Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2147: Why the Fitness/Health Industry is FAILING

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover five reason why the fitness and health industry is failing. Is the health & fitness space getting better or are we, as an industry, getting worse? (1:59) Will the cream rise to the top? (5:15) The problem with having a scarcity mindset. (11:17) 5 Reasons Why the Fitness/Health Industry is FAILING.  #1 - We communicate “perfect” too much. (13:43) #2 - We are condescending. (26:05) #3 - Zero empathy. (31:10) #4   Echo chamber. (33:40) #5 - We perpetuate righteousness or beauty too much. (40:11) Related Links/Products Mentioned For a limited time, NCI is offering its comprehensive Coach's Toolkit at no cost for Mind Pump listeners! Don't wait too long, grab this opportunity now! Visit www.ncimindpump.com/toolkit to get your free toolkit. Special Launch Promotion: MAPS Old Time Strength for $80 Off (Retail $177, Includes 2 eBooks: Forgotten Muscle & Strength Building Secrets, PLUS Jay Campbell’s Living a Fully Optimized Life.  30 Day money back guarantee // Ends Sunday, August 27th. **Code OLD80 at checkout** August Promotion: MAPS Anabolic Advanced 50% off! **Code AUGUST50 at checkout** Mind Pump #1715: Ten Mistakes Fitness Trainers Make Mind Pump #2025: How To Be A Successful Fitness Coach With Jason Phillips Mind Pump #1985: The 6 Types Of Fitness Influencers You Should Unfollow Mind Pump #2067: Seven Huge Business Mistakes Fitness Influencers Make Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast in the world. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we talk about why health is getting worse and why the fitness and health and wellness industry is failing at improving health. This episode is brought to you by our sponsor NCI. This is a coaching company that teaches fitness professionals, trainers, and coaches how

to become better at what they do and how to build a better business. And right now, if you go to NCI-mindpump.com forward slash tool kit, here's what they're going to hook you up with. First off, it's a top-notch certification course for online coaches and trainers, also incredible resource for building a successful coaching business. And then for a limited time, they're offering their comprehensive coaches tool kit at no cost. So it's free.

So it comes with a bunch of plug-and-play systems designed to elevate your business, everything for mastering social media content creation to effective client onboarding, there's even a unique ebook called client results framework. It's an all-in-one resource. It's totally free. Again, it's ncyminepump.com forward slash tool kit. Go check it out. Also, we are launching a brand new workout program. because it's brand new we have a discount code So it's on sales check this out. It's called maps old-time strength. It's a program designed around how bronze era athletes Built their incredible bodies. So it's very different. It's very fun. Of course very effective if you're interested Go to maps oldtime.com use the code old 80 that'll give you $80 off. Plus you'll get two free ebooks, forgotten muscle and strength building secrets, and J Campbell's living

a fully optimized life. By the way, the sale ends Sunday, August 27th. So take advantage. All right, here comes a show. For all intents and purposes, the health, fitness, and wellness industry is failing. Look, it's intended goal is to help people improve their health, get leaner, stronger, more fit, more healthy, and yet people are worse. Worst health, more obesity, more mobility issues. Look, I hate to admit this, but we're sucking right now. We are losing this battle, and in today's episode, we're going admit this, but we're sucking right now. We are losing this battle. And in today's episode, we're going to talk about why we're losing this battle. And if

you work in the space, listen carefully, we're going to talk about what we can do to work together to turn the tide of this war. Do you think we're getting worse or better? Health is worse. Chronic health. That's a fact. There's no debate on whether we're getting healthier or unhealthy at a faster rate. That's no debate. But the debate to be had is the health and fitness space getting better or are we getting worse? You know, I don't know how you would judge that. Well, part of the factor has to be whether the majority is getting healthier. That's the only way. So that's, well, I don't think that's, I think there's more to it to be whether the majority is getting healthier. That's the only way. I don't think there's more to it, right?

There's still some accountability. What else would you look at? I mean, how we deliver the message and the information that we're presenting and the science evolving, things like that, I think there's ways to measure that or at least discuss it. I go back and forth on whether I think that we are better as an industry or we are worse. It's hard to say where we would be

if the health fitness and wellness industry didn't exist. Like, okay, so we're getting worse. We're getting fatter, we're sicker, chronic health issues are getting worse. Would that be even worse? If this industry, that's a hard thing to... You have to at least ask. Give it that much credit that there's potential

that it could have been. I mean, two times maybe, right? I mean, we know enough people where health and fitness change are life that it helped them. But if we just use this simple, and I know it's too black, it might be too black and white, but if we use this simple criteria like, across the board are people healthier or less healthy today than they were 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago?

