Hullo. Please enjoy this picture of me riding a dragon through the sky.
You can find out ALL about me at my personal website HERE. But in case you don’t like to click stuff…
I’m Mark Fisher. Hi!
I’m the co-owner of Mark Fisher Fitness, a boutique fitness studio in midtown Manhattan. MFF is a home for misfit toys who don’t like “gyms”; we call our clients Ninjas, our mascot is the unicorn, and we call our facility the Enchanted Ninja Clubhouse of Glory and Dreams. We have disco balls, we have resident drag queens, and we have glitter guns. For a taste, watch this video here.
Although we are fucking looooooney tunes, we are VERY serious about fitness. Our tag line is “ridiculous humans, serious fitness.”
It would also be fair to say we could have the alternative tag line, “ridiculous humans, serious business.”
In less than three years, we’ve gone from just me to a team of over 20 full time team members and around 40 part timers, consultants, and work study students. We opened our first space in January 2012, expanded to an upstairs office in August 2012, expanded to another space in January 2013, and in April 2014 expanded for a fourth time. We went from zero Ninjas to as much capacity as we could handle for most of our existence (currently at around 800 as of this writing in April 2014). We’ve been written up in the NY Times, the Wall St. Journal, Forbes, Huffington Post, the NY Post, and a shit ton of others. We are obsessed with combining progressive training and nutrition strategies with insanely high touch service, and this formula has worked for us.
Outside of running MFF, I’ve started writing and presenting on our unconventional business strategies. In 2013, I had the number one article on theptdc.com all about our gym culture. Additionally, greatist.com chose me as their 80th most influential fitness professional for building gym culture “people actually love.” That made me feel all fucking fuzzy.
Lastly, my business partner Michael Keeler and I gave this talk at TEDx Broadway about creating a business based on the values we learned doing community theater.
MFF is actively involved with fundraising for a number of organizations, including Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights Aids, and we’ve raised over $100,000 to date for a number of causes. I’m super fucking proud of this.
Outside of MFF, I’m a passionate musical theater enthusiast, contemporary art lover, and I’ve had the pleasure to serve on the advisory board for NY City Center’s Off-Center. I’m also a supporter of and advocate for the Actor’s Fund. I try to read two to three books per week, and my main areas of interest are business, fitness, cognition, psychology, and personal development.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never had an original idea (though I do seem to put shit together in weird ways). Major heroes and influences include Tony Hseih, Tom Peters, Warren Bennis, Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Simon Sinek, Marcus Buckingham, Peter Drucker, Seth Godin, Richard Branson, Herb Kelleher, Daniel Pink, Jim Sinegal, John Maxwell, the Heath brothers, and a fuck ton of other people. I’m obsessed with continuing education, and I try to read 2-3 books a week and attend at least one seminar, conference, or course a month. I’ll try to give credit where it’s due, but you can usually assume my best shit is always a riff on something I read somewhere.
Lastly, the people that work with me at Mark Fisher Fitness are the best humans who have ever lived. I started this blog because I’m obsessed with being deserving of them. This is not preening; they are the motherfucking best.
If you feel so inclined, leave comments here or on posts and help me figure this shit out.