Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 20 - Susy Natal: Psychology, Routine, and Creating Resilience

Episode Date: April 22, 2020

In this episode, Danny sits down with Susy Natal. Susy is one of Australia's top coaches and fitness writers. She specializes in integrating her background in psychology with her knowledge of training, anatomy, and physiology. Suzy shares eye-opening insights and tips as to how to integrate everything from routine to community into your life to improve your health, fitness, and mood (especially during these trying times). She also shares some impactful ways young coaches can make a name for themselves in the fitness space. Susy offers direct 1-on-1 online fitness coaching as well as a mindset coaching. Enjoy! Keep up with Susy on INSTAGRAMSupport the Show.

Welcome in everyone. Today we sit down with my good friend Susie Natal. Susie is one of Australia's best personal trainers, online coaches, and fitness authors, but her background and the way she got into the industry is a little bit atypical. She has a great background though, and it's in psychology, which believe it or not, in my time training and even hiring and training other trainers, I found those who had a handle of psychology, human connection, and communication tended to do extremely well. Now we talk a lot about a variety of different things, including mental health, maintaining a routine, and staying the course during these trying times. So sit back, relax

and enjoy this conversation between me and my good friend Susie Nittall. Susie, how's it going? Pretty good. Pretty good. I mean, you know, other than the very loud construction first thing in the morning, I'm having a great day. How are you? Good. Sheltered in place still, but things are getting better. The garage gym is coming together and slowly creating some normalcy for myself. Have you been able to do somewhat of the same? I do. I don't have a garage, so I decided instead to go for a meathead shed, which I have out the back. And I have gradually started to put things together. I already had a few things from a few years ago when like a nearby powerlifting gym had gone bust and they just sold a whole bunch of stuff really, really cheap. So I had some plates,

I had a bar, I had just the, you know, the, the, you know, the typical ollie lifters stance, um, rack. And it's literally, there's like this much clearance on either side, wall to wall when you're squatting in there. But I was one of the millions upon millions of people who decided to try and buy adjustable dumbbells and benches on the day where the whole world ran out of fitness equipment. And things are gradually starting to arrive this week.

So I'm starting to feel a lot better. Yeah, we're kind of in the same boat here. I've checked every website, but everything's completely out backordered. And who knows when and if people will ever go back with a plethora of fitness equipment that's just floating around in people's garages now. But I think that's actually a really nice segue

to kind of talk about how you got into fitness, not just as somebody who's done physique sports, but also as a coach. Ooh, that's a, that's a really, really fun kind of like topsy turvy way that I got in. Cause I mean, if you backtrack before I started, that takes me to being a psychology student at university and being a dancer at around age 22, I'd never set foot in a gym at that point in my life ever, ever at all. And so I was studying something that had at surface level, it seems nothing to do with being a PT, but you know, once you dig a little bit deeper, it's been probably my wild card, but we can, you know, we can sort of dig into that one

in a little bit. But I mean, at the time I was dancing a lot of Latin dance, so salsa, bachata, Brazilian samba, the works, you know, performing on the weekends, teaching at uni, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. One day I was preparing for a dance class. I pushed a table and ripped a massive inguinal hernia into myself and learned very quickly about the importance of core strength when I realized that that could have been avoided

if I'd had strength training behind me. And it was like, yay, big surgery. There was nothing that could be done. It had to be operated on. And that debacle passes. And then I set foot in a gym for the first time in my life. You know, first falling predator to some prey, sorry, if I should say to someone who predated upon me by going ladies

should do cardio and me going, okay. You know, I was like, probably God on our Imperial system. I was probably like nearly 12. No, the other way around, probably like 20 pounds lighter than I am now, but probably less lean. So that is how much size I put on over that time. Cause I was little and my body could barely put itself together. I had, you know, hypermobile shoulders. I could, I could do this with it even more effectively. Everything hurt. I didn't know why, you know, and then I started to gradually learn about it all of this while I was studying psychology um I started training at a gym that had like you know power lifters and bodybuilders that you know people that weren't necessarily competing because

they were all uni students but I had like all the rugby guys all the power lifters all the strength athletes all the people who were doing bodybuilding. And that was just my norm. So I just started training like them. Somewhere along the way, started getting curious about bodybuilding, put myself through a couple of comps. I will admit having very little idea what I was doing, but I managed to not look completely rubbish. So that was okay. That felt like a good enough goal for someone who knew that they didn't really know what was going on at some point with psychology. Cause I was, I was going down the research path, not down the clinical path because, you know, I was looking at it going, I'm in my twenties, but therapy is intense, you know, and it's, it's the kind of thing where it feels like a very end of the line kind of career. It's definitely not something that I've gone, I never want to do that.

