Crunch Fitness CEO gets real about the tough transition from Marine to veteran—and how his business helped him overcome it

Jim Rowley, currently the Crunch Fitness CEO, remembers someone telling him as much when he finished eight years of service and became a new vet himself. Those words proved foundational to his move out of the Marines and into the business world, as he tells Fortune that it “changed my mindset.”

He was navigating the difficult shift, more or less, on his own. And in the process, Rowley realized which parts of his experience could be harnessed as skills he could apply to the executive suite and which parts he needed to process as part of his mental-health journey.

“I don’t know that the military does an amazing job transitioning people out,” he says, noting that they do a better job transitioning people in as “they have an ideal image of what they want you to be, but they don’t take the same time to transition you out into the civilian world.” 

Now with three decades of experience in the fitness industry under his belt and over a decade leading Crunch Fitness, Rowley looks back at his uphill climb in getting to where he is now. Without any sales background, Rowley describes an “impossibly difficult” journey. He had to beg for his job and “started at the very bottom,” calling people to come to the gym with only a rotary phone and a Whitepages book by his side. From there he was promoted to assistant manager, general manager, and then district manager. “They just kept throwing more responsibility at me,” he says.

How Rowley rose through the (non-military) ranks 

Recognizing there’s no true way to train for being a CEO, Rowley says his leadership strategy was focused around team-building and promoting a feeling of shared purpose. Bringing his team along the way up with him, he adds his success was in part about hiring and investing in the right people.

His method has roots in his time served. “To be honest with you, most of those skill sets I learned in the Marine Corps,” he said. “It’s kind of the same philosophy,” about intensely teaching people to perform—and in the down time, doing “a lot of training and a lot of repetition.”

“Imagine having to unify a group of 100 people, all from different backgrounds and different areas of the United States,” Rowley says, harkening back to his time in the Marines. “You have to unify them in one mission, which is to conquer the enemy.” He says being in the Marine Corps was “some of the best training in the world,” as people are working together physically and mentally and are imbued with a sense of shared purpose and collaboration. There’s a kernel of that experience that Rowley takes with him as a gym executive—“if you can take some of those things and transfer that into business, it works,” he says.

Of course, Rowley’s past training sometimes proved trying. There’s a rigidity and exacting nature to the military that “creates a level of intensity, and that intensity doesn’t always translate into the civilian world,” he said. Rowley also grappled with PTSD, noting that veterans often struggle with substances when they re-enter society. Stating he wishes others would “find fitness as their outlet, ” he acknowledges many vets simply want to get away from that lifestyle. “It’s hard. But that difficulty, that’s where the value is found,” he says.

If applied right, military experience can lead to similar business success stories, Rowley says. “I’ve got a high school education and eight years in the military, and I became the CEO of a multibillion-dollar company. I’ve launched several brands,” he says, noting his story isn’t unique. “The skill sets you develop are not found in the private sector. They’re really valuable,” Rowley continues. “You just have to find a way to transition those into purpose and mission and focus within a private sector job.”