In this episode of Tactical Empire, Adam Robbins shares his journey through personal and professional challenges, emphasizing the importance of mindset, community, and resilience. He discusses the impact of family struggles, a significant financial loss, and his commitment to building a holistic health community. Adam highlights the importance of daily routines, self-discipline, and the power of positive thinking in overcoming obstacles and achieving personal growth.
In this episode of Tactical Empire, Adam Robbins shares his journey through personal and professional challenges, emphasizing the importance of mindset, community, and resilience. He discusses the impact of family struggles, a significant financial loss, and his commitment to building a holistic health community. Adam highlights the importance of daily routines, self-discipline, and the power of positive thinking in overcoming obstacles and achieving personal growth.
Chapters
00:00 Navigating Life's Storms
06:31 Building a Holistic Health Community
14:25 Mindset and Daily Routines
18:38 The Importance of Community and Accountability
21:36 Focusing on Family and Business Growth
@realjeffsmith (00:02)
Welcome to another episode of the Tactical Empire. Let's get straight into it. We have a guest today, Mr. Adam Robbins. Adam Robbins is out of Miami, Florida, a gym owner, a entrepreneurial savant. How are you, sir? Tell us about what's going on in your life.
Adam (00:24)
Yeah, man. ⁓ Thanks for having me on the show here. Jeff and Sean. Super, super excited to kind of share like what what's going on in my life and kind of my story and what I'm building. So I guess I guess I could start off with all the all the chaos that's happening ⁓ because I think one of the things that I had my mind to focus on today was
was mindset and perspective of how to move forward when you're in the middle of a storm, right? Or it feels like that at least sometimes. this year, 2025 has probably been one of my most difficult years so far, but I'm moving forward, right? I'm not stopping the ship.
from sailing, I'm gonna keep on pushing, I'm gonna keep on trusting and having my faith and I know good things are on the horizon. But it started off, I mean, it kind of started off last year, my mother-in-law, who is a huge part of our lives, got diagnosed with leukemia and she had a very rare case that was probably one of the most aggressive cases you get out there.
And through a season of eight months of, you know, just dealing with all of the treatments and everything, ⁓ that led into the beginning of this year where it started getting progressively worse. And just took a real big toll on my wife and her having to be there for her mom and support and, you know, me having to like...
push back on some of my responsibilities so that I can be there with the kids, so she could be with her mom. And then it led up to her mom passing on May 19th. So she had a 14 year old son who now we're moving forward with the adoption process, which just throws a wrench in our tires to kind of figure that one out. He's going into high school.
So there's a lot of working parts to that, you know, and what he's going through as well. So being trying to support him. then, you kind of know about this and you briefly talked about it the other day, but I got into a pretty shitty investment and I lost about $120,000. I ⁓ might get some of that back in a long period of time, but.
@realjeffsmith (02:53)
Yeah.
Adam (03:13)
But I'm not holding any eggs in that basket, right? I'm writing it off as a loss and I'm moving forward. And I've learned lot from that, right? It was something that nothing in the school system could have ever taught me. ⁓ So I'm grateful, right? I'm grateful for the experience. There's a lot of other things that I won't get too in depth with, but father-in-law and...
other family matters all come into play when you talk about, you know, a death in the family, especially the one who was like the nucleus of the family, right? It's like she held everything together. So her absence now is definitely felt and it makes a lot of tension, ⁓ you know, in all aspects. So, you know, with that said, ⁓
Here I am, man. I'm still running my gym. I got three boys. They're crazy. You know, one of them fell and busted his face and almost knocked both of his front teeth out yesterday. And, you know, I made him go to jujitsu the same night. So, them the ropes. So, I'm also, you know, being a gym owner, I see, you know, kind of
I see a limited potential and growth in my ability not only to make more money, but to impact more people, right? And so, you know, I've always been looking at the online world and I'm working on that now. So I've been developing through this whole season of trials, I've been developing the back office and the systems and the workflows to this online community coaching and courses program that I'm...
I'm putting out. And I call it the Live Long Collective. And it's basically a community of people ⁓ where we go in and we educate, equip and empower them to ⁓ do the necessary things today so that they can have ⁓ the life of freedom that they want as far as it goes with health. I'm really just focusing this whole thing on health.