It just looks like the kind of job that once you do that, that's probably what you're going to do for a really long time. And I had like career cold feet and wasn't ready for that. So I was going down the research path, realized that I was going to be working corporate hours for no money. And I was like, I'm passionate, but my passion has its limits. And I was good at statistics. So I'm sidestepped into data analysis. And the family was super proud of me because I'd finally become sensible and started wearing, you know,

vests and sensible shoes and going to an office and it made me miserable. And by that point, I was training all my friends for free, researching about training stuff all the time. I'd done my PT certification out of interest. You know, I'd put myself through like three comps. So it just got to the point where I just hated my job. Like, and there was nothing wrong with it. Like the people were nice. My manager was great. The pay was great. It just didn't make me happy. So at one point I had to go, you know what, this irritates me more than the fear of starting something totally different scares me off. And I just made the jump and never looked back. No, I like that a lot. And I really liked that you called the psychology piece a wild

card because I I've hired many trainers over the years when I was working as a manager in corporate gyms. And some of the ones that had the most success didn't have your standard kinesiology degree, they didn't have your exercise physiology degree, they had psychology degrees. And while on the surface, it may seem unrelated, I think what people neglect to understand is that when you're trying to help somebody transform their body, their habits, and to really make a go of living a healthier life, that starts between the ears. And so I would argue that you probably need a fundamental understanding of psychology that's on par, if not greater,

than what you know about nutrition and fitness to really help somebody change. Because you have to be able to communicate to that person. I think that's really valuable. And I'd love to hear if you have any tools that you implement regularly that you would say are perhaps replicable for other fitness pros that they might not know because they didn't study psychology, or are there things that they should know about psychology? I'd love to hear you talk on that. there things that they should know about psychology? I'd love to hear you talk on that. Absolutely. I mean, I think it's one of those things where when people think psychology, they think analyzing someone and they're really, really like out of scope stuff. And the truth is

a lot of the fundamentals of psychology where anyone can sort of read and practice and really grow to understand it without even necessarily needing to do the degree specifically is some of the stuff that is the most powerful tool. Because I think probably one of the best, it's not advice is more of a statement, but probably the best observation that one of my mentors offered to me once was that when you are a personal trainer, you're not actually selling training, you're selling the relationship. And that doesn't just mean going to hang out with a mate because that is the mistake. Like a lot of people have heard that, but I think a lot of

people mistakenly interpret that as you got to be a good buddy and you got to get along and blah, blah, blah. But the truth is that sometimes you don't actually need to be really good friends per se with your client. But, you know, they really need to feel that they are fundamentally understood, that you hold them in, you know, positive regard no matter what they do, that it's things around sort of triggers, things around Maslow's hierarchy, things around what our fundamental needs are, because the more that you meet, like, you know, that's pretty much this concept that we have the base needs of like, you know, you need to have shelter, you need to have food, you need to have safety, blah, blah, blah, blah. Once you get to that point,

you can go into more and more increasingly complex things as you go towards self-actualization, which is sort of this epitome of a being who is content in themselves and has achieved all the things a being could hope to achieve. quite a simple part of that piece of the puzzle, but it's usually a lot more complex than that because I mean, most trainers will have a vast majority of their clients come to them and go, I want to lose weight. And it's very rarely just, I want to lose weight because I want to be skinnier or because I want to fit into this or because I want to blah, blah, blah. It's almost always going to be tied into something here, you know, and, you know, and there always going to be tied into something here you know and you know and there's going to be feelings wrapped up with that there's going to be experiences that unravel with that there are going to be triggers around that you know because if somebody you know is at the point where they will hire somebody to help them lose weight with something where you know everyone, everyone knows how to, um, you know,

everyone knows how to make their pets lose weight, take them on more walks or you feed them less food. Like, you know, I've heard that analogy all the time, but we get really funny when it comes down to us. And it's because, well, obviously they're just the, the in and out is not working. It's a little bit more complex than that. And, you know, obviously there's going to be people where, you know, yes, there might be some different situations where, you know, if you, you know, if you've got a broken leg, of course you can only move so much, but for the average person, it's going to come back to a psychological aspect where there are certain triggers that make them want to binge eat, or there are certain, you know, things that somebody might say to them that makes them feel

really insecure about themselves. I mean, every trainer I think has heard, I don't want to come to the gym. I feel like I'm judged by other people when I'm there. And you can talk to them and they can intellectually understand, like these are intelligent people. Intellectually, they understand that it's not true. Emotionally, they cannot disconnect that. And because it's something that's going to go a lot deeper than that, you know, in terms of simple psychological techniques that I think really help where you don't necessarily have to go off and study a heap of stuff, active listening is probably one of the most important things. I mean, that already creates so much of

a safe space. If somebody feels like they can talk to you and they have a hundred percent of your attention, that's already going to make them feel so much safer, more content, more connected to you, particularly in a time where people are always on their phones. People are always distracted by 101 different things. There are so many different things that occupy our mental bandwidth. And so just having someone go, this is your time. Everyone understands that once their time's over, you've got to go see someone else. And obviously, this is more in the perspective of when it's face-to-face, but that is how things will operate in the long term, you know, in the long term to the large majority.

And also even virtually there are still interactions that are very similar to this. They need to feel that when they have your attention, they have all of it. They don't just have yours until someone calls or yours until they get an email or yours kind of, but you're also focusing on this other, you know, other stuff. By the way, I'm an Australian. I need to check. Is it okay if I swear from time to time? Yes. Oh, good. That's so relieving. I don't have to filter myself.

