Hitting Rock Bottom
In 2011, I was living in my father’s basement, freshly divorced and half a million euros in debt. Some of my relatives came to visit, here to support me during a difficult time, gathering around me the way my family always does. So they were probably surprised when I told them, “Guys, I’m broke. And I feel so good.”
It was never what I would have expected, because so much of my life had been built expecting and creating success. As a kid growing up in Madrid, I was obsessed with soccer; my neighborhood called me El Niño de la Pelota, the Ball Boy. I played in the Real Madrid lower categories — in another life, maybe I would have gone professional! But instead, I became an engineer, joined a good consulting firm, did an MBA, and eventually began to found my own companies.
These companies had their ups and downs, but in 2004, I got into the fitness industry and started breaking even. Then we started making money. Then we started selling franchises. We sold 25 locations in two years and we grew very fast. I built other businesses on the side. But, in 2008, the financial crisis hit — and I lost everything.
It happened in waves. The financial crisis was followed by the European debt crisis, which massively affected Spain. Taxes for the fitness industry went up from 7% to 21% and I lost 14% of my margins in one week. I tried to raise membership prices, but when 20% of my customers left, I had to restore the old prices. There was a fire in one of my gyms and I had to fight with the insurance company, which didn’t want to pay, so I was financing repairs myself in the meantime. The banks closed all the lending lines. And suddenly I was broke.
I found myself half a million in debt. I had to fire almost everybody. I had to dismantle everything I’d built. And then I got divorced and went to live with my father. My friends were making €200,000 per year and I was in the middle of the shit.
A few really crucial things kept me going during that time. One was my daughter, who was then four years old. I shared custody with my ex-wife, so I had to leave the house to look after her. Another was that my family were very close; we have such strong roots, and I knew they would look after me, I wasn’t going to die from this. I played a lot of sports — football, golf, running, so I kept my body moving.
But actually, the thing that helped me the most was simply lying down. I’ve been practicing the Silva Method since I was a teenager. I use it every day: it’s about visualization, and it helps you see situations from different perspectives. Every morning, before the chaos of the day began, I would guide myself into a deep state of relaxation. I imagined stepping into an elevator, descending floor by floor, letting tension slip away with each number.
When I reached that stillness, I would walk into what I called my “mental laboratory,” a space I had built in my mind. There was a large screen where I could project my problems: a tax bill I couldn’t pay, a construction issue delaying a gym opening, or an unpaid loan. In that space, I found clarity. I tried different solutions, visualized each outcome, found ideas I hadn’t considered before. It was there, in that mental sanctuary, that I found my calm — and often, my next steps.
One of the amazing things I realized over that time is that a lot of suffering – maybe 90% of it — comes from our minds. The fear we have of suffering is often worse than the suffering itself. When I was going through this period, the reason I told my family that I felt great was because I felt free. I didn’t have anything to lose. All the bad things, all the questions about my reputation — I didn’t care! I was with the people that mattered and I felt good.
It helped me see myself more clearly. I discovered a lot about who I am. When I had that internal coherence, and I started making decisions that followed those values, nice things also started to happen. Good things started to show up in my path. I felt more energy, I felt more closely connected with my family and my friends. And new things started to happen, new ideas began to develop.
I reconnected with a childhood friend I’d last seen when we were thirteen years old, who was now a lawyer helping me with my company. And that’s Cristina, who became my wife.
I think when I met Cristina, it made me feel like I deserved to be loved. She really loved me, and that gave me a lot of energy. I felt connected and accepted for being what I was: an entrepreneur doing crazy things. She said, “I know you are going to be, let’s say, eating the world. I want to be right next to you to help.”
In January 2014, I’d worked my way out of debt, but I only had €30,000 in my business’s bank account. Despite that, I had this new idea. Pivoting to a fitboxing concept that no one really understood seemed so risky, but Cristina encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone and follow my intuition.
I still didn’t have the money for construction, so a Romanian guy and I did all the civil works and the construction together. I used all my savings. And because I had this network of support, from my family and my wife and my meditation practice and also from my newfound trust in myself, I felt able to push through difficult times. And that was the first Brooklyn Fitboxing location.
Now, we have nearly 250 locations open in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Argentina, Mexico, and Portugal. Things are good. But that survival moment taught me so much — not just about making money from very difficult businesses, like Brooklyn Fitboxing, but about myself.
I’m 49 now; when I’m 79, will anyone remember anything about my company? Will my company exist? What I’ll remember is my family, my wife, and my friends. And their example has led me to ask better questions, like: did I change people’s lives? What is my impact?
Companies are here to help people grow. If your company is a unicorn but your people are burning out, what’s the sense in that? If you’re succeeding in business but afraid of failure every day, is it worth it? Sometimes it’s worth asking yourself: what am I afraid of losing? And is that fear bigger than the loss itself? There’s freedom to be found there.
Sincerely,
Juan Pablo
