We’re looking forward to introducing you to John Miller. Check out our conversation below.
Good morning John, it’s such a great way to kick off the day – I think our readers will love hearing your stories, experiences and about how you think about life and work. Let’s jump right in? What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
I usually have to wake up at 3:00 am to pee. Then, I can usually get back to sleep until my alarm; but sometimes not. Depending on whether or not I have my kids with me depends on whether or not I have a little foot in my face, or whether or not I am pushed to the very edge of the bed with just a corner of the covers. If I teach the 5:30 am morning FIT classes at Elevate Fitness, my alarm goes off at 4:13 am with subsequent alarms set for 4:20, 4:30, 4:45, and a last ditch alarm at 5:00 am. If I am not teaching the morning class, my body still wakes up at 4:13 anyway; so there’s no getting around it. I drag myself to the shower bath where I sit down and scroll my phone for a bit and then stand up to wash myself with all-in-one shampoo/conditioner/bodywash (because I’m a guy). I also brush my teeth in the shower because I don’t like cleaning toothpaste out of the sink and it’s faster to combine the tasks. I usually am out of the shower by 5:00 am when the last alarm goes off, but I also have one more alarm at 5:10 in case I completely zone out. I don’t wear deodorant because I don’t want to block my main lymphatic detox pathway. I read somewhere on Instagram once that if you have good magnesium levels you won’t stink anyway. So, whether or not it’s true, I will go with that reasoning. I’m a sucker for a good Instagram informational carousel.
I go to the fridge where I get out the smoothie I made the day before (I blend a 3 day supply at once). The smoothie has a consistent base of beets, honey, and cucumber, pineapple, greens power, collagen, mushroom powder and whatever else I can find in my pantry/refrigerator. I then make my preworkout drink, a hard-boiled egg, an avocado, and a banana, along with my assortment of vitamins to take with me to the gym. If my kids are with me, they stay asleep the entire time I am teaching the two FIT classes where afterwards I make it back to wake them up and make them breakfast. By the time I get to the gym, I am pretty cracked out on preworkout and smoothie. If all the workout screens and technology in gym start ok, then I sit there and scroll, or pace around with workout pop music blaring until the clients start to arrive where I small-talk them until the class starts.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is John Miller and I am the Owner of The Skate Gym (TSG). I am an old skateboarder and have been skateboarding for 41 years now, since I was 8 years old. TSG started as an idea that came from me becoming sober, healthy, healed, and happy. Previously I dealt with functioning alcoholism where I went to my job as a Sales Manager and came home to do just enough in life to keep myself mostly out of trouble and get the bills paid. Once I became sober, I wanted more for myself. I found some things that I loved in my life: skateboarding, working out, and creatively building a community out of nothing. I believe 100% in communities to be able to build for themselves, speak for themselves, and take care of themselves. I believe in decentralization and supporting local people and brands. If you ever want to succeed, you need to tap in to your local people first. I never said I need to move to somewhere else to make my dream of having an indoor skateboarding shop and training facility work. A person from mainstream culture would think that in order to succeed, I would need to have my facility located in the heart of Austin, with “more open-minded people” and close to the skatepark downtown, with a laid out business plan and a decent savings built up. I rejected this thinking that I need to bend my life around my business and I can’t grow until I can secure finances. I fully adopted the idea that my business needs to adopt itself around my life and that I can start small and slowly build until I can pay my bills. My life is in Leander, TX. and I have been living month-to-month ever since I decided to go solo. No loan, no trust fund, no grant, nothing. Ground up with a deposit on the rent and a dream. I have had to hustle and grind to make my bills and lean into my community blindly, sharing my story and hope for the best. Every month I have made just enough to get to the next step. Little by little things are getting done and more established. Persistence and patience are paying off.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
I would say my parents saw the passion, the rebelliousness, and the fierce compassion for others that I have. I am a very intense person when it coming to people and ideas that I love. This passion has drawn many people to me, but it has also driven people away when I have not been able to handle it well. My parents knew I could do great things if I was given a safe place and some guardrails Growing up, they provided these guardrails through a home, a job, and a fallback as long as they were able to afford to be able to do so. They actually supported me longer than they should have, but that is a story of trauma, enablement, and avoidance of responsibility for another interview. Regarding The Skate Gym, I would not say that one single person saw me before I could see myself, but I would say that the community has been seeing me before I saw myself. It is always difficult leading up to the time you say you will commit to something that others may criticize as selfish, extreme, crazy. I think my biggest fear was being labeled as a kook, cringey, some kind of wingnut, or even worse, someone to feel sorry