Amer Kamra - What It Really Takes To Become A Top-Level Fitness Entrepreneur

Have you always wondered how a true-blooded millionaire entrepreneur operates?

Then look no further than the man who was voted the No. 1 Online Transformation Coach and Personal trainer of the year by World Physique Magazine…Amer Kamra a Pro Fitness Model and entrepreneur born and raised in Toronto Canada…

From his early days, Amer always had a knack for bringing ideas into reality.

And this became one of his greatest motivators for becoming an entrepreneur.

“Being a fitness competitor was just so mundane and linear for me. No challenge. No real creativity. A lot of what makes me successful is taking what I see in my head and bringing it to life”.

Whether it’s for clothing lines, gyms that he built, or creating different departments for online businesses.

It’s the ability to express himself as an entrepreneur that fuels his fire.

Aside from his ability to express his ideas…

The fulfilment that he gets is also one of his greatest rewards.

It was less about helping people lose weight or win competitions.

While those were rewarding pursuits for him…

It was never as rewarding as “creating opportunities and jobs for people”.

Amer’s poor upbringing is the reason why teaching people how to provide better for their families is one of his most important values.

“We have 25 employees directly within our company doing exceptionally well…I have employees who were dishwashers. My sister was working as a bartender, now she’s making half a million dollars a year in sales”

By the end of this article, you’ll have gotten a masterclass into the mind of a true top-level fitness entrepreneur.

As well as the best social media platform to build your business (HINT: it doesn’t matter)…

The most powerful word in the entrepreneurial dictionary that allows you to rapidly scale your business…

How Amer eliminates addictions…

How Fitness and Spirituality can transform your business…

And many more golden nuggets.

How To Be Happy As An Entrepreneur (Even Through The ‘Dark Times’)

Any entrepreneur will remember what the start of their journey looked like.

The excitement and pride that came with bringing an idea into reality.

The energy bursts that you get from morning to night because you have a vision of life and a global impact that just takes your breath away.

But being an entrepreneur is no small feat.

Especially in the beginning when there is no sign of success anywhere on the horizon.

You don’t see a direct return (for many those returns come 5-10 years later).

There are moments of discouragement in the path of every successful entrepreneur.

But the difference between the ones that succeed and the ones who go back to the day job that they hate…

Is whether or not, they choose to embrace the process and keep going…

Or they choose to throw in the towel.

And this comes from how you MEASURE your growth as an entrepreneur.

Amer says that when he “stopped looking at ROI”, he started to feel better about everything he did.

“I was always measuring it with achievement, success or money. If I didn’t get those things, I thought it was a waste of time or failure. I instead decided to look at WHO I was BECOMING and what I was LEARNING even from the wrong routes I was taking. That alone allowed me to enjoy the journey more”.

What really helped Amer to enjoy the process was seeing every day like a new “puzzle you gotta solve”.

Because in order to be truly happy as an entrepreneur…

You can’t just focus on external achievement and rewards.

You gotta be invested in the inner growth that you get from the highs and lows.

“You become a lot more grounded and stable when you’re invested in the lows as well”

With that said, here are 4 steps to get through these lows.

4 Steps To Get Through the Lows As An Entrepreneur

“Your Outer World is a Reflection of Your Inner Self”

What if you could BRAINWASH yourself into thinking positive (no matter how low your business is)?

Because as Amer explains, “Be in the right frame of mind because however, you see the world is what you will gravitate towards”.

You have a choice on what to focus on every day.

You can either focus on the bad (how many people scammed you, how many times you failed).

Or you can focus on the good (the growth that you’ve experienced, what you’ve achieved today).

Whichever one you choose will determine not only how you feel, but what you see throughout the day.

“It’s like the law of the universe. When I’m in a good headspace, I see opportunity. It’s really hard to see that if your mind is wired towards negativity or seeing the worst in things…Brainwash yourself to become so naive and ignorant to the reality of the world. Brainwash yourself to what you want to see and be in life and you have to keep reframing your mind to see that”.

Have a vision for your life

When you woke up this morning, did you know EXACTLY what you wanted to work towards?