⁓ My community has a seven pillar framework, which is we work on movement, nutrition, ⁓ stress management, sleep, habits, mindset, and spirituality. I might have threw an extra one in there, but ⁓ it sounded like I did. ⁓ So we focus on those.
@realjeffsmith (06:02)
You
Adam (06:08)
key components because I see so often as I'm coaching people with their health and fitness that there's always something that's lagging there and when you can turn the dial on every single one of those, you get a holistic approach to wellness and you get better outcomes, at least for the people that I've been coaching. So that's my focus right now. That's what I'm moving towards. That's what I'm building.
And I'm hoping to impact a whole lot of people doing it.
@shawn_rider_ (06:43)
All right, so Adam, you just went into like all the things that you're going through currently, which I'm sure people can relate to, regardless of the scale at which the chaos and struggles and obstacles that are in someone's way, like what's hard for me is the same hard for you, regardless of the situation. Someone said that it's like, it's like.
Adam (06:47)
you
@shawn_rider_ (07:03)
what I'm going through literally might be tougher, but what I define as hard is similar to how you define hard. So I think people can just relate to going through struggles. So I appreciate you showing that from different avenues of life, being family, business, or investments. ⁓ But you kind of just went through the things that you do to help others. ⁓ You own a gym that's certainly helping people. You're creating online content to help people. But how has Adam Robbins really
helped himself over the years of being in business for over a decade now. So what do you do for you? Or what do you do differently today than what you did 10 years ago when you first started building businesses?
Adam (07:48)
Yeah, so everything that I do is different now. ⁓ Quick back up of my story, I came out of addiction and didn't really have a life until I was 30, right? was a slave to it, basically. And I found my faith in God at 30 and I started my business at 31, right? And I have nothing other than a high school diploma.
I don't have any kind of education. I never worked in corporate. So there's no structure around any of that stuff. When I opened my first gym, was some of my members of a gym that I was coaching at came up to me and they were like, Hey, we don't believe in this whole thing. And we know you don't either kind of that was the basis of it. And we want to open the gym with you and we got the money and you got the know-how. And, and, and I just kind of, I was like, you know, fake it till you make it kind of deal.
I was like, okay, you're right. got the know-how, right? I've been coaching for three years, so I know how to run a business. And, you know, I just jumped in and I winged it, right? So now life is completely different and I have to organize. I didn't have no kids or anything. I had just got married. So that was a new journey for me as well. So I just kind of like got on the bike and...
turn the wheels, man, however I could. It was a forced thing. Now there's a lot more strategy around what I do. And I've learned a lot through coaching myself and hiring coaches that can lead me. They've been where I wanna go and they are doing what I wanna do and having them show me the ropes. ⁓ But I think even with...
With all of that, you still have doubt, still have unbelief. I struggle with that. And then the imposter syndrome that you're not supposed to be here, this is the wrong group for you. I struggle with that a lot with insecurity and stuff. And I think that's one of reasons why I believe it's so important that we focus on building a strong mindset.
of positive thinking, but it really is when it comes down to just the basics of it, it's positive thinking. There's a thing that I've learned over the years of my personal development that really can help me shift any moment in my life, because I have this understanding that I can choose my thoughts.
If you do any kind of like meditation, that's one of the things if you want me to kind of label it, that's one of the things in meditation. For me, meditation helps create space between stimulus and response. So every day we're getting stimulated by something. It could be a conversation, could be something on social media, could be whatever. Somebody cuts you off in traffic. All of these stimulants are coming in every single day.
Do we create the space so that we have the capacity to think about how we want to respond as opposed to, you know, just reacting to everything that happens? ⁓ So once I learned it, I have the ability to, ⁓ you know, think what I want to think or choose my thoughts.
I want to make sure that like it's not understood that like I'm choosing my thoughts every single second of every single day and nothing negative comes in. That's not what I'm saying. But I have the awareness that when something when I'm dwelling on something negative, like I know how to get out of that and change my direction with my thinking. ⁓ And I think we could all agree that if we're in a negative mindset space, we all make poor decisions.
