Matthew Januszek and Emma Barry headed to BOLD 2022, MindBody's annual three-day conference, and brought the Escape Your Limits Podcast along to capture the conversations happening at the intersection of wellness, technology, and human performance.
This opening episode of the BOLD series features interviews with senior leaders from MindBody, Exos, and the spa consulting world — covering artificial intelligence's growing role in the fitness business, why the brain is the most underrated asset in performance, and how the spa sector is reshaping what wellness means.
About BOLD 2022 MindBody Conference
BOLD 2022 is MindBody's annual signature conference, designed to give wellness, fitness, and beauty industry professionals a dedicated space to meet, share the latest trends, and learn how to run their businesses more effectively.
The 2022 edition drew speakers and leaders from across the wellness ecosystem, reflecting the growing overlap between traditional fitness, mental performance, spa services, and the technology platforms that connect them all.
Matthew Januszek and Emma Barry attended the conference as part of an Escape Your Limits multi-episode series, conducting interviews across the event that would be released over the following weeks.
Key Insights from the Conversation
- John Motz, SVP at MindBody, explains how shifting consumer behavior is driving fitness and wellness businesses to adopt artificial intelligence in ways that are becoming increasingly practical and necessary.
- Amanda Carlson-Phillips, SVP and Head of Performance Innovation at Exos, makes the case that coaching the brain and mental health is not a supplement to athletic development but an accelerant of it.
- Lisa Starr, a spa business consultant at Wynne Business Consulting and Education, outlines why the spa category is becoming a central pillar of the broader wellness industry rather than a peripheral luxury.
- The episode explores how AI is moving from a theoretical tool for large operators to a practical resource that businesses of all sizes in the fitness and wellness space can begin deploying.
- The conversation surfaces the idea that the fitness industry has historically under-invested in the cognitive and mental dimensions of performance, and that this represents both a gap and an opportunity.
- Guests discuss how the boundaries between fitness, spa, and mental wellness are blurring — and what that convergence means for how gyms and studios should design their offerings.
- Matthew and Emma use the BOLD setting to draw out themes that cut across all three conversations: the growing importance of personalization, the demand for scientific grounding, and the shift toward whole-person approaches to health.
Why This Conversation Matters
Matthew Januszek has spent his career at the intersection of performance and product, and the BOLD 2022 conversations capture an industry in the middle of a real rethinking — one where AI, mental health, and spa culture are no longer edge cases but central to how serious businesses plan for the future.
That broader view of what wellness can mean continues to inform his work through Escape Fitness USA and the LIFTS Podcast, where the conversation about what fitness really is for — and who it serves — remains wide open.
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube
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About Matthew Januszek
Matthew Januszek is the co-founder of Escape Fitness, the functional-training equipment brand he built from a UK startup into a global name supplying many of the world’s leading gyms, studios, and hotel fitness spaces. Following the separation of the UK and US businesses, Matthew’s focus today is Escape Fitness USA and the next chapter of the brand in North America. He hosted more than 300 episodes of the Escape Your Limits podcast and now co-hosts the LIFTS Podcast with SweatWorks founder Mohammed Iqbal, covering the business, science, and technology shaping the fitness industry. Explore more interviews and episodes on MatthewJanuszek.com.
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