of what mental health and wellness means to the black community and how together we can break the stigma.

Additionally, Corey shares a passion for performance and fitness. And with his determination and drive, he found himself playing football in the Big Ten conference at the University of Illinois. And he was also given the opportunity to participate in the academic, all Big Ten for 3 years and won the Big Ten distinguished scholar award.

Shortly after that, Corey played a short stint as a professional football player and persevered through four ACL injuries, seven knee surgeries. And Corey is now a certified personal trainer, motivational speaker who helps others reach their fitness goals through fitness activity, nutrition plans, what mental health resources.

And if you'd like to learn more about Corey and all his accomplishments you can definitely check out resources such as Forbes, Black Excellence, Thrive Global, and now the IAMCEO podcast. Corey, great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the IAMCEO community?

Corey L Lewis 03:57

I am so ready. I'm looking forward to it.

[restrict paid=”true”]

Gresham Harkless 03:59

Awesome. Let's do it then. So I know I touched a little bit upon what I like to call your CEO story, but I wanted to rewind that clock and hear a little bit more on how you got started with all the awesome things you're working on.

Corey L Lewis 04:08

For me with what I'm doing really, it just really all happened somebody who, who really dealt with my own mental health issues, okay. Growing up and really having to find myself and find my mental performance coach to be who I am today and just being a lot better place today. I really found myself enjoying helping other people become better versions of themselves.

At a smaller scale, when I became a certified personal trainer shortly after my football career was over, after all my injuries and things like that. And then it just got to a point where I want to do it at a bigger scale. I wanted to reach, be able to reach more people and obviously you can only do so much, trading hours for dollars and without building a true platform.

So I set out with my business partner and co-founder of the company who he's a marketing person, marketing genius. And we just work to take my passion for the fitness, health and wellness space. in the mental performance space, and how can we get to work on building this platform to help people really become 1 percent better each day.

And doesn't happen every day? No, there are, there will be bad days. That's life. But how can we continue to provide solutions, whether it's content, whether it's programs, whether it's resources, whatever it may be to help people become 1 percent better every day and really create a curated experience for those people.

I assumely set out to do, as with all things it started on a smaller scale and we should continue to grow it over time over the years. That's something that started in 2017 has really come into its own. We have, we've built a great community.

We've done some amazing things. We have some amazing partnerships. We have an awesome mental health podcast and truly excited about where we're headed. Got a long way to go. Got a lot more lives to touch in a positive way. And I'm looking forward to doing that.

Gresham Harkless 05:59

Yeah, absolutely. And so I know we touched a little bit upon the different ways that you do that. You meant to, you mentioned, creating the content and of course doing the physical fitness aspects. Could you take us through a little bit more on those different ways that you serve your clients and how you support them and help them to be better.

Corey L Lewis 06:13

Yeah, 100%. So we have affordable, really affordable option. That's it's an app that we, it's a program that we created that has an app experience to where it provides customized mental health nutrition and fitness programs for every individual, for what can usually cause hundreds of dollars for each sector of what we offer, we're able to offer it for under 40 bucks a month at a really high level, but the really high team, a lot of content to do that at scale to be able to create it at such an affordable price.

The program is called 1and1 You the reason why it's called 1AND1 You is because it's about you. It's catered to you. It's customized to you. And everything that we do, in that program is about you. And it's not a one-size-fits-all all approach. It's catered to you and your goals, catered to you and the way you eat, catered to, there's a pretty in-depth assessment that you fill out.

In order to get access to it, after you sign up and all that good stuff. So that we have, and we provide tons of mental toughness content and mental strength content. And emotional well, being content in that program for people, and we continue to find ways to update that stuff.

So people can continue to digest that content or go back to that content whenever they feel like it is. It's all in their dashboard, in the palm of their hands. So to continue to build that out for those people, that's one way we have

Another program, it's cost more money, but we're really hands on what we have weekly calls with each individual weekly group calls and weekly individual calls that a lot of people have taken part in what we have great success with so far.

And it's a great option because we really get to build that community build those programs a pretty similar approach to what they get with our affordable option. But this 1, there's more hands on approach by all the coaches involved. Between myself are registered dietitian that we have our mobility specialist that we have our mental health coach that we have taking part in this body mind plate program that we call it to help people really enhance themselves.

And the reach their goals mentally and physically over a four-month period.

Gresham Harkless 08:25

Would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce? The thing you feel sets you apart and makes it unique. Is it that ability to understand, those aspects and those principles, but at the same time, understand that people can take in that information in different ways and meet them where they are like I mentioned.

Corey L Lewis 08:39

Yeah, 100%. And that's why instead of trying to be this person or this company that has 1 person who claims they could do it all. I went and just built a team of people who very experienced in each kind of individual field that I feel really helps the overall aspect of helping people become better.