Right? Or at least we can make better decisions if we're in a positive mindset. I don't know too many people that are like pissed off and negative walking around making the best decisions of their lives. Right? And so I think it's super important that, you know, ⁓ we start to take control of what's happening up here first ⁓ as we're building out our lives and how we want them to look. ⁓
Really quick, like the three step process for me is understanding that yes, I can choose what I want to think and I know how to get to that place. It starts with my physiology and that's why I love exercise. If you're in a pissed off mood, you can go for run, you can get on a rebounder. Like you can do something with your body and you have the power to do that, right? You could choose how you carry yourself, right? Are your shoulders gonna be back and upright?
tall chest, chin up, or you're to be droopy and hanging over, right? So you change your physiology, you start to biochemicals in your body and you start to feel better almost instantly. ⁓ You know, they had that research with the Superman pose, you know, like stand with the Superman pose for two minutes and you start increasing all kinds of hormones and stuff. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, is focus. I ask myself questions.
Like, what am I focused on? What am I saying repeatedly to myself, right?
Is this a bad thing or is this a good thing? Right? When I'm teaching people about this, I always use that example of that girl, right? She lost her arm in California surfing from a shark attack and she got up and she learned how to ride a board again and she went out there and broke records and inspired the world, right? But how many people probably in their lives in Hawaii
have got attacked by a shark, lost their limb, and now the world is over, right? Because they put a different meaning to it, right? This meant that their life was over and they weren't going to be able to do what they dreamed about doing. And then the last thing that I go to is the language that I'm saying. Like, one of the words that I'm using, because I'm a firm believer that we have, that there's life and death in the power of the tongue, and that goes especially for myself. So what am I saying to myself?
And what am I saying out loud to other people? Right? So I always try and have this fine-tuned awareness of like what I'm saying to myself.
@realjeffsmith (14:46)
Thank
Adam (14:48)
know what that was a mouthful.
@realjeffsmith (14:49)
No, it was all good, man. All good. Yeah. Go ahead, Sean.
@shawn_rider_ (14:57)
Yeah, go ahead. So Adam, you talked about meditation there. What does your day to day look like? Take us through a normal day for you as you balance business building and family building and then just building a self-disciplined man.
Adam (15:15)
Yeah, so I mean, I first I'll say that by no means am I perfect that this there's always room for improvement. There's always, you know, the opportunity to grow. And I think that's important to keep that frame of mind. Like, how can I get better? But I wake up early, 4.30, 4.15, 4.30 every morning, pretty much.
And then I go into my morning with all of my supplements that I take. Right now I'm doing a juice fast every Monday through Wednesday. So I don't eat pretty much until midday. And then I'm eating a lot less than what I normally would. So morning is full of a bunch of juices. It's a quiet time for me. I usually plug my headphones in and start listening to... ⁓
For me, it's worship music in the morning. It gets my mind focused on God and grounds me with perspective that, you know, I like to think that this life isn't all about me. And if I jump off out of my bed and run out the door, then I'm focusing, I tend to focus on, okay, what do I need to do? And it turns into this me thing. But on a good day when I'm waking up and I'm getting my meditation on, I'm thinking about God,
reading through scriptures, I'm meditating on what the scriptures are saying. That keeps me grounded and focused ⁓ outwardly on others. And then it allows me to then kind of, I wouldn't say forget about everything that I'm going through, but it puts it on a back burner, right? And, you know, one of the things that I know that brings fulfillment and joy in my life.
is the service to others, contribution. All right? And it's not necessarily, I think when I used to hear that word contribution, I always thought of it like a financial thing, right? But it's so much more than that. It's like, how can I give to the service of others? And when I get into that mindset, and that usually happens in my morning while I'm reading through my scriptures or meditating on the word or listening to my worship music.
I kind of cycle through those things as I'm mentioning all of them. ⁓ However, I feel that they are not very structured. There has to be one thing or the other. But that's kind of how I start my morning out. And that gives me focus, man. So I go into the job. I got a couple clients that I deal with in the morning. And I can serve them. I can ask them all about them.
And I can not only deliver great workouts for them and help them move forward with their health and fitness, but also serve them in a different capacity, right? Like, you what their challenges and struggles are and helping them overcome those. ⁓ I guess if you get into my midday, I'm usually done at the gym at like 10 o'clock. And that's kind of when I wind down. ⁓ You know, I take a minute. I don't rush into the next thing. ⁓
So it helps me, I try not to like give myself anxiety, man, because with three boys, all under the age of six, you know, it's very easy to do that. So I take it slow in my transitions. So I give myself some space there. Yeah, and that's kind of like how my day flows. I get into my work after that, I start doing work stuff, but that's kind of, you know, what it is.
