An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
One hundred percent. Everything — work conversations, plans for a family, plans for a brand expansion, plans for deciphering between the couple that runs a company and the couple that runs a household and a relationship — all of it begins and ends with trust.
As a part of our series about lessons from Thriving Power Couples, I had the pleasure of interviewing Justin and Taylor Norris, the millennial husband-wife duo who, together, founded LIT Method, a wellness and tech company known for its innovative, high-intensity, Low Impact Training (LIT™). Recently, they announced the launch of LIT Method’s franchise opportunity that is set to reimagine the future of fitness franchising with a first of its kind hybrid digital and physical experience. LIT Method provides a sustainable workout alternative built on the promise of “no running, no jumping, no weights.” After becoming a household name for “building bodies, not breaking them,” the emerging franchise brand is now projecting explosive growth with a development goal of 100 signed units within 12 months.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you two to your respective career paths?
TN: Oddly we met on the first day Justin was in LA. We met at a small, boutique gym. It feels a little cliche thinking back on it now, but we were two personal trainers at a gym and we first met there.
JN: I certainly didn’t think I’d meet my wife on my first day in a new city, but that’s exactly what happened. We began working out together and then literally began working together.
TN: We trained a great deal of clients with injuries and Justin had already had a life-threatening injury with his main artery. He was in physical therapy and he had really rehabbed himself back from a dark place. So, we started looking at what kinds of exercises were most resonating with people in the physical therapy space. The low impact workouts like rowing and resistance band strengthening were really something people gravitated towards.
JN: This is so true because it was — and still is — that allure of the low impact ideology. That this exercise will not hurt you, will not put you in harm’s way. It will allow you to get stronger without setbacks.
TN: So together we started tying resistance bands to rowers and looking at a more integrated approach to creating a much more versatile and attractive method. Not only for injured people, but certainly for people who were looking to have long lasting, effective exercises where repeat injuries were less likely.
JN: We turned our home into this prototyping space. It really became the early blueprint of all of this — just the two of us attaching different levels of resistance to a water rower we bought.
TN: It’s not a very glamorous story about the early days of our career path, but it’s very true to the realities of product design. That’s what I studied in school and at Parsons, so much of the trial-and-error part was really where the most creative juices were flowing.
JN: And my background was in physical therapy and personal training, so we married that form and function between us. I mean, we literally got married as well, but that’s a whole other story.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you two got married?
TN: You know, it’s interesting, because so much of our personal life is wrapped up in our work day, right? We have probably only spent a few days apart from each other in the entire decade we’ve known each other. So, we’ve got the stories that fall under our marriage-marriage, and then of course a lot of interesting landmark moments from our work-marriage.
JN: On the personal side, it’s not so much something that happened to us but to someone we love and it deeply impacted us. Taylor’s grandmother turned 100 last year and I think because so much of the last two to three years has been about loss and grief, and about emotional and physical challenges that some of us thought we’d never see in our lifetime, that seeing her reach that age was pretty remarkable.
TN: Yeah, interesting maybe isn’t the word — but inspiring certainly is. I think that’s a pretty big deal to reach that age and to really have lived a fulfilling life. It’s something that we think about a lot in our marriage, about being there for each other for the long haul, and about what we can do to make this life the most interesting, the most inspiring it can possibly be. So yeah, I’d certainly agree with that.
JN: And with work, well it’s perhaps the answer you are expecting. But when you create a product like we have with the LIT Strength Machine, and you hope for the opportunity to meet extraordinary people and organizations who just ‘get it’ about what you’re trying to do, you don’t automatically assume that one day you’re going to hear from Jay-Z.
TN: Or Adrian Gonzalez. These are two of the most interesting people out there. Two cultural contributors in different fields but certainly committed to personal betterment.
JN: It was very humbling. So again, interesting is one word — but it was so much more than that to learn that these guys believed in us enough to put money behind the mission.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
JN: I can tell you right now, without hesitation, that this was early on in our first studio in 2016. We were doing construction and we were so hyped about this small little space we had to get started. But when I say small, I mean small.
