We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Craig Lewin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Craig below.

Craig, appreciate you joining us today. Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?

I was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia which is now Zimbabwe, in 1977. The best thing my parents could have ever done for me and my little brother was move us to the United States in 1984. They knew there would be no future for us in Southern Africa, and left everything behind to allow us to live the American dream. Family is everything to me, as I have always had an incredibly close relationship with my parents. This has translated into having an incredible immediate family of my own with my beautiful wife Misty Lewin along with my 4 boys, Preston (18), Cohen (14), Dylan & Dawson (11). They are my world!!!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I started in this specialty fitness business as a cashier at the age of 15 in 1993 in Richardson, TX. It wasn’t long before I started selling on the show room floor falling in love with helping clients find that perfect piece of exercise equipment for their
homes. Little did I know I would still be in the business 30 years later. I continued to work at the same store (Wheels and Fitness in Motion) through high school, and then continued to work at a Fitness In Motion store while attending the University of Texas
at Austin. After receiving my Biology degree in 2000 and moving to Dallas, I decided to put it to work. I continued to bring my education and my salesmanship together and helping as many people as I could through our fitness world. During this time, the business grew into 17 stores combining the stores called Busybody, Fitness in Motion, and Fitness HQ. I ran several stores and GM’d the business until 2010 when I had an opportunity to become an owner in the business that I had gown up in. I was an owner and President of this company up until 2021, when we sold the business to a Private Equity Holding company called Coltala Holdings. This provided me an opportunity to now be the President of 23 stores, a robust commercial division, as well as an incredible e-commerce site called MyFitnessStore.com where we sell the best exercise equipment in the world!!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I was someone who suffered from panic attacks from the age of 21. Nobody knew that this was something I dealt with for 15 years until I was 33, as I was always outgoing and would push through no matter what but was miserable, mentally dreading that next anxiety attack. The scary thing about panic attacks is that they happen out of the blue and its scary. Your heart races, adrenaline pumps and you struggle to catch your breath. The one thing that allowed me to overcome this was exercise. I had always wanted to work out hard, but I was afraid to elevate my heart rate which would set off that feeling again. However once I pushed through my workouts, the anxiety started to diminish more and more every day. After a few months of working out, the anxiety stopped and I felt
more alive than ever before. I had always loved helping clients with their goals and health but having overcome this took it to another level. Helping as many people as possible with their mental health and exercise is the solution!!!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

The retail stores were always the main part of our business growing up, but we knew we had to pivot and add additional revenue sources. We added a commercial division which sold to multi family, training studios, corporate facilities, and Fire/Police stations.
We also added a service division so that we could give clients the best service as well as generate the recurring revenue.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.myfitnessstore.com
• Instagram: fitathome_mfs
• Facebook: MyFitnessStore.com
• Linkedin: @myfitnessstore.com