@realjeffsmith (18:46)
Thank
@shawn_rider_ (19:01)
Perfect. Adam, so you came into the Tactile Empire's Inner Circle a few months ago. So what were you looking for and what are you getting out of it here in the first few months of being in the group?
Adam (19:16)
Yeah, so I mean, I knew exactly what I was looking for. was looking for a community of men that are doing high level things that I could look at, I could model, that I could mirror. Because I know a lot of the guys in the tactical empire. know Jeff, know you, Sean, and I know what you guys are about. you know.
There was something that I put in one of my posts the other day. It's like what you model gets magnified or multiplies, right? And so that just gives me a way to look at things differently now. I say, okay, what are they modeling if I watch what they're doing? Is that something that I want to be a part of, right? Because whatever they're doing, everybody else behind them is probably doing the same thing, right? They're multiplying or magnifying whatever they-
So, ⁓ like I knew right away that this was something that I wanted to be a part of because again, like I said, have that insecurity, a little insecurity where it's like, I feel like I don't know what I need to do. And sometimes I need to see other people doing things to give me that, confidence and the boldness to step out and do something, you know, and do something courageous. And that could be...
The thing that I love about the tactical empire is that it's not only finance, right? That's a big component of it. And it's a big piece that I need help with. But it's wrapped around faith, mean, not faith, fitness, family, and freedom as well. And those things are right in alignment with my own personal values.
I want to be surrounded by people that are focused on their fitness. I don't want people dragging me in a different direction. I want to be around people that are focused on creating freedom so that they can be with their families and, you know, that have the same values that I'll do. And I see that in both of you guys. And so that's why I'm here.
@realjeffsmith (21:39)
love it.
@shawn_rider_ (21:40)
We appreciate you having, being here. So in, we're going to end on this one just so we can hold you accountable. You can hold yourself accountable and the audience can hold you accountable. What is the area that you're going to make the biggest improvement on in the next 90 days leading up to our meetup in Scotts, not Scottsdale, Little Rock, Arkansas.
@realjeffsmith (22:03)
Yeah.
Adam (22:06)
Yeah, man, I'm excited about that one. When you say the area, are you talking about one of the four areas in the tactical empire, family?
@shawn_rider_ (22:15)
It'll probably fall in one of those areas. We can connect it. But the biggest area in your life that you're gonna make the most progress in between now and literally.
Adam (22:17)
you
So I mean, it's right in, I would draw a line in between my business, which would be finances, and my family. Because right now, my finances are crap, right? My business ain't doing great. I just lost 120 grand. It is what it is. I got kicked in the balls. I learned a lot of lessons, but I'm also going through the family thing. My wife needs me. My kids need me.
You know, we had a big loss and I need to show up, right? And I need to show up every day and I need to show up for those two things. And that's my only focus right now, nothing else.
@realjeffsmith (23:04)
I love that. I love that man. ⁓ Sometimes these situations that are very hard to go through and you feel like the weight of the world's on you are really good galvanizers of your focus. like they sometimes turn into blessings in disguise because of the blinders that they put on you where there's like
no time for anything else, no time for your squirrel brain to be running around looking at other opportunities, no time for you to be doing other shit. Like you've got to hold down the family side of things with a new child coming into the household. You've got to really go back into the business and get down to the fundamentals and grow it. like the reality of it is we don't need more than one or two things to be working on at any point in time.
Because if you spread your focus, you get spread out results. And that's not what we're looking for. People don't understand the ability to focus. And so sometimes these tragedies bring our ability to focus into a tight shot group. And it can be very beneficial for your future. So I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do over the next two or three months and ⁓ get back on.
Adam (24:03)
Yeah.
@realjeffsmith (24:25)
good foundation with everything. And the trajectory, man, is just phenomenal for you. So I know that you've had some setbacks. We've talked for a while about different things. I'm looking forward to you ⁓ getting stabilized for a little while.
Adam (24:38)
Yeah.