TN: Like the bathroom was inside the studio itself small.
JN: Exactly. So during the construction period, a pipe burst and flooded the entire studio right before we were opening our doors. It was a mess.
TN: It was funny because it was so bad that you had to laugh at the luck and the timing. I don’t think it was funny for the dance studio beneath us who also were a bit underwater because of the burst in the building. But I think the lesson was pretty simple: Expect challenges. And more than that, expect untimely challenges.
JN: Because they will happen. And they will happen often. And if you expect them, or anticipate them — you can navigate them with a lot less stress and a lot more levity.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
JN: What has always made our company stand out is its promise to ‘build bodies, not break them.’ That’s really what it always comes back to.
TN: We started in small gyms and physical therapy spaces experimenting with this idea that strength training does not have to mean weight training. You should not have to fear fitness — and you should not have to spend a large portion of your workout wondering whether, in the long-term, it’s damaging your body.
JN: When I tore the artery in my arm, the loss of blood was unlike anything I’d ever seen. It was an accident and I was young, but I was an athlete. I had big plans for baseball and football — and the most common sentiment shared with me after this happened was all about what I couldn’t do. What wouldn’t be possible. What I would never be able to experience again with my arm. It was soul crushing. It took a big toll on my confidence and on my mental state. I’m not ashamed to say I was almost certainly depressed. So much of what I was looking forward to was now days spent in a physical therapy center and it all felt very grim. But I witnessed someone next to me — an electrician who had had an on-the-job injury that made it so he wasn’t going to be able to use his hands again. I watched this guy because our sessions were always at the same time — and over months and months, we became friendly and he became a big source of motivation for me and for this idea that there are safe, sustainable ways for coming back.
TN: And it was that sentiment right there that really guided us with LIT. Everything feels approachable and safe — and we want people who are all over the demographic spectrum in terms of physical fitness experience to be able to access this method and this low impact lifestyle and say, “This is something I can do often and it’s something I can empower myself with.”
JN: Tay’s right because with weight training or other high impact exercises, it can feel really great, right? You can get that endorphin high and you can feel stronger than you’ve ever felt before. But there’s a ticking clock with that. You’re tearing muscles. You’re putting unnecessary stress on your joints. You’re doing the most and the worst at the same time. And so, you get a few months or a few years, whatever it is, and then you get injured, go to rehab, and return right to it.
TN: That’s not what this is. This is a sustainable way of working out where you can know while you are doing these exercises to build your body up, you aren’t simultaneously creating this cycle of violence and repair.
JN: And for me, that is just so personal. Because I know what that cycle was on the football and baseball field, and then when I had this accident with my arm, that was putting me out of commission, it really got me thinking, “How many times can we ask people to beat themselves up and build themselves back up — and never offer an alternative?”
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
TN: Our franchise expansion is our big news as of late. We’ve had this dream for some time of creating a first of its kind hybrid digital and physical subscription model. We want entrepreneurs to be able to break that fourth wall of only having a brick-and-mortar space and subsequently a revenue cap. And our franchise opportunity gives these entrepreneurs a chance to provide Low Impact Training, to access proprietary technology that offers sustainable health and wellness, and that really helps people run a business in what we now know is an ever-evolving landscape.
JN: Exactly. We’re moving into this next phase of the pandemic — and hopefully into the late stage and we want people to have a model that is malleable. The world is changing and the fitness franchising space has to evolve with that. I think our model provides one thing that others don’t — versatility.
TN: We have super members who do digital workouts on the on-demand platform three times a week and then on the weekends they come into the studio and take classes. We have people who use the machine and people who use the accessories — and people who use both. We have pilates enthusiasts and former weightlifters who have transitioned to resistance band strength training. There are people who love rowing, who love cardio and ab workouts. We are literally offering more than 500+ exercises for every type of person.