Or were you just getting up with no sense of direction?

Because without a strong vision…

Not only do you not have a strong sense of direction…

But there’s also no sense of accountability.

“There’s no point of reference to keep you in line”.

But a strong vision will keep you in line.

“Every time you get distracted or deviate from the line, you always know to go back to the line that guides you to your goal”.

For instance, Amer does not focus on money.

Instead, his vision is on creating “pockets within markets that don’t necessarily exist”.

In other words, his vision is to create unique businesses.

And he makes sure to hire the right team members to help bring his ideas and vision into reality.

You’re only as strong as…

The people you have around you.

Because whoever you hang around with will influence your energy and what your mind absorbs.

If you choose the wrong people…

“Your brain could be on, but you’re still not strong enough to deflect the bad”

But choosing the right people will lift up your energy even if your brain is off.

Even if you’re experiencing a tidal wave of challenges.

When you’re feeling low, the right people can lift you up back on your feet again.

And when you’re with the right people, it’ll be much easier for you to see the positives that come with the lows of an entrepreneur.

The ‘Reality-Shift Technique’ For Shifting Your Identity

When Amer was at his darkest times…

He would look at other people that were achieving what he wanted to achieve…

And he pretended he was them.

“I had to look at the success they had and visualize as if that was me winning. To allow me to experience the thoughts of being a winner again so I can start creating that reality in my life. I was in such a sling state and I was attracting more losing in my life”

This goes back to the “brainwashing yourself” towards success.

Not only did Amer brainwash himself from his inner mind…

But he would do it with the outside world too.

“Maybe I go buy a car that I can’t afford and as stupid as that sounds, it forces me to work harder. I’m sitting on a Mercedes now. So I gotta do on a daily basis what a Mercedes guy does, not what a Honda guy does. How would a Mercedes guy treat his time or his life?”

This reality-shift that he does forces his brain to come to terms with the fact that his success will become a reality.

“It forces you to become the person you want to become”.

As Amer was explaining this…

I started to see the patterns with the superstar fitness entrepreneurs that I’ve interviewed.

IT ALWAYS COMES DOWN TO YOUR INTERNAL SELF-IMAGE.

As much as we want to say spirituality doesn’t affect business, the truth is…IT DOES!

Tony Robbins even says, “Business is a spiritual game”.

“You fail if you are the best at everything”: The Map To Rapidly Scaling Your Fitness Empire

Amer has one golden piece of advice for his younger self: Be committed to one thing.

In the past, he had spread himself too thin.

There’s this lie that an entrepreneur is supposed to be good at everything.

In reality, as Amer said, “I’m not good at a lot of things”.

What he is good at is orchestrating the right people to do the right things.

“I believe as an entrepreneur, you fail if you are the best at everything in your company”.

As entrepreneurs, we have this ego where we think that no one can do our jobs better than us.

But if you can fire anyone in your company, then “your business is a failing business”.

What Amer recommends is being good enough at all areas of your business…

That you can find the right members for your dream team to TAKEOVER those areas for you.

That’s the only way you can rapidly scale your fitness empire.

And that will only come when you decide to let go of your ego.

Otherwise like Amer in the past, you will be the biggest bottleneck in your business.

“Our ego drives us but it hurts us as well. We’re great at starting businesses. But you need to create infrastructure because you can’t scale chaos”.

One last thing that moved the needle for him was to “stop looking for people like me in the business and realize the importance of finding OPPOSITES!”

You might think that you need to find another entrepreneur to be on your team.

But what you need most are people who you would honestly say would “suck at being an entrepreneur”.

People who are good at one thing like email marketing, graphic design, people who want those roles and responsibilities.

You need people with more of an employee mindset and there’s nothing wrong with that.

These are the people who you could trust will deliver for you.

And here’s how you know when you have a real DREAM TEAM!

By nature, Amer liked to work alone.

His team allows him to do just that.

He realized that he wasn’t needed as much as he thought he was.

At first, it was an ego blow…

But it was the best thing for him since his business could run without him.

This is why it’s important not to be too emotional with your business.