Yeah, only one way to go from here, man. My back is against the wall, so I gotta go forward. One of the biggest things that I learned about myself through this whole thing is that I have this tendency to think that other stuff can do more than I can. And I think it's part of what kind of
@realjeffsmith (24:53)
precisely.
Adam (25:14)
blinded me to this poor investment is that I thought this was going to be my out for some like something it was going to it was going to be the thing that set me apart and you know through reflection and You know just prayer and meditating on everything that happened. It's like I realized that I'm the I'm the one Right. I'm the thing that needs to be invested in the most this and I do
But even though I invest in myself, there's a limiting factor of me implementing that that I know. And so now it's all about me, right? And I say that in a way that I'm taking action. I'm just trusting that the education, the books, the seminars, all the stuff that I've ever done is going to manifest itself as I continue to take action and move forward.
I'm not investing in anything until my businesses are freaking both rocking it and they're gonna be rocking it because of the things that I did and the effort that I put into it. And I'm gonna grow it organically like that.
@realjeffsmith (26:26)
Yeah. So many people make that mistake, man. We're always looking for the quick fix. We're always looking for the corner to cut. it's not something you should feel guilty about necessarily, but ultimately, think wisdom comes with this over time. And there's just absolutely no avoiding the fucking work. And ultimately, that's where you always get reset to. It's like, OK, here you are.
Here's your two businesses, go do the fucking work Adam. And like, you're like, well, I could do this other thing and it'll fast track me to another 10 grand a month, another 20 grand a month, another 30 grand a month. And like, ultimately it could look good for a minute, but in my experience, having done the same things multiple times, like you're always going to get brought back to the beginning. And ultimately the lesson is the same. It's delayed gratification. It's do the work.
It's you've got to, you've got to go the steady route, building a solid wide foundation, a mile wide. And like it, just takes that work. And so the quicker you can realize that the further ahead you'll get over time. And, and, this is not me projecting on you at all. I think we've all learned this lesson to some extent because we have all been successful enough in business.
that we have a little capital, we have the ability to go do something and we're like, this would be great if this could replace this, right? And then a lot of times it ends up biting you in the ass and you have to go backwards a little bit and get reset, not always to zero, just to a place that you have to learn a few lessons and that tuition, can be expensive. And that tuition for me, I can't deal with it costing me any more time. I'm too fucking old.
Adam (28:00)
Yeah.
Yeah.
@realjeffsmith (28:20)
And so like time is my biggest thing. like, I don't care how much money it costs. I'm not making those mistakes anymore because it cost me years of development, right? And years of progress.
Adam (28:32)
Yeah, yeah, that's good, For sure. Right on board with that.
@shawn_rider_ (28:40)
All right, Jeff, Adam, we appreciate you coming in and sharing your life's journey and currently what you're working on and where you're gonna be in the next few months. Jeff, if you want, send the people out. Well, let's ask Adam. Adam, where can people reach you first? And then we'll have Jeff send the people out.
Adam (28:57)
Yeah, so I have a website info at dnxfitnessnation.com. That is my gym address. There's a landing page there. Just put your information in. I also sent over a link that goes straight to my calendar. If anybody needs any help with their health, fitness, know, habit formation, things like that. That's what I love doing. I love doing mindset work.
So I've sent you guys my personal link and I've blocked out specific times. So if you want to throw that up there ⁓ when you post this, then they can reach out to me directly there.
@realjeffsmith (29:39)
Perfect. We'll have the team put all that in the production notes and the show notes. Awesome, man. That's really generous of you. Thank you. So guys, if you want to take him up on a consultation, he's there for you. Guys, you can find us on the Tactical Empire on all the platforms. You can go ahead and subscribe and like our YouTube channel. That would be greatly appreciated. We have tons of content out there for you guys to learn. As always, you can reach out to Sean and I directly. Instagram's probably the best place to get a hold of us and have a...
back and forth conversation, at least for me. ⁓ And guys, if you need anything, hit us up. We have the Tactical Empire community. It's a free community on Facebook. Feel free to hop in there, get some education, ask some questions. We monitor that and ⁓ are active in there as well. So have a great week, kick ass, and we will see you soon. Thank you, Sean and Adam, for your time. We appreciate you. And go be great, guys.