JN: It’s pretty incredible to think that, for example, there are couples out there like us, who have one person who loves the lengthening and toning. Tay loves that. And then I love the strength bar and the 100lbs of resistance you can create with the machine. We’re both using the same machine, in the same house, or in the same studio, and we are both meeting all our goals. And believe me, they’re very different goals.
TN: So that’s incredibly helpful for people. From an economic perspective. From the perspective of not wanting to be bored or uninspired. From the perspective that repetition can lead to overuse injuries — so variety and versatility prevent injury. It’s a model that is really, as Justin said, malleable — for both the client and the franchisee. For everybody in what we refer to as our Boltcult community!
What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?
JN: We always say it’s a three-part approach. First, you always have to have that sense of urgency, that sense of purpose when you get up in the morning. So that’s the drive. You have to know why you’re doing this, what you’re trying to build, and who you’re trying to help. Second, it’s about determination. This is especially true for a startup. You are one hundred percent going to doubt yourself — but regardless, you have to find the path forward. And the reason you have to do that is to fulfill your vision. That’s the third part. For us, our vision isn’t just to become the best in the fitness category. It’s to create a first of its kind, integrated approach to wellness and tech — to create a whole new category that doesn’t even exist yet.
TN: That’s so true. And you have to lay that approach out really quickly because it’s not like you can have one of the three pieces. They all work — and they only work — if you do them together.
How do you define “Leadership”?
JN: Well, this builds off that last point about vision. The best leadership is picking the right team. It’s having the ability to have your team members really see that vision and believe in it. That’s how you motivate people and that’s how you then empower their leadership. So, for us, defining leadership means having the ability to influence in a meaningful way the organization — and ensuring they really maintain that motivation.
TN: Absolutely. Everybody can be excited at the beginning of a job or the formation of an idea — but leadership is maintaining that motivation, and particularly that motivation as it pertains to fulfilling the long-term vision of the company.
JN: The bottom line is that if you are motivated, you are finding meaning in what you do. We want this company to provide meaning and to be a legacy brand that improves people’s lives. So, for us, the leadership piece is about fueling that pipeline day in and day out. It’s about making sure we not only surround ourselves with people who believe in the mission but who also challenge us.
TN: And it’s about our own accountability in this whole process. About making sure we do our part in engaging and igniting that collaborative fire in them, too.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
JT: This is a tough one. Because there have been a lot of people who have inspired us from a distance and then there have been the people directly in our lives who have made great personal investments in us. Taylor’s father has been a big influence on our knowledge of business. We created this brand and this company ourselves — maxed out our credit cards, got down in the mud, and built it from the bottom up. But he gave us a lot of very valuable insight from his own experiences in business.
TN: He did — and I think it’s also true that we probably don’t say enough how much impact our teachers — like some of my professors at Parsons — had on how we work today. I’m very proud of our brand identity and its bold presence in the fitness space, and a lot of my confidence around those design decisions comes from what I learned in school. That kind of help has shown up in exactly what we put out in the world and these are the people who definitely helped shape my — and now our — understanding of the fusion of creativity and business for a successful outcome.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
JN: Oh, wow, well we always say in our classes that we are just trying to be a small part of making your day better — or your life better. And it’s true.
TN: And I think it’s hard because you certainly don’t want to be out there bragging about something you believed to be a bit more altruistic in intention — but yeah, I believe that when we tell people we are empowering a generation of people to build their bodies, not break them, we’re saying that we want to help you do what you love for as long as possible. We want you to be as healthy for as long as possible.
JN: I hope that commitment to longevity — and to making this accessible to as many people as possible is inherently good. If what you bring to the table doesn’t start with being good — with truly being good for others — then what’s the point?
What are the “5 Things You Need To Thrive As A Couple”? Please share a story or example for each.
TN: We don’t have five. That might sound dismissive, but we have one. And everything else, of which I’m sure there are more than five, ladders back to it.