“We have brands where people don’t even know who I am. I’d speak to clients and they’d be like, “uh, who are you?” And I’d tell them I’m the fucking guy who owns this thing”.

But it’s really cool because it’s like having a legacy.

You leave it behind and it impacts other people’s lives better than you did, for you on behalf of you.

So you need to nurture your kid and give them the tools and skills to be even better than you.

The Most Powerful Word In The Entrepreneurial Dictionary

What is the most powerful word in the entrepreneurial dictionary?

Is it money, empire, legacy?

You might think it’s either one of those because you hear it all the time.

But to Amer, the most powerful word that has been PIVOTAL to his success as a fitness entrepreneur…is the word “NO”.

Why is that?

Well, as you become more and more successful in life…

More and more opportunities come to you.

Business deals, investment opportunities, you name it.

And it’s all too common for entrepreneurs to say YES to every opportunity they see.

But that only takes away their energy from the most important things that have made them successful.

“It’s like a casino, there are lights everywhere. But you need to make the main thing, the main thing so you can continue to be successful”.

Picture someone who is married but instead of giving enough attention to their spouse…

They split their attention to 30 different things.

What’s worse is that the less you focus you give, the less you appreciate and value them.

And as a result, the relationship starts to die off.

This is true in business.

“Whatever you give your energy to on a daily basis grows. Most people get off on the 5th floor of the elevator. I don’t want to get off there. I want to keep going higher and stay focused on the one thing that got me to the 5th floor”.

And the only way that happens is by saying NO much more than you say YES.

It can be hard to do that.

But if you’re putting 40% energy into one thing and then 60% energy into another thing…

You’re never putting in 100% at ANYTHING!

Focus on your mission and stay true to where you are going.

The Number One Social Media Platform To Build a Business (Hint: It Doesn’t Matter)

“I don’t think there is a number one platform. I think wherever you spend your time and energy, you’ll get clients”.

That’s true with anything, even door to door sales.

The problem again is that entrepreneurs spread themselves too thin on too many platforms than they can handle.

As a result, they never fully give 100% to any of the platforms.

They don’t nurture an audience enough.

And if an audience is nurtured, they naturally want to follow you on all your platforms anyway.

So focus on nurturing your audience on that one platform.

“The majority of the employees that we have that do exceptionally well only really do it on Facebook or Instagram”.

When Amer started doing this in 2011, all of his clients were from Twitter.

So it didn’t really matter where he went.

Now that he gives more attention to Instagram, he gives less attention to Facebook.

People focus on finding the best place, the best hack, the best strategy.

But it really doesn’t matter.

“We built our gym in the middle of nowhere and people come”.

Amer talks about these five guys who built a business model off of alleyways filled with dumpsters.

They wanted to show that “when your product is so good, it doesn’t matter. People will travel for it”.

“Someone will make a Twitter account to follow my stuff if they are really invested in my content”.

Best Types of Content To Post On Social Media (The ‘Anti-Industry’ Strategy)

To this day, Amer barely posts anything about fitness.

Everyone else is doing the redundant, cliche, obvious things like posting content only about fitness.

Or posting content only about business.

Amer talks about the importance of being authentic.

“People aren’t really looking for abs if it’s fitness. People aren’t really looking for money if it’s business. They’re looking for something deeper than that. I want to work with someone in business not because they make a lot of money but because they demonstrate a lifestyle that I want to live”

You may have abs but what did it cost you to get those abs?

You may have a lot of money but if you’re just working all day and you hate your life, then that’s not very appealing.

People don’t follow you for you.

They do it to gain something for themselves.

Maybe you give them tips, or you add positivity to your life.

It doesn’t matter whether you have all these fancy cars, watches, etc.

It’s all about how you make their life better in exchange for them following you, liking you, sharing your content.

Everything is just a value exchange.

People pay you in money or social media attention because you give value to them.

How Fitness Levels Up Your Business

Do you have a structure in your day?

Or are you all over the place?

Many entrepreneurs lack structure in their day.

And this is where Fitness levels you and your business up.

As entrepreneurs, we set our own schedules.