Yeah. All I have to do is check a box on the bottom of the website when I upload the podcast that says that it contains adult material. It's that simple. Compared to check it. So I've made it, I guess. I will check the box. But yeah, active listening goes so much further than people give it credit for because that already creates a massive amount of connection, you know, and a lot of other things that can assist is being really careful isn't the right word but I think being really attentive with the

kind of questions that you ask as well you know if you're in doubt about what to say because I mean people will throw you some really curly stuff sometimes like really intense stuff and sometimes it's first of all it's actually okay to not have an answer for something you know if someone says something really intense that they're going through it it is completely fine to go, you know, I'm so sorry to hear that. I, I, I, you know, I feel for you, but I actually have not, I'm at, I don't know what to say. I really don't know what to say, but that must really suck. You know, a lot of trainers, I think get stuck in this whirlwind where they feel like you always have to be like this crazy optimistic, blah, blah, blah. You know, sometimes stuff is just a bit

shit. There you go. There's a box where you ticked, you know, sometimes it just sucks and it's okay to just let that be the situation, you know, and sometimes it can be really helpful to just ask the question, you know, that is really terrible. I'm so sorry you're going through this. That must really suck. Acknowledge, how can I support you? How can I help make your day 1% better? You know, I know that you're probably not going to have an amazing day today. You know, I'm not going to sit here trying to make you all cheerful and happy and woohoo, but is there anything that I can support you with just to help that little bit? You know, and then if they can't come up with something, offer a whole pile of suggestions

and go does any of that help or would you just want me to listen yeah no i think that's incredibly valuable particularly because in order to take somebody where you would want to take them as a coach you have to have their trust and probably the fastest way to build trust is through simply just listening and i i've seen it time and time again, trainers who had a disproportionate amount of success, despite maybe not having the most certs, X, Y, Z, but they were just excellent at listening and providing solutions because they were actually receptive to what their clients needed. And you also hit on something that I thought was quite important, which is just being okay with saying, I don't know the answer to that question, or, you know, I really don't know. And that's okay. And I'll try to get an answer to you. But

in the meantime, maybe try this. You know, and that's something that I think a lot of people are paralyzed by, because we always want to come across as an expert. But I think in being humble, there's a lot to just take away from stepping back and saying, I don't know. being humble, there's a lot to just take away from stepping back and saying, I don't know. I'm really big on humility, to be perfectly honest, because I think that another issue with like, it's actually, I was reading a book recently where they talk about what's called the expert trap, which can actually create distance between you and your client, where if they feel like you always have an answer, give too much information and just bombard them with information, it actually creates a disconnect where they start to feel like they're putting

you on a pedestal. And from your point of view, it can actually feel like things are going really well because they admire you. They think you're amazing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then suddenly they just, and they're gone. And you're like, why? Everything was going really well. But the problem is that none of that gives authors a reflection upon how they're gone. And you're like, why? Everything was going really well. But the problem is that none of that gives authors a reflection upon how they're feeling about themselves in that interaction. Because at the end of the day, as toy as it sounds, you kind of want to let them feel like they are also the expert given that they're the expert of what's happening in their day-to-day life. So in a way, the more that you can empower the client, which is again, something that a lot of coaches and trainers are very fearful of,

the more that you can empower them and the more you can make them feel that they actually can make their own decisions, the more on board with the process that they are. You know, a lot of trainers get very frightened of that because they're like, but then they'll know everything and they won't need me. And it's like, well, to an extent, you also have the responsibility to, you know, be good. So, you know, what you really want in the long term is to have a bunch of clients who will sometimes go, this happened. I thought this was the fix. I did this. What do you think? How awesome is that?

You know, they understand that you have expertise and that you're constantly researching and, you know, on the cutting edge of things, but that doesn't mean that you should aim to leave them in the dark because at the end of the day, all that you're going to have five, 10 years down the track is a bunch of helpless feeling beginners, eternal beginners who are wondering why the fuck they're not getting any better. And it's because you haven't given them the tools to get better. You know, whereas if you get them better, they become not only walking promotions of everything that you can do, they can become support systems for newer additions to your team.

They could even become people that you work with in the future if you ever look to expand. But usually, well, one or two might drop off because they go, you know what, I've learned everything that I feel that I need. A lot of them actually don't leave because they're just like, well, I have this simple access point to the bits wherever I'm unsure. You know, they give me the empowerment to constantly be learning, figuring more of it myself. I'm always going to learn. And rather than paying so much for the session, they pay for that constant support of I am

growing and I have like this mentor kind of role with like a long term, you know, with a long term client. Now, I think that's great. Coming from a place of humility rather than one of scarcity is probably a better way to create a relationship that is one built on them staying because they want to, not because they feel like they want to, not because they feel like they need to. And then you feel better on the, on the reciprocal side, because you don't feel like you're holding your clients hostage, or you don't feel like you're being, like you said,

you're kind of withholding in an effort to what, take some more money over the long run when you know you're not really helping the client. With psychology kind of at the base of today's discussion, I think it really lends nicely into segwaying into mental health, particularly right now. We'll talk a little bit about what's going on right now, but first let's talk about how mental health plays a role in just overall fitness and then vice versa. In what ways do fitness play a role in overall mental health? Well, at the moment, you know, at the moment, and always, you know, there is a certain level of physical activity that we need in order to have

optimal mental health. You know, it's like, you know, through doing that, you see sunshine, you get vitamin D, you avoid having, you know, seasonal affective disorder, just all of your internal processes, you know, without getting into the nitty gritty of it, it assists all of your internal processes to function optimally, you know, because you are moving and creating movement through everything that exists inside your body. You know, generally when we move more, we tend to get thirstier and we hydrate more, you know, we sweat more. That's great for our skin. We drink more water. That's again, great for everything.