for. However, I have been told that in order to be someone, you have to pretend to be that person first. So I put this into action. I told others that I am a skateshop/gym owner and that I am a fitness professional. Nobody else needed to know all the details. I told myself that I am a good enough skater to teach others, that I am truly a successful business owner, and that I am fit enough to be a fitness professional. I said this with confidence to anyone who would listen and consequently, that became how I was perceived by others. In a sort of symbiosis, by people now referring to me as what I portrayed, then I was driven even further to dive deeper into the next stages of business ownership, skateboarding skills, and fitness knowledge and certifications. This symbiosis has created a solid foundation for me and has now helped me to fully change identities into a new life and career. Now, I am truly becoming what others have perceived me to be regardless of all the internal excuses I make to myself as to why I am not good enough.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
There have been lots of times I have almost given up on my business. Even to this day I am still wondering month to month if I will be able to stay in business. The most difficult time, however, was during the permit process. What I thought would take no more than 6 months turned into a 22 month ordeal. By the time I had put down the money for 1st month, last month, and deposit on the facility and got the permit process started, I was locked in. I had quit my corporate job and was now independent hustling doing video editing and podcast production work. That income was not enough to pay my bills. I had the idea of teaching lessons, but I did not think I would be working at a real fitness gym until Elevate Fitness saw me struggling and I finally vocalized to them that I needed the extra income. I was in process of earning my Certified Personal Trainer certificate so I could provide some extra (self perceived) qualification for coaching skateboarding, so it was only natural that I should be able to teach classes at Elevate. During this time I was drowning in credit cards, my normal household bills, and I didn’t have insurance (still don’t), and I had kids and a wife to take care of. All I had was my pep talks, my presence, and my dreams. Somehow, we still managed to get food on our table even though all our bills were way behind. Something had to give. To several people my dream was becoming considered pretty selfish and life had become very unstable and felt unsafe. To those who could see underneath the presentation I made, the whole project was becoming very cringey and awkward. But the permit was slowly making progress. Every time I almost threw in the towel, the next step of the permit process was completed and support from the community came in, in the form of donations, and encouragement. My marriage, however, did not make it through the process. My business had gotten to point of no return. I did not want to admit mistakes, and my partner felt very unsafe. If I had thought giving up would save my marriage, I would have given up,. but it was too far gone. The only way at that point was forward and through.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
I would like to say for the most part, the public version of me is the real me. Of course I have fears, doubts, negativity, and dirty thoughts like anyone else. But I have to ask myself are all those dark things the real me? Or are they my false self trying to gain influence over the best version of me. As I said above, how we portray ourselves is what we will become. I am becoming a person who loves and serves his community, who is a mentor, a teacher, a funny and fun person to be around, and a person who is healthy, with good style (I think, lol).
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I think lore and legacy are very important. It is way more important than financial stability or financial legacy. It is not about being egotistical. It is about having a large positive impact on as many people as possible. All of our most sacred texts and influential people that have helped people for generations to come have come from lore being told about how a person chose to live their life and the impact they made on others. I think that is the only way you can carry on living in this world; it is through the memories of others. I want to be someone who encouraged others to find their best in themselves, I also want to be someone who forged their own path in spite of the bureaucratic machine (Moloch) and who stood against being censored or told that they can’t achieve something. I think people on an individual level can mostly be good people, but people get sucked into Moloch. When I say Moloch I am not referring to a Hebrew Biblical deity, but I am referring to a systemic force that emerges from the inherent dynamics of competition and coordination failure within institutions, including bureaucracy. It is a metaphor for the self-reinforcing, often destructive, logic that governs centralized systems where individual actors are compelled to act against their own values to survive or succeed within a designed only for it’s own efficiency. I want to be remembered as someone who always stood up against this Moloch and did not serve a soulless machine of efficiency, I want to remembered as passionate, colorful, creative, and empowering of other despite of how illogical and inefficient it may seem.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://theskategym.com/
- Instagram: @theskategym
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johngarrettmiller/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092577272132
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSkateGym
