Thank you for tuning in to The Community Conversation, brought to you by Prototype Training Systems, home of CrossFit Prototype. The Community Conversation highlights a different member of the Prototype Community each week and allows them to tell their story, share their life experience, and communicate their perspective on all things fitness.
We’ve all listened to podcasts and watched YouTube videos that highlight some of the world’s greatest leaders and visionaries. We believe we have some AMAZING people at Prototype and we want you to get to know them!
For today’s episode, Colin Lake joins me. Colin has been a member at Prototype for almost 6 years, he’s an avid triathlete, endurance junkie, entrepreneur, family man, and overall one of the best people I know! Colin is the founder of Developing The Next Leaders and lives a life of philanthropy.
To watch the full episode, use the YouTube link below! If you’re a reader, we have the full conversation transcribed below!
Thank you and enjoy!
Mike Collette 0:03
All right, everyone. Thank you for tuning in to the community conversation brought to you by prototype Training Systems. All across a prototype. The community conversation highlights a different member of the prototype community each week and allows them to tell their story, share their life experiences, and communicate their perspective on all things. Fitness. We’ve all listened to podcasts and watch YouTube videos that highlight some of the world’s greatest leaders and visionaries. And these people also walk amongst us. We believe we have some amazing people a prototype, and we want to let you get to know them. So to that end, I want to introduce you to our first guest, con Lake Collins been a part of prototype community for almost six years, avid triathlete, endurance enthusiasts, entrepreneur, family, man, and just overall one of the best people that I know. So Collin, thank you for being part of the community conversation.
Colin Lake 0:57
My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Mike. And I put that car that compliment right back on, you’re one of the great guys that I know truly good people.
Mike Collette 1:05
Thank you, me. Ah, so the good part about this is, you know, we get to just hang out for a period of time just shoot the shit. And then people get to watch us so um, you know, a lot of people know you in the in the community, and you’ve been here for a while, but not everybody knows, like your story or your background. So why don’t you just give us a little bit understanding who Kong like is.
Colin Lake 1:31
Right, so I grew up in Philadelphia, I’m the youngest of nine kids. And so we all had, you know, a bit of a, like a balance that we all had to work through, you know, you didn’t always get what you wanted. And when you wanted, we all had to pitch in a lot around the house, we all had to work for all of the things that we had, you know, I helped pay for my high school tuition. And my certainly I paid about 90% of my college tuition. And you know, all of those things set me up for where I am today. So I grew up and grew up down in Philadelphia move up here in 95 and 95, early 96, I move up to Massachusetts, I joined the financial services industry, and have been in the financial service industry ever since. So in 2015, had, you know, had success at different levels. And in 2015, the company that I was a part of was a partnership and the firm was bought. And that enabled me to live out like the life long dream of being an entrepreneur, and in particular, getting involved in a charitable entrepreneurial space. So I launched a charity called developing index leaders, which takes people who are exiting the military, and looking to make a successful entrance into the financial services industry. And so we built this glide path for those folks to get there into the industry, get there in a well trained way, and ultimately make you know the impact that they are potentially able to make, and in other words become the next leaders of the industry. I also do a lot of consulting and coaching in the financial services industry and broader than that, but a lot of the coaching consulting I do is in that industry. And you know, they’re the types of things that keep me real busy from a professional perspective. I do have three kids 1614 and 12 year old, all gone to local Catholic schools around, you know, the Westboro area. And I’m happily married. I’ve been so for 20 years. And then, as Mike mentioned, I do love to do triathlons and you know, anything endurance related, really interests me and excites me anything that’s like, complex in terms of that training process is something that interests me. And, you know, like, I would have never been that interested in a gym, the gym was only there to like, you know, it helped me do some stuff to support my running, swimming and biking. And all of a sudden, six years ago, or six and a half years ago, I stumbled into prototype and I’m like, Whoa, this is really, really cool. And, you know, got to meet you. And I’m like, this dude’s really, really cool. And, you know, got to meet the people in the community. And like, I was just really something that I need to get more involved with. And here we are today talking.
Mike Collette 4:20
I love it. We’re gonna I want to talk more fitness. But I also want to talk about developing the next leaders because I know you and I’ve talked about that a lot. I know that you’ve been doing that for a while now. And it’s just, it’s just incredible. I love you to talk about like the motivation, like what got you motivated to start that? You know, obviously, we know your background in financial services, but to give back and to create something so wonderful. I mean, it’s funny because pre COVID we’d be at the gym and people you know, people wish to be bringing in suits their suits and just stuffing clothing and stuff and like what the heck is going on here? And it was all for you. And I was like, I need suits but obviously you know, it’s not for you. It’s for them. The organization. So talk a little about the motivation and you know, the people you’ve impacted.
Colin Lake 5:05
Yep, thank you. Thank you for the platform to talk about accent love to talk about it. So first thing is we’re fully self funded, I have funded everything to this point, and I hope to keep it that way. But what we do take is donations of gently used suits, ties, briefcases, belts, business, casual clothing. And we offer that to people, the ex military looking to make a successful entrance into the into the financial service center, we look to help them with, um, you know, maybe, you know, getting dressed a little bit better than they would have otherwise. And so that is that is one of the things that we do allow for donations from a clothing perspective. And you know, from some of those accessories, like, like I said, belts and ties, and briefcases and that type of stuff. But anyway, so I’m gonna give you a really, really brief story on a really, really long drawn out process. So all the financial services industry, are trying to hire more ex military. And in my view, they do it almost as like a glamour statistic. And they’d like to say, hey, look how many ex military we hired, we’re doing great for the community, we’re great Americans. And what they don’t tell you is they don’t do a very good job of training. And once they get there, and so what happens is they get the job. first job, in many cases, their first job entering the public space, or I guess to the private spaces is better, they’re there, they’re working in private financial services companies. And so they make their first foray into their professional lives outside of the military. And, you know, on average, they’re washing out of that firm that they start with, in anywhere between like 13 to 15 months, depending on the firm. And because the you know, the way these financial services firms have operated for 50 years, or 100 years, they think that’s the right way to operate going forward. And the, the path of the process they take people through is we run a lot of people up the hill, and only a few people ultimately can make it up to the top and know the people that we try and keep around at our firm. In other words, we throw a bunch of people in a training class, we’ll see who can swim, whoever can swim, we’ll keep, whoever can’t, we’ll let you know, go away. And that doesn’t necessarily work for these people, they don’t have all of the one a one on one, or the one on basic training that they need to like, digest the information that the financial services industry, they may not have a college education. So we try and provide them all that baseline information, all that one on one training so that when they get there, they can take any information, it makes sense to them. And then like I said, they can ultimately make the impact that they should be making for our industry who needs its next leaders?
Mike Collette 7:46
Hmm. And I know you and I love talking leadership. So I do want to talk about that a little bit. But I mean, when you’re talking about financial services, you’re talking about, like, you know, financial advisors are what’s the scope of the industry, all financial services? Or is there a particular like component of the industry that that you’re, you’re helping a lot of these men and women get involved in.
Colin Lake 8:12
So So I will, I have taken, there’s been 86 people who have come through the program. And so we’ve had way more than that, who have been involved in the program, but 86 have come fully through the programming, they came in program number one, number two, they did all of the homework required, because we do take them through a process. Maybe they took some of the clothing from us. And then ultimately, we got them placed somewhere. So they like went through our entire pipeline of how we help folks. And so for those people, they have started with, you know, as small, small firms like two or three different financial advisors. And those financial advisors are looking for a junior advisor to learn the business under them and build Okay, so we’ve done that. But most of the work we do Mike is at like the the larger institutions like a Merrill Lynch, or a Bank of America, a Morgan Stanley, UBS, a lot of these global banks. And by the way, we don’t take any money from any of the militaries, they said, and we don’t take any money from these large firms we’re not looking for that we’re looking to, you know, again, put them in a position to succeed and make a positive impact in that industry.
Mike Collette 9:20
I love it. I love it. So I’m glad we got to talk about that. Because I know a lot of people that gym probably have no idea why prototype in general, excuse me. I have no idea about this charity. So sounds like there’s you know, if there are people out there listening to this And sure, like want to help you out or donate or whatnot, what’s the best way for them to do that call?
Colin Lake 9:43
Well, the best way you know my favorite way is to talk to me, you know, I love to talk to everyone out there forever at the gym. I don’t know everyone at the gym, but you know, the more people I know, the more fun it is. And then I have an email address which I’ll share in a bit and I think that’s probably a good way and I also want to Facebook, I’m in Facebook groups and so you can private message me there as well. But my email was Collin lake. So it’s one LC o Li en la ke. At. And it’s the four words developing the next leaders.com. And so if you email me there and just say, you know, I’d like to get involved, maybe I have a resource or a set of skills that can help these people get trained better, I’d love to talk about that we have clothing, we’d like to contribute, that’d be great. Or Most importantly, we’re always looking for people who were military and looking to enter, you know, the, you know, those people who, if you have some of those people in your own network who are looking to enter the industry, we’d love to work with them.
(Colin Contact: Colinlake@developingthenextleaders.com)
Mike Collette 10:39
Yeah, and if you’re listening, you can always reach out to me to it, I can connect you directly with Collin. And I also know call a lot of people on this are probably interested in the next thing that I want to talk about a little bit. And that is leadership. I know you love to talk about I love talking about it with you. Give me a give, I guess the audience of people listening to this kind of like your, your background and leadership and also kind of like your mindset around it and how you approach it because you’ve been a mentor to me, but I know you’ve mentored a lot of other people in this in this department. And like I said, I like a lot of people listening to this probably can get a lot of good information from you. So any any points or any pointers or information around that, that’d be great.
Colin Lake 11:22
As you know, the maybe the like, the coolest thing that I have learned.
I’m gonna say like specific specifically, like the last three years, is all human beings. Now I’ll talk specifically to sales human beings, because that’s who, you know that the leadership’s training that I, that I do when I deliver under the people that I work with is salespeople. And then like I said, salespeople in the financial services industry, but people are well intentioned, like, people would like to work out the appropriate amount of time, people would like to, you know, do the proper amount of pre work to get ready for a workout and post work to you know, recover properly from a workout. You know, and that’s the same thing under professional lives to like, people would like to be more effective with their time at work, people would like to stop getting, you know, stop chasing shiny objects, you know what I mean? Like, you know, this, so people are well intentioned. And so one of the great things in leadership is like, so just identify those one or two things, maybe three things that you’re after, right? Like to like, make that list and that that’s nothing brand new. But what are those things that are right below those priority items? So like, let’s say you have three things that are your core activities that you need to do to be really successful in your job? And then what are those next, like, seven things? So so there’s, there’s 10, things that are really important, the top three are the ones that I’m asking about. But what are those next seven things, because those next seven things are those shiny objects that allow you to creatively avoid, creatively avoid those three most important things. And so the takeaway would be from a leadership perspective is, like, um, you know, the thing that I try and coach on, and the thing that I think we all want to take is, we are well-intentioned, we just have to identify what those three most important things are, and know what the shiny objects are, that may disrupt us from staying focused on our top three, and avoid those ones at like, all cost or, like as much as we possibly can, because they will distract us from what’s most important in our lives.
Mike Collette 13:33
Yeah, and it’s, it’s so hard you, it’s such a great piece of advice, because it’s so applicable, the shiny object syndrome or phenomenon, wherever you want to call it, the same thing and the fitness side of things, right. Like, you know, you want to start exercising, losing weight, whatever your your intentions are, goals are the habits you want to develop. But then all of a sudden, you see, you know, a commercial for some sort of like, fix it quick. pill or diet pill or something that kind of draws your attention away from the habits you’re looking to build. Same thing can happen, and you’ve been probably one of the most dedicated in terms of your personal fitness or in, in health, and just committed to it. Talk a little bit. Let’s talk a little bit about that. Because, you know, people see you at the gym. If you could work out for three straight hours, do the workout over again, three, three or four more times, you probably would not everyone’s necessarily like that. But let’s talk a little bit about like how important fitness has been in your life. And like, why that you’ve made it such a priority.