Obviously, there's a limit to how much people, where people can move at the moment. But, you know, that's where getting a little bit, you know, creative and inventive with things can come in really, really handy. Movement can also have a really interesting, empowering thing in terms of there's this concept that I like to call our realm of possibility, which is everything that we believe that is possible for us. Or you can also see it as everything that we feel that we can be capable of. And very often people have things that they would like to achieve, but which they believe to be outside of their realm of possibility.

And that can exist in all areas of their life. And the best way to get someone better at pushing for things that they believe are outside of their realm, but which are actually within, but potentially just, you know, a challenge for them, you know, that, you know, extending goal where you do have to grow, you do have to learn something or you do have to push yourself. Sometimes, and this is a really common thing that I've seen over the years, when you assist somebody through physical exercise to push beyond that boundary within the space of exercise or within the space of getting strong or within the space of weight loss or looking a certain way or feeling a certain way, it also opens up many more questions for themselves where they're like, oh, wow, you know, I didn't think I could do this. I just did that. I wonder what else I could do,

you know, and it sort of starts to create resilience towards challenges, you know, where they just be like, you know, you start to question more things. You know, I never thought I'd be able to squat X amount or, you know, run this or insert physical thing here, you know, I never thought I'd be able to squat X amount or, you know, run this or insert physical thing here, you know, and because having a trainer is a very, you know, it's quite a common commodity now where a lot of people will have a trainer and over time you help them to challenge themselves and push themselves through their movements into something that they might decide for themselves that they want to achieve. And then they might look back and go, holy shit, I never thought I'd be able to do all those things. And that, you know, we are naturally inquisitive beings. We

always ask more questions, you know, and once something that we might not have questioned in the past just gets torn right open, we start asking many more questions. And that can be a really interesting thing to watch how it just sort of develops over time. I love that. I think that's a massive golden nugget. It reminds me of the breaking of the four-minute mile, which prior to being broken by Roger Bannister was supposedly impossible, was not capable of being done by a human. If they did do it, they would fall over, collapse and die. And after decades of it essentially being impossible, once one person toppled that pillar and was able to do it, all of a sudden, it became kind of the

new norm. And now sub four minute miles are quite normal. And we've seen, you know, sub two hour marathons and essentially just the ability to do something physical. I love this to do something physical that you maybe otherwise didn't think possible as a result of simply training for it will bleed into other areas of your life where you start to ask the question of, well, can I do this thing? Maybe it's like what you've done where you say, can I make the jump from data analysis into being a successful coach? And you go, I sure can because I couldn't lift and now I can do all these things and

I've done competition. So I actually quite like that a lot. But we did kind of avoid the elephant in the room, which is the COVID-19 situation. And there's obviously a lot going on with mental health, particularly for those who are used to lifting, maybe much of their identity is lifting, maybe much of their identity is as an active person, and they don't have their gym, they don't have the weights they would want. What are some things people can do to remain perhaps optimistic and pragmatic, both as a coach, right, but also as somebody who understands

psychology and who's been in the game a long time? Well, there's going to be quite a few things to have to sort of look into with that. I actually wrote an article about that yesterday, which I will link you up when it gets published. It should be up in the next couple of days. That one's sort of angled at fitness professionals specifically, but a lot of the things that I talked about there were concepts that I think can be helpful to everyone. And a lot of the things that I talked about there were concepts that I think can be helpful to everyone. And obviously how much the different parts of it apply to a person will depend upon their individual experience. I mean, some of these things are being spoken about a bit more than others. So one that people are still talking

about a fair bit is around connection. You know, we are, you know, some people are like, yeah, but I'm really introverted. And it's like, yeah, some people are more introverted. Some people are more extroverted. It's, you know, there's plenty of research out there on how complete social isolation, like absolutely nothing is extremely detrimental to our mental health. And I think a really important thing is to look at what your normal life looks like before um sorry normal is a bit of an ugly word but you know your regular day-to-day life um it you know look at what that looked like in terms of quantity of social interactions depth of social interactions and who the real key players of that were and try to emulate that as closely as possible.