JN: I know what she’s going to say.
TN: Of course you do.
JN + TN: Trust.
TN: One hundred percent. Everything — work conversations, plans for a family, plans for a brand expansion, plans for deciphering between the couple that runs a company and the couple that runs a household and a relationship — all of it begins and ends with trust.
JN: Full stop.
TN: And a story? I mean, there isn’t one in particular, but only because there are so many. I would say that there is no other human being that I would have trusted to create my ecosystem with. And what I mean when I say that is that when you are married and you also run a business together — whether it’s a small business or a growing franchise like ours — you are creating an ecosystem, a culture on the corporate and home front, a set of values, etc. There is just no one out there who I trust more to not only keep that intact, but to ensure it all thrives.
JN: I feel the same way. On every level — she’s the first and last step of talking through something. She’s the first and last step on the conscience of things. And all of that ladders back to the fact that I’m all in. I trust her implicitly and without reservation.
You are people of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
TN: This is it.
JN: We’re doing it.
TN: We said we wanted to empower a generation of people to build their bodies, not break them.
JN: And we’ve created a machine — an all-in-one rower, reformer, and strength trainer — that does just that.
TN: And now we have a business model that empowers people to not only further that mission but make a living themselves off of a movement that is wholeheartedly committed to bringing the most amount of good — in this case the most amount of safety, of injury prevention, of motivation, of education, of inspiration, of all of it — to as many people as possible.
JN: She’s right. It’s not if we ‘could.’ We’re living our dream of doing that and we’re trying to grow that movement more every day.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
TN: Can we have two since there are two of us? I’m going to assume we can. I think mine has to be one from several years ago from President Obama. It’s great: “Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.” I like it because I’ve always said to myself and to Justin that everything we do has to be for a larger, lasting contribution. Not to oversimplify it, but what I mean when I say that is something that actually outlives us — outmatches any name or identity he and I could ever has as individuals or founders, and that is so deeply embedded in the way people are able to have a better quality of life that it is just a staple, or an amenity that has evolved into an expectation. Because that’s how much the work, the product, the brand has come to mean in a person’s everyday existence. And yeah, I’d like to think that ties back to what you just asked about ‘goodness’…and about a movement for good. Because all of this is intertwined — teamwork, community in our franchising, community in our company, a sense of togetherness around something that is literally bigger than any single one of us.
JN: I’m of course very partial to that as well. We’ve talked about the collective good a brand — and specifically LIT — can do in the long-term and that quote is always at the back of our minds. And I would add in a Kobe Bryant quote: “If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will do it for you.” I mean, I felt that in my bones when I first heard it. I was homeless at 16. I worked a lot of jobs to get to where I am today and to not only build this company with my wife, but to build this life — for us, and now hopefully for a lot of entrepreneurs out there. It’s not to say I never had anyone believe in me. I did. First and foremost, the woman sitting next to me. But it is to say that that deeply ingrained sense of worth that really permeates through everything else you put out there has got to start within.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
TN: Oprah.
JN: Oprah.
TN: It might sound predictable for us to say that, but I don’t care. She’s not only a tastemaker, but she’s got the whole package when it comes to considering brands, considering aesthetics, and considering societal impact. The conversation would literally have no limits because in my mind, she’s become this multifaceted empire all her own. Her voice touches all fields.
JN: Definitely Oprah. Are you kidding me? She’s a business woman. She’s an empire. She’s an activist. She’s a motivator. She checks all the boxes of a person who is out there doing the most amount of good possible — and she’s built a successful career, and critically, a life out of it.
How can our readers follow your work online?
TN: We share an Instagram handle @justinntaylor and of course LIT is @litmethod on Instagram.
JN: And check out our site litmethod.com for information about the workout, about the machine, franchising, and all of our new product announcements and initiatives.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Lessons from a Thriving Power Couple, With Justin & Taylor Norris of LIT Method was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.