So, that's from a nutrition aspect, yeah, I may know what I'm doing. I may have a little like precision nutrition certification, but I by no means am a, certified registered dietitian or nutritionist at a high-level people who have went to school for years to attain those credentials. So I went and hired a person there, went to hire some mental health performance experts, psychologists, et cetera, to help their mobility specialists.

I focus more on the physical aspect and obviously just a motivational aspect and all that good stuff and the more relatable things and just really, being a leader in that, but still aligning with people and working with people and collabing with people who have the experience and the credentials to really help people in the different silos of wellness.

Gresham Harkless 09:48

I want to just switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Corey L Lewis 09:59

For me? It's my routine in the morning. So, regardless of what time, whatever my 1st meeting or coaching call, whatever that may be 1st thing in the morning, I'm up.

90 minutes to 2 hours before it. So my 1st, let's just hypothetically speaking, if my 1st meetings at 8 a. m. or my 1st session, whatever it may be with a client coaching call, I'm up at 6, 6 30. And during that time, I like to, I meditate, I read and then I. So between meditation and reading, I make my bed and then I go get a workout in obviously shower and get ready for the day.

Gresham Harkless 10:39

I love all of those hacks. And so I want to ask you now for what I call CEO nugget. You might have already touched on this, but this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something if you were to hop into a time machine, you would tell your younger business self.

Corey L Lewis 10:52

First and foremost, I would say, hey, the entrepreneur life is fine. It's great to go build your own business. But, it's going to be hard. There's gonna be a lot you need to learn. I would have hired a much better CFO early where, in the beginning I was doing a lot of the financials and things like that, but, looking back on it and getting everything in order.

I would have much, CFO is a very important hire just in terms of getting your company where it needs to be from the back office perspective, getting those financials structured properly and, helping with financial forecasting and budgeting and all the stuff that really goes into business.

Gresham Harkless 11:33

Truly appreciate that. And I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping our different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Corey, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Corey L Lewis 11:43

CEO to me means rallying the troops, streamlining processes and operational things. Understanding and being able to understand the people who work with you and for you their emotional Intelligence and well-being and being able to tap into that.

Gresham Harkless 12:03

Absolutely huge. So Corey truly appreciate that definition and I appreciate your time even more. What I want to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know.

And of course, how best they can get a hold of you find out about the community and all the awesome things that you and your team are building.

Corey L Lewis 12:18

For sure. For me, one of the most important things is control what you can control as well as an entrepreneur, as a CEO, whatever it may be get comfortable being uncomfortable. Understanding those things and just knowing that those things are part of the entrepreneur life and part of running a business don't let those things knock you off your path.

And knock you down. There's tons of resources out there to help you overcome those things. And there's tons of resources to utilize within your business. A lot of affordable resources.

And lastly, don't focus on too many things become really, really good at one thing. Build your teams and systems around that and then move on to the next especially in a startup mode. I've run into that issue where I wanted to do 100 different things under 1 company under 1 umbrella, but never really got good at 1 and you just end up running yourself into the ground and you never really.

You end up taking more steps back than you do forward, as it pertains to really get into that vision and driving that company forward. So, focus on that. And then last but sorry, this is last but not least mental health is important. You should come first. It's okay to put yourself first and put your well-being before things.

Really focused on having that work-life balance, spend time with your loved ones, spend time with your significant others. Spend time with people who are important with you in your life, take that time because those moments are just as important as the moments and hours that you put into your work into building your company, I promise you that you don't want to look up and.

A few years from now with great success and realized that you missed a lot of moments and that you could have gotten here without sacrificing a lot of those important moments that could have helped help you feel better and be better. Your physical and mental well-being is very important.

Don't let those things Don't sacrifice those things, along this tough journey of entrepreneurship and the grind is tough and it is, but make sure you make time for yourself. Self-care is important. Those things are important for me. And I'm Corey Lewis, CEO, co founder of 1AND1 Life.

I'm very passionate about mental performance. You can find all of our content at 1AND1life.com. And in regards to our customized coaching program with customized nutrition and fitness and emotional well-being program. It's called 1AND1 U, which you can find at 1and1u.com.

If you're interested or, would like to learn more or reach out to our team to learn more. And get more information there. So thank you so much for having me. Big fan of this podcast and what you guys are doing and trying to accomplish. And thank you for being here today and hope you all have a great rest of your week.

Gresham Harkless 15:07

Awesome. Awesome, awesome. Thank you so much again, Corey. We'll have the links and information in the show notes. Appreciate all the awesomeness that you provided today, all the awesomeness that you're doing in the world, and appreciate you again for, being on the show. So have a great rest of the day.

Outro 15:19

Thank you for listening to the IAMCEO podcast, powered by CB Nation in Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. IAMCEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Get your driven CEO Gear at ceogear.co. This has been the IAMCEO podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

[/restrict]