You know, it's like, obviously it's been, it's been created a lot in a lot of workplaces through zoom meetings. You know, a lot of trainers have moved to online and done online group classes and all that shebang. But for example, if with your clients, if you know that you used to also have a bit of banter or have some time where you did talk about what was going on for them you need to create space for that you know I think in a way maybe if you know if doing the group sessions does work for your clients then that might be better because they can sort of chit chat to each other which is something that

they might otherwise not have an opportunity to do much of like they might not even know each other, which is something that they might otherwise not have an opportunity to do much of, like they might not even know each other, depending upon what kind of a setup you have. But those deeper one-on-one conversations, if you used to have them, it would be very beneficial to create a system that still allows for that. And that's sort of, you know, between client and trainer. Now between you and your family, you and your other loved ones, you know, between client and trainer. Now between you and your family, you and your other loved ones, you know, if you had, say you got along with, you know, a colleague of yours who you spoke to them every day and now you haven't spoken to them in weeks and you guys miss each other and you send each other memes, but you just haven't gotten on the, you know, on the phone to

chat or gotten on a video, just find a time and schedule it, you know, because it's one of those things where people are either really, really busy or they're really, really not. And both of those situations are leading to the same outcome, which is overwhelm. And that ties into another piece of what I spoke about in that article, which is around routine and creating a routine. I mean, particularly trainers who are on the floor, you live by the clock. Every hour or every 45 minutes, your day starts over. You might repeat some stories about what's happened to you in the last week over and over again and repeat it as if you've said it for the first time. You're so used to being, I see this client, this client,

this client, I go, I eat, I pee, I come back, I do this client, this client, this client, I go off, I train, I eat, and suddenly you're like, oh my God, I'm staring at the abyss. And the abyss is staring back. To have no routine can actually be extremely overwhelming and it can be very counterintuitive because people will go, well, I have all day to do these things. I have less things to do than I used to. Why can't I get anything done? And it comes down to our ability for decision-making. You know, I can't, I'll be perfectly honest. I cannot remember the exact numbers of what the estimates are because I read it quite some time ago, but we have limited capacity for things like this thing is very

amazing, but it has its limits just like anything else. You know, we can only make so many decisions in a day before we start to experience fatigue and we start to struggle to make good decisions. The idea of making decisions starts to be stressful. We just don't want to, we get overwhelmed and we just make a pillow fort and just cry and hide, you know, and suddenly you're like five hours deep into a Star Wars, you know, binge and, you know, a bag of popcorn and you're like, oh, well, there goes my day. So a lot of what you can look at, the difference between those two days is that one had a very clear schedule.

The other one required you to make a decision for every single thing you do from the moment you get up day to day. And that's very stressful, you know, because while you might not need to get to work, you might not need to see every single client. You still have to do a lot of things in your day. Even if you are currently unemployed or have many less clients or, you know, you're doing whatever you can to change your business model, you do still have a lot to do in your day. Even things like what time do you get up? What time do you eat breakfast? When do you cook? When do you go get groceries? Even the literal things, if you don't create a set time for them, it won't happen. Something that one of my early on mentors insisted upon me when I first started as a PT on the gym floor like six and a

half years ago. He said, you have to put a scheduled time to train into your calendar because it won't happen otherwise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Three weeks later, I'm like, okay, I've done it. I haven't trained in three weeks. You were right. Because what you don't allocate time to, you're already setting yourself up at a massive disadvantage for it to just not happen you know and it's just because when you have no plan you know it's the same thing as how we tell our clients you know to meal prep to plan what they're going to eat it's it's it's more of the same and so you know i really advise that you create a schedule for yourself even if it's only for a few things, you know, even if it feels a bit pointless, just it's refreshing to go,

okay, my alarm will go off at this time every day. That's when I get up. This is the order in which I do my morning routine. And I just do that. And then you're like, oh, it's 10 AM. I've got my cup of coffee and I've done all the morning menial tasks and I'm fresh because I haven't had to make any decisions. You only had to do it once. Set it all up, your computer or your phone or whatever tells you what to do and away you trot. So that's a really important one as well. Hey guys, just wanted to take a quick second to say thanks so much for listening to the podcast. And if you're finding value, it would mean the world to me if you would share it on your social media. Simply screenshot whatever

platform you're listening to and share the episode to your Instagram story or share it to Facebook. But be sure to tag me so I can say thanks and we can chat it up about what you liked and how I can continue to improve. Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. Another one that I really spoke to that I think this one is really not spoken about much, which is a sense of purpose, particularly with trainers and people who enjoy community, who enjoy service, helping others. You know, that's one of the biggest reasons why most people become trainers and coaches. You want to serve others. If you've now been told, you know, that's one of the biggest reasons why most people become trainers and coaches. You want to serve others. If you've now been told, you know, you've pretty much gone, I want to serve others.

And the universe said, no, that's shit. Like that feels really tough because you get up every day. You know, when I think back to when I was a data analyst, you know, I made decent money. I had lovely colleagues. You know, I made decent money. I had lovely colleagues. And the thing that made me stare into that abyss and it stare back was one, the idea that I was like, oh my God, I can see what my life will look like when I'm 50. And that's just a lot of what happens when you don't work directly with people.