Colin Lake 14:39
So I do love to work out. And, you know, I’ll give you I’ll start with this analogy. Sometimes, some will be showing you or like suggesting, like, here’s a new app. And this app is so easy, like even I can figure it out. Like that’s the way people describe apps or saw Whereas something like that, if you ever heard that before, Mike? Oh, yeah, yeah, right. You know, people People say that. Yeah. And so I always say when they say that is like, just because you can do it doesn’t mean I can to like, I’m a neophyte when it comes to technology. Right. Like, sometimes I think that way. Okay, so how that translates or how that parallels to the question is, I love to work out. And I love to, you know, I’d love to work out in like a, you know, consistent long term way. And, you know, I even have a little bit of like, you know, the harder the workout, and the longer the workout, I feel like, the better the workout and, and the more fun to work at. And I do think that so my wiring is a little bit different than many others. Okay, so that aside, because I have to answer the question as it relates to all of us, because not everyone at the prototype loves to work out or loves to work out, you know, for long times. So, the two things that I would say how it impacts My life is, first one is, I am, like, in the most literal sense, a better human being, when I work out. I feel like in every other part of my life, like, my faith, my family, my business, with my friends, I am better when I have like that clear minds, I know, I put in a really, really effective workout or work workout day or workout week. So I really feel like it helps me gain like, such a such a balance. You know, that that’s one, too is I also gained a lot of motivation from it. And so like, I get a lot, I get a lot from the workout. Like, you know, I want to look good, I want clothes to look good on me, I want things to fit me, right, you know, like, all those little things. And so my tip, my thing that asked people to take away is, like, I’m grateful that I get to work out. Like, I’m grateful the prototype is there and put together like some kick butt workouts that really make me stronger, fitter, feel better, more balanced, like and so that idea of like that grateful mentality allows the workouts to like sit in my brain a little bit different. And as a result of them sitting in my brain a little bit different in enables me to get to that gym with a smile on my face saying, Alright, come on CrossFit. dial up something big and nasty for us today. And if you guys will let me I’ll do it two or three times.
Mike Collette 17:22
I think you’ve texted me more times than anyone else on a Friday night saying “is that it for Saturday morning?” Like “can we make it longer?” Yeah, you’re so funny. So Col I love you know the information and just inside given on, you know, leadership talking a little bit about developing next leaders and people are really going to appreciate that they can learn a little bit something from you too. The intention behind this is just for people to get to know you. And also, you know, to share your experiences and you’ve given some good insight into how exercise and just working out in general, you know, has impacted your life. I got three final questions for you before we we hop off. I know I could probably talk to you for another hour here. But I’d love to ask you three, three questions real quick, favorite movie or TV show favorite music artists or music you like to listen to? And then the favorite thing you like to do when you’re not working out. Not working or with your families is something that you like to do by yourself. Nothing derogatory remark is me watching this.
Colin Lake 18:28
Alright, so favorite movie. I mean, you know, I’d love to offer one of the funny ones because I’m such like, like the Will Farrell, Vince Vaughn. Oh, and Wilson. I’m like such in that. I love that whole genre of movies. But Shawshank Redemption is my favorite movie. I think it’s the best movie of all time. And I love it for like a multitude of reasons. And okay, so that’s the answer to that one. And then second is the music I listen to. I’m like a grunge guy. So that’ll give you you know, tell everyone how old I am like that, like 90. Back like, yeah, like 92 to 96 era of music.
Colin Lake 19:11
Yeah, really, I love all I love that type of music, that that’s my favorite type of music. And then the third thing would be, this is an easy one is taking my family on trips. Like I love when the five of us travel somewhere. And, you know, like I have a very close relationship with my eight brothers and sisters, and we all do a vacation every year. I love that. But I like the moment it’s just the five of us. And we’re off on an island somewhere we’re doing something just the five bucks because it requires all of us to kind of deal with each other and laugh at each other and have fun with each other and have a memorable experience with the five of us. A family
Mike Collette 19:50
A family man true at heart. I love it. Well, thank you Colin again for being part of the community conversation is obviously means so much to me and prototype, and also you guys listening. Thank you for tuning in and watching. Remember, every week, we’re going to be releasing a new community conversation with a new guest to get your week started. So to be the first to know about these new community conversations, they’re, they’re posted on our YouTube page, so feel free to subscribe. Also, join our daily news daily, brief newsletter. And these videos are also going to be posted in our pro tech community members-only group on Facebook. If you’re listening and you’re a member, and for some reason, you’re not in the group, please reach out and we’ll get you in. And lastly, if you’re interested in being on the community conversation, just shoot us a message and we would love to have you so until next time calling again. Thank you, my man and I will be talking to you soon.
Colin Lake 20:46
Thanks bye