But it’s easy to fall into laziness and have an unorganized day.

Fitness is all about structure since that’s how you grow.

You stick to your workouts and diet consistently.

And because success in life is based on how much pain tolerance you can handle…

You learn to push your own personal threshold (eg. Lifting more weight).

Aside from that, Amer believes that one area of your life will affect all other areas of your life.

There was a time where he was dieting hard.

But that had a negative effect on his business and his relationships.

So instead, he structured his day in a way that grows his fitness and relationships…

Which then amplifies his entrepreneurial life.

Amer ensures that he does his workouts FIRST THING in the morning.

There are no interruptions.

He doesn’t even eat a meal. He just gets up and goes to the gym right away.

Otherwise, there’s a high probability he won’t get it done.

“As soon as you check your phone and emails, there’s emotions running”

And besides the structure that Fitness gives you…

Amer also uses Fitness to train himself to delay gratification.

Tapping Into Your Full Potential: How To Eliminate Addictions

Amer enjoys the taste of coffee.

But anytime he notices the cravings, the pull to drink more and more…

He immediately cuts it out.

A lot of entrepreneurs don’t operate in moderation.

And anything that you do in excess is probably not good for you.

“A lot of addictions we don’t even realize we’re addicted. If we realized we’re addicted, we’d probably be able to solve it”.

This is delayed gratification at its finest.

And Amer has an interesting diet with this same mentality.

For instance, he integrates fasting into his life.

“When I don’t eat a lot, I’m a lot more alert. When you give a man constant sex or good food, he becomes lazy. Whenever I have food at my disposal, I get lazy”.

As humans, we’re not supposed to have fridges.

You can go down to the fridge anytime and grab something.

But back in the early days, we humans had to go hunt and kill if we wanted food.

There was a lot more delayed gratification.

It’s no wonder that humans back then were far superior in mind, body and soul compared to the average human being today.

Today’s top entrepreneurs are the equivalent of the hunter-gatherers back then.

This is why Amer has a better state of mind when he’s not constantly eating.

He delays his first meal for as long as he can.

“The other day I didn’t eat a single thing until 11 pm. And I didn’t even realize it”.

Amer’s poor upbringing made him realize just how powerful it was to have delayed gratification.

He didn’t have the luxury to eat whenever he wanted to eat.

He couldn’t just go to the groceries and binge eat.

As a top-performing fitness entrepreneur, he strives to use this as his motivation.

He “enjoys that feeling of hunger” because the feeling of actually earning something drives him.

“After you’re done for the day, you feel like you just hunted and killed”.

It’s moments like this that make me give me such respect for entrepreneurs like him.

The level of character you need to have to pull that off is no small feat.

And I could see how his values and beliefs for not conforming to the status quo were a huge factor to his success.

So I wanted to dig deeper and ask him about how he formed these beliefs.

The Law of Non-Conformity: How The School System Sets You Up To Fail in Life

To the average person, their early school years were usually filled with…

Big groups of friends, proms, graduations, relationships, house parties, you name it.

But to Amer, this was not his reality.

“I didn’t really have a lot of friends growing up. But I was okay with it. It wasn’t me”.

This statement became even more of a truism when years later…

He went against who he was and hung out with friends who weren’t true to his values.

Time and time again, he realized that “the most success that I’m ever going to get is being true to who I am”.

Unfortunately, this is not what the school was designed to help you do.

The systems around us, the school system, the political institutions, etc…

Are designed to make you conform.

They’re designed to turn you into what you’re not.

“Growing up, I was always considered a failure in school. But now they think I’m the successful guy”.

If Amer had conformed to what the school wanted, he wouldn’t have been “1/10th” of what he is today.

Conforming would be like trying to put a square into a round peg.

And this is why for many years, Amer felt like a failure.

He saw all these people go off to university to get degrees…

And thought that everyone was going to make money and he was going to be a failure.

But in his mid-20s, he realized that all he needed to do was be the best he could be.

The way to thrive is to be in the right environment for your unique self.

As Albert Einstein once said…

“Everyone is a genius but if you judge a fish’s ability to climb a tree, the fish will grow up thinking it’s stupid”.

The fish thrives underwater but if you take it out of the water, it becomes useless.

It’s only when Amer put himself in the right environment that he truly excelled.

The best race car drivers don’t need lines on the ground.

They’re so good at what they do that they can draw their own lines in their head.

But of course, we need lines on the road for our society so we can teach people to drive.

Otherwise, the majority of people will screw up.

Entrepreneurs are like race car drivers.

We are not the majority. We are the outliers.

We are the ones who are drawing the lines in our heads.

As I interviewed Amer, I couldn’t help but resonate so much with this.

I myself was diagnosed with ADHD.

To a lot of people, that is considered a bad thing.

But despite that, I own a 6 figure fitness marketing company called One More Rep Agency.

The problem is that society likes to diagnose and put labels on you.

“You’re this. You’re that. It’s all bullshit. Everyone is somewhere along the spectrum anyway. There’s no black or white. We’re all on the spectrum of depression. You might just be at level zero. And someone else might just be on level eighty. But at some point, someone draws a line and says, “Okay, now you have ADHD. Now you are depressed. Now you are autistic. Then we start treating people like that. Or even worse, we start believing that we’re this or that and that it’s a bad thing”.

Amer has a niece that is “autistic” but she’s smarter than most adults.

At first, he thought her niece was going to have a shitty life and he cried about it.

“But it’s only when you let them be who they need to be that they will have a beautiful life”.

Amer loves fighting but he doesn’t need to fight someone.

He gets to channel that aggressive side of himself into his business.

So once again, you thrive in life, business and all areas of your life when you operate as your unique self.

How Spirituality Levels Up Your Business

Amer believes spirituality and business go hand in hand.

Spirituality gives you that peace of mind that allows you to operate at peak performance while being happy.

But here’s the thing.

Spirituality is not a short-term game.

It’s a long-term game where your daily actions must be aligned with your true values and just being a good person.

“There’s so much opportunity to make a lot of money in the short term at the expense of your character, screwing other people over, or doing things that are not true to your values or beliefs”.

So you’ll need to learn to sacrifice a little bit today for greater rewards tomorrow.

The more you are aligned with your values…

The better you can sleep at night and the more the universe just wants to repay you in different ways.

But if you’re not living out your values…

You won’t have fulfilling interactions with people.

You go to a grocery store in a grumpy mess and someone can make you mad easily.

And you won’t do things that are honest or transparent.

Which means you won’t last a very long time.

“When I look around, there’s not a lot of people who have been around for a decade in this space”.

So Amer has always tried to be as honest and transparent as possible even if people didn’t like him.

“I used to be in constant conflict with myself. Am I a bad person or good person? Did I say the wrong thing? Was I being mean? But then I realized it was all about being honest, truthful and transparent with other people as much as possible. When you are, you never have to question yourself. You never have an internal conflict with yourself. You’re at peace. Ultimately as an entrepreneur, your life is in chaos and I want to have peace when I go home at night”

Using Pain & Failure AS Your Fuel

We’ve talked a lot about focusing on being WHO WE ARE…

Not how society or our school system wants us to be.

This is the one main thing that we have control over in our journey.

We can choose to be a better person every day and…

“Everything else will take care of itself”.

Amer believes that you don’t need a set plan to get somewhere.

The only things that matter is your vision and becoming a better version of your unique self every day.

That way, we can get used to plans not going our way.

If something doesn’t work, we can use a different strategy.

But the problem for a lot of people is that when they fail at something, they start to spiral down.

They give so much emotional weight to failure.

But failure means nothing.

In the English dictionary, there are a lot of words that have similar meanings.

The word ‘failure’ is a word that someone made up.

So there’s no reason to be so tied to that word.

Even if it takes years or months later, Amer had always gotten what he wanted because he just focused on it.

He used pain and failure as fuel to know what worked and what didn’t work.

“Life is limitless. But it starts with how you see the world. How you see yourself. When you change the way you see yourself, you can essentially achieve anything you want to achieve, be anyone you want to be”.