Things become very predictable. You know, people are fantastically unpredictable. They're such an adventure. You know, I always used to joke and say that they're kind of like a data spreadsheet except if you get the algorithm wrong it explodes which people some people find funny other people get really scared but that's a different story um but you know the the unpredictability of people is really beautiful but also my life lacked meaning and that's going to be where a lot of trainers are going to feel that they are at the moment, particularly if they feel that either their jobs have come to an end or if they feel

like they are not able to serve their customers in a way that they think is to the quality that they wish it could be. And the truth is some people are going to be able to keep bolstering up their online services and keep doing that. Other people are not. There's actually going to be able to keep bolstering up their online services and keep doing that. Other people are not. There's actually going to be situations where it's not practical to do that. Whether someone is very new to the industry or their financial situation doesn't allow for them to adapt to online, or they just think that, you know what, I'd rather put my head down for now, just be ready to rumble again once gyms open. Because some people just don't want to go online and that's completely fine as well. Something that's not going to feel okay is that if someone has come into the industry wanting to serve, wanting to help others,

and now they see that there's this enormous amount of existential angst and pain through the entire globe and they feel like they can't do anything to help, that's going to fuck your internal shit up like there's no tomorrow. And that's where a lot of what I wrote about in that article was around the concept of finding other ways to create purpose for yourself. Even if you're sitting at home all day, you might want to spend some time doing some research, learning stuff. You might want to check up on your clients, you know, just give them a quick call once a week. See, you know, this is obviously if people are waiting it out to get back on the floor, call them once a week, just for five

minutes to see how they are, you know, check in on neighbors who might be a little bit older. Do they need anything? Do they need help with groceries? You know, they might not be able to access things that they absolutely need. I'm obviously not sure how it goes from one place to another, but I mean, I've had some friends and clients also in different cities who've been making masks. A lot of people are making a massive priority to try and donate blood as often as possible, because that's a massive issue at the moment because so many people are not going outside to donate because they don't even realize that it's something that we can still do and obviously because we have so many sick people there will be circumstances where that is needed for someone who

isn't necessarily suffering from COVID but it's someone who lands in hospital for whatever other reason because accidents do still happen it's like the universe hasn't stopped, but they might not have access because there's so much less supply compared to normal. And those are just some examples of what I, you know, what I have seen has helped a lot of people to cope. But, you know, there's Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, you know, if you want to have a bit of a quick read around this concept of rather than just humans in search of achievement, you know, or even humans in search of connection, there's humans in search of meaning, which is a, you know, becoming an increasingly, you know, commonly supported thing that, you know, we do seek meaning, which is why when sometimes

people reach that point of life has no meaning, they can have a real, you know, psychological bender, you know, at the other end of that. So that was a lot of what I really spoke about. I know there was one other part, but I'm stalling because I can't remember what it was and it'll come when I least expect it. No, you're good. I love it because I've talked to a lot of different fitness professionals,

fitness enthusiasts, my own clients, friends who like working out. And everybody came back to the same sentiment of like, man, there are just days that I wake up and I have the whole day empty and I can't get thing done. And I see so many people in our space, and we could talk about this as well, that simply parrot the do what you do today so you'll get through this and tomorrow you'll have everything perfect and if you don't grind right now you're going to regret it and you know that's in some semblance true but it's not very actionable for somebody who like you said is waking up and

they're dealing with the you know sense of trauma that oh my gosh I feel helpless I want to help I have no schedule and I just love the idea of simply putting a few things on your calendar that can generate some momentum and help you get away from that constant crushing feeling of, I have to decide exactly what to do right now. I haven't heard anybody articulate it like that. I thought that was excellent. And I'm going to start doing this more than I already am. Because to me, that's something that's very actionable and that pretty much anybody could do regardless of what they're doing, where they're working, how they're working, what they're missing. A lot of people are feeling like they have a ton of things they could be working on, but they just can't seem to do it.

I've heard that time and time again. So I love that. And it kind of speaks to your ability to communicate. You're a very good communicator. You're a very good speaker. You're also quite a good writer, which is something that a lot of people in the fitness space struggle with. Do you have any advice for fitness professionals, particularly trainers, and honestly, just anybody in regards to becoming a confident communicator? Because I find particularly, and this isn't a shot at women, confident communicator because I find particularly, and this isn't a shot at women, but particularly with women, there's tends to be less, a little bit less confidence in communication and you communicate so well and so confidently. I think that a lot of people would benefit from perhaps hearing how it was you went about garnering that skillset over the last couple of years or decades.

Absolutely. You know, and I'll also sort of, I agree with like, you know, the fact that women do have it harder in the industry. And I think that bodybuilding and a lot of aesthetics has an awful lot to play a role in that because I mean, I felt this particularly when I was first starting in the industry where you sort of have this dichotomy where when you try to take the intellectual route, it's very, very difficult to get traction. And it took me a really long time. And then I was like, oh, fuck it. Why don't I do a little bit of both? Because the truth is, and any girl who has at some point gotten relatively lean, who's in the fitness industry will have evidence that supports this. You put up a bikini shot, you get instant traction and it just like, it's despairing to your soul because

it's just like, is this really what I have to do? You know? So, so true. I've heard this. Yeah. Oh yeah. And the answer is you can, but it doesn't have to be all you do. And it doesn't have to be something that you do at all if you don't want to, you know, it's just one of those things where on the one hand, sex does sell. And it's really interesting because when you really start looking at things, it happens to men as well. It just tends to be a little bit more subtle, um, you know, because we look better in a bikini, you know, that's, that's just, that's just, you know because we look better in a bikini you know that's that's just that's just you know you know but you know it's one of those things where the truth is yes sex does sell but if you also want to be respected in terms of your intellect if you're trying to play a short

