Building a disruptive gym franchise in America is hard enough without a global pandemic forcing your locations to close. Miguel Aguilar did it anyway. The President and CEO of Self Made Training Facility joins Matthew Januszek on Escape Your Limits to share how Self Made became one of the most successful training franchises in the country — and how the brand navigated one of the most difficult periods any fitness business has ever faced.
With 40 locations across 11 states, Self Made Training Facility has established itself as a genuine disruptor in the gym space. Miguel's story is about resilience, conviction, and the kind of community-minded thinking that turns a crisis into a proof of concept.
About Miguel Aguilar
Miguel Aguilar leads Self Made Training Facility as its President and CEO — a role that has required equal parts entrepreneurial vision and operational discipline. Under his leadership, Self Made has grown to 40 locations across 11 different states, making it one of the most successful and fastest-growing training franchises in America.
The Self Made model is built around a disruptive approach to the gym experience — one that has resonated strongly enough to sustain consistent franchise expansion in a competitive and fragmented market. Miguel's leadership has been central to that positioning, translating a distinctive training philosophy into a scalable business system.
When the fitness industry faced an unprecedented crisis in early 2020, Miguel's response was defining. Rather than retreating, Self Made banded together with other Riverside County fitness facilities, took an active role in educating consumers, and maintained the conviction that things would work out. That response is now part of the brand's identity — a lived demonstration of the values at the center of the Self Made story.
What Miguel Aguilar and Matthew Januszek Talked About
- A disruptive gym franchise succeeds not by being different for its own sake but by delivering a training experience that fills a genuine gap in the market — one that members feel strongly enough about to become loyal advocates.
- Resilience in business is not passive endurance — it is active problem-solving under pressure. When gyms were closing across the country, Miguel's decision to collaborate with other local fitness facilities and educate consumers was a strategic move as much as a principled one.
- Forty locations across eleven states is not an accident of circumstance — it is the result of a replicable system applied consistently. Miguel's ability to scale Self Made reflects a mature understanding of what makes a franchise model work across different markets.
- Community is a competitive moat. The way Self Made responded during the fitness industry's most difficult period deepened its relationships with members and operators in ways that no marketing campaign could replicate.
- Faith and conviction are operational tools, not just motivational concepts. Miguel credits his ability to stay focused and keep the organization moving forward during periods of extreme uncertainty to a belief that consistency and integrity ultimately prevail.
- Disrupting an established industry requires more than a novel concept — it requires the organizational discipline to deliver on that concept at scale, day after day, across dozens of locations and thousands of member interactions.
Why This Conversation Matters
Matthew Januszek has spent his career building fitness products and brands that genuinely disrupt the status quo, and Miguel Aguilar's story with Self Made Training Facility reflects that same hunger for a better model. The resilience Miguel demonstrated during the industry's most difficult period is exactly the kind of leadership that Matthew believes the fitness world needs more of.
The conversations Matthew is building through Escape Fitness USA and the LIFTS Podcast with Mohammed Iqbal of SweatWorks are fundamentally about what the future of fitness business looks like — and franchises like Self Made, led by operators like Miguel, are a meaningful part of that future. This episode is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand how conviction and community combine to produce lasting business results.
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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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