We haven’t been able to independently verify it, but we think MMA trainer and entrepreneur Mike Dolce, of Dolce Fitness and The Dolce Diet, might be the protagonist of a Horatio Alger novel. Hear us out. After his father suffered a massive stroke, Mike got a job as a New Jersey dock worker at the age of 8. Eight years old. Scraping barnacles off of fishing boats for $2 a day, like a… well, like the protagonist of a Horatio Alger novel. Being an forward-looking youngster, Mike knew that $2 in his pocket wasn’t just that: If he kept it up, in 100 days he’d have $200. And if he found other work, he would have even more money. Growing up in straight-up poverty, Mike didn’t feel entitled to anything except the right to work. As a savvy 8-year-old, Mike knew he had to work around the child labor laws in New Jersey. He stacked a paper route on top of his dock work and got a job with a printing shop at the age of 10. At this point, he had officially outpaced America’s prototypical self-made man, Benjamin Franklin, whose lazy bones didn’t start working at a printing shop until he was 12. (Side note: As an 8-year-old, Benjamin Franklin only dreamed of becoming a sailor, but his dad wouldn’t let him go scrape barnacles off the ships like he wanted to. Instead, Franklin had to go to school until he was 10. Then he got to work in a candle shop instead of at the docks, because Benjamin Franklin obviously didn’t have Mike Dolce’s drive for excellence.) Franklin turned this print shop gig into his own newspaper operation, whereas Mike had the good sense to go down to the 7-11 and buy muscle magazines with his hard-earned cash –– Because that was an investment in the kind of future he wanted to have. Mike opened up the first iteration of his current fitness enterprise when he was only 17, without going into any debt. Now the founder and owner of Dolce Fitness and Dolce Diet, as well as being the owner of a real estate company and the founder of a non-profit dedicated to eradicating childhood obesity and eating disorders, Mike joins us on this week’s episode to talk about good, old-fashioned bootstrappin’. Listen in as Mike gives us the real talk he’s become known for: No sugar-coating, no B.S., straight-up advice on how to rise up from the ashes like a [expletive] phoenix to make Horatio Alger, Benjamin Franklin, Abe Lincoln, and Daddy Warbucks jealous of your gumption.
view more