game you're probably not going to do so well anyway because if you're trying to make it really quick you're going to try and really quick, you're going to try and make it before you have the experience or the knowledge to communicate anything worthwhile anyway. You know, when I first started within my first one or two months of being a trainer, one of my major goals was to be published in T Nation. And it only came true five years later. Now, if I'd been interested in short-term goal with that, I never would have done it. I never would have made it because I emailed them and got no response. I asked everyone to see if anyone knew anyone, no one knew anyone had been published. No one

knew how to do it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was because I hadn't been shaking enough trees for enough amount of time yet at that point in time. Eventually I found a way, but really for anybody who wants to be a good communicator or become well known for being a good communicator in any sense of the word, you just need experience. Like there's no way around that. You know, I already had one unfair advantage over everyone, which I didn't mention before, which is before starting psychology, I did a year of media and communications. So I did have some formal training for writing. But even after that, I still think that my other education helped me a lot more. When I backtrack back to my high school days, I did a specific subject, which was on

communication for science, which is essentially teaching you how to translate nerd to normal person. If anyone can find any course locally to them that looks anything like that, which is about learning how to read technical stuff and learning how to turn that into infotainment, that's probably going to be your most powerful tool as a fitness professional because no one gives a fuck how many anatomical terms you know. I go out of my way to forget as many as possible because I understand there's limited space in here and I want it to go with stuff that can allow me to help other people.

If I point to this or if I give you 10 different fancy names, you're going to get the same message. But this makes much more sense to someone who doesn't want to remember those names either. You know, at the end of the day, when it comes to communication, you don't want to sound fancy. You don't actually want to use too many technical fancy words. You want to be concise and you want to make sure that it will make sense. If I go to hand this to someone who's never set foot in a gym, it should make sense to them. To someone who doesn't give a shit about training whatsoever,

they should understand what I'm trying to say. They might not necessarily engage with the content because they just don't care. So that might not be your audience, but they should be able to read it and go, I understand what you're saying. And that was actually a skill that I picked up on when I was studying. One of the things that they recommended to us as I was writing my thesis was to find someone who didn't have a scientific background at all to read my first draft. And they go, look, they obviously won't understand the results section because that's like insane p values and tables and all this shit that makes no sense to anyone who doesn't care about statistics but they were like the introduction is all theoretical your method is pretty much

telling them what you're going to do your discussion is telling them what you found out and what what it means and why it matters they should be able to understand all of that. If they can't, you fucked up. And so I went and gave it to my friend who was a history major. And she was like, that's the most boring thing I've ever read, but I get what you're saying. And I'm like, cool, that's perfect. Yeah, I love all that. And I think you said something that a lot of people just plain won't admit, which is that it is harder for women to gain traction as an intellectual in not just the fitness space, but in every space. It's kind of baked into society. But I found in a lot of the guys I know that are trying to build traction,

some of my guy friends, they say, man, I wish I could just take a picture in a bikini and then I'd wake up with a million followers. And it's like, okay, yes, I understand where you're coming from. But I really like that you broached the issue that there are a lot of women who want to gain traction as intellectuals in this space. As somebody who's hired and trained quite a few trainers, I have actually found that if the space needs more coaches, they should probably be female. Not because it's not an issue of qualification, but it goes back to our original topic of communicating and connecting with people at an emotional level. And I found in general, without any training, women tend to be a little bit better at active

listening and some of the psychological support that people need to make physical change. And so just hearing somebody who's accomplished a great deal say it is hard, but it can be done is quite encouraging, particularly for a lot of women out there who I know might say, man, I'm really resistant to doing the bikini pick because I want to be an intellect and I want to be a coach. I don't want to be an influencer, if you will. So I just think that's really nice. And it's super special. And I think it's part of kind of what's helped you be successful. But beyond that, what are some other things you've done perhaps with the way you coach, the way you connect your clients, the way you run your business that have kind of helped you build traction and take off in a way that a lot of coaches probably would want to emulate? In terms of me personally, a lot of what I've done

is never stopped learning. You know, I try to make sure that I do or participate in at least two to three major experiences, which early on were always me attending courses. Later on, major experiences, which early on were always me attending courses. Later on, it's sometimes been me presenting at other events. The wonderful thing about presenting at conferences is that you go and teach about one little thing that you know about, and then you go and attend another 25 of those. And you're like, oh, my brain, my brain, it hurts so much. And that can be really amazing. You know, and sometimes it can also mean being coached by other coaches. I've done stuff with Brett Contreras. I just did three months with John Russen. It's just keep working through the ranks. Sometimes it can be really good to seek a mentor that you want to work with long term. And I actually have a long term business mentor as well, Nick Tominello. long-term and I actually have a long-term business mentor as well, Nick Tominello. And that was, you know, directly related to what assisted me to be published in T Nation specifically because the truth is they're big dogs, you know, and when you're not a big dog,

you got to work your way through, you know, you got to work your way through ranks and talk to people who have done it, you know, and talk to multiple people who have done it and find out how they did it and do what they did. And then once you've done all of that and jumped through all the hoops, you can also have that rite of passage. Because at the end of the day, you know, it doesn't matter how great you think you are. At the end of the day, people who are that established are going to give preference to the people who demonstrate loyalty, hard work, experience, and who come with that vote of confidence from someone that they trust. Because if they don't know you, they're like, well, why should I trust you? Why should they? They don't have any reason to do that. They don't owe you anything, which is another very

interesting thing to sort of remember as an aside as a coach, which is like, no one owes you shit. You know, you have to go out and earn it. And that can mean shaking trees and sometimes sucking at things. You know, I've done some things where it's gone amazingly. I've done some other things where it went well and I hated it. I've done some things where I loved it and I absolutely sucked. And I've done stuff where I didn't enjoy it and neither did anyone else. All of those things will happen. And if you try to avoid all of those negative experiences, you're going to have to say no to so many more things.

And you're probably never going to get a real feel for what it is that you actually want to do. And so that's one of like some of the stuff that has helped me the most for my own personal development, which then has given me, you know, an acute eye for detail and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, lots of different experience in terms of different coaching styles. And, you know, with each person that I work with, I pick up on a few different things that I'm like, Ooh, that's nice. I'll integrate that. And I'll integrate that. I'll integrate that. You know, I never want to aim to completely emulate one person's style because, well, they can just go work with that person. They do it better than I do. It's about learning and integrating into what you already do. And that comes with a certain level of getting yourself to the level where you actually trust

yourself as a coach as well to go, this is my foundation. This is something interesting I've learned. I'm going to take that part and that part from that person because they're really interesting. And they're the ones that I feel can most add to what I already am doing. Now, in terms of working with your actual clients, everyone's going to have a different style in which they do things. Something that I really like to emphasize on, on top of the obvious, you know, meet your deadlines, don't be shit, give them the programs, blah, blah, blah. All of that solid stuff where everyone kind of has

an understanding. You got to do that stuff. It's called doing your job. That's all cool. Something that I really try to do on top of that is create a sense of community. Because at the end of the day, dealing one-on-one with the coach can be, you know, can be entertaining. It can be fun in of itself, but you have a limit to how much of your time you can spend with each one person. And so if the entire experience consists just of them running off, doing their whatever it is they need to do, their workouts, their meal planning, blah, blah, blah, coming back and talking to you, it's a bit one-dimensional. But if you can create a certain platform or system or some way to have community amongst your clients, they can also interact amongst themselves. And that just opens up so many opportunities in terms of, oh, hey, I found this really

interesting article. Maybe it'll be interesting to everyone else. I'm having this concern. What has anyone else had experience with this? Oh, I've done this. I've done this. I've done this. Something that I've done is a very simple tool. Just created a Facebook group and just encouraged people sometimes. And it can take a little bit of effort to get people working with it. But it might mean a client tells you something, oh, wow, that's really awesome. This person, this person, and this person might benefit from that. Do you mind posting that to the group? Of course. And then you go and tag a few people, go, hey, you might really like this. You might really like this. And then when people start to see

the behavior, they start to copy it and then they start to do it too. And then suddenly other people who might not have been too involved start to look at it and go, oh my God, everyone's getting along really well. I want in on that too. And suddenly you've just created this support network where they can inadvertently support each other just through being there. I love that. And I think that those are all actionable tips. The thing that I think we've really covered today that a lot of people might miss if I don't bring it up is just the way in which you've communicated things in a pretty digestible way. And you put those systems into your business, the way you communicate with clients, the way in which you've communicated things in a pretty digestible way. And you put those systems into your business, the way you communicate with clients, the way you communicate with me.

I think that's really, really valuable. And it kind of, it's the psychology wildcard shining again, kind of throughout the whole thing. But it was a really, really valuable discussion. And if people want to find you and they want to find your work, where is the best place to do that? Probably the best thing to do at the moment is to find me on Instagram. I do have a website. It is ancient. It is in my to-do list of things to do over the next little while. Something that I do specifically want to work on around communication and writing and branding and all of that is my own course that I'm going to be developing over the next few months. Again, that's low priority when the world decides to do a trial run of Armageddon. So obviously, I've had to put that in the important but not urgent

bucket. Instagram is definitely the easiest. I will respond to any messages through there. I'm always attached to my phone. So that's definitely the easiest one. You know, just my name, Susie Natal, just all together, no dots, no underscores, no numbers, no fancy things. And yeah, I'm always on that. Excellent. Well, Susie, I think that'll do it for today. And I'll make sure to link everything in the show notes for people below, especially these articles. I'll link your Instagram so they can find you. And then we'll probably have you on again as you get closer to launching this course. Love it. Awesome. That was really fun. Cool. Thanks, Susie. All right, guys. So I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Susie,

somebody who I really just enjoy talking to. She's got a great personality. She's got a great demeanor and she really does a nice job of incorporating that psychological element and mental health into fitness. And I think that's something that's really important. So for those of you who are just fitness enthusiasts, there was a lot to pull from this, but for you coaches out there, this one might be one worth coming back to again and again, so you can increase your ability to connect with people and help people reach their goals. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you could do me just one favor, if you enjoyed this episode, screenshot it, share it to your Instagram story and tag me. It's a great way for me to get feedback from you. I will regularly message people who share this stuff back,

and I'd love it if you could help me share the podcast. It helps me reach more people and change more lives, which is the mission I am on. Thank you so much for listening and have a good one.