And the answer is they're worse. And so if our goal is to turn the tide and get people from getting worse, then we are losing. And unfortunately, maybe it's a battle that can't be won. I don't know, but I can definitely, there's definitely things we're doing wrong. Do you think there's a unifying message out there in terms of definitely not? Right?

I definitely not. That's a big problem. I guess that's where my concern is. And I think it's very reflective of just how we consume information now because there's so much good information, but there's always a counterpoint. There's always an undermining philosophy there somewhere that somebody is angling to get

you to purchase something or be more inclined to go in that direction of training or nutrition or it seems very fractured in terms of our space, in terms of our overall message of just for your average person, here's how you get healthy. Oh no, 100%. It's disjointed. It's scattered. Look, this is not a secret.

If you're fighting an opponent, right, you're against another army. One of the most effective strategies that you could do to win is to cause or create or drive infighting amongst your enemy. Get the different tribes and groups to start arguing and fighting each other. Well, they can't win a war if they're fighting each other. All we do in our space is this. Like if I say the wellness, health, fitness, and performance segments of our space. First off, all of those, most of the time are at odds with each other.

Within those spaces, people are at odds with each other. And they're the ones that are putting out and competing for consumers, so they continue to put their information out. And who typically wins the one that can present the information in the most cool, catchy way. The loser is the average person because if they try to navigate, look, this is literally the reason why we started the podcast was exactly what I'm talking about.

We worked with clients for decades and all of them were so frustrated in navigating the space. Like, there's so much counter information. I mean, you have the health space, which is, I guess you would consider the medical health space, right? Doctors, nurses, traditional kind of would be considered your traditional health.

Then you have wellness. Then you have fitness. You're right. That's a point. That's been rough. That all of these spaces, there's stuff in common that they could bring together and push forward if they just learn how to work together.

But that's not what's happening. I think that's a big reason why. Money's involved, that's why. There's money in dividing and conquering. There's money in making, villainizing somebody else's method or ideology. And so, so long as we're motivated by money and rewarded for doing those things. It's I don't know if it ever gets solved, you know, I mean in a in a free market society, the only thing you can help hope for is that the best idea. Yeah, the best ideas and message eventually, you know, rises to the top and wins. I think that but I think that we're in this interesting time right now with health and

fitness. I mean, it was in our lifetime when it was not a popular thing. Early on when we were younger kids, it's a like that. It wasn't an industry. It wasn't really a space. There wasn't even a lot of money in it. It's been relatively new that it's exploded and turned into like legitimately a place that you can build serious wealth and you get a great career in. That didn't exist just two, three decades ago.

So, we're going through this growth phase of part of that is weeding out all the bad information and the charlatans and stuff like that. And of course, a lot of them are gonna make a lot of money on the rise of the industry, but you got a hope that again, that the cream rises to the top and eventually out competes the bad eye.

You know what's sad about this whole thing? It took me, well, I figured this out kind of early on. I know you guys did too, because you guys had good careers and you managed other people. I realized, especially when I had my wellness studio, that if I worked with other people, if I wasn't always just trying to battle everybody and really try to communicate the message that we all had in common, I didn't lose customers. I don't have anything, I got more.

More, yeah. If any, I got more business from doing it that way. Fitness and health is a lifestyle. So really, that's the only way to do it in both that both hits the success, that actually helps a person, but also hits the success in the sense that makes you financially successful.

Otherwise what happens, and this is what we're stuck in in our space, is who can catch the next fad? Who's gonna come out with the next trendy something? And what they're doing is they're capturing this moment of motivation that people get into when they feel bad about themselves, which doesn't last eventually they go off. And what they're all doing is fighting over that who can capture people when they're in that moment of self-hate. And nobody is trying to figure out how we can solve this forever, how

we can get people in this journey and make this a lifestyle. And the result of which is number one, it's a big industry, but it could be bigger. It could be bigger. The health fitness and wellness industry, let me ask you guys a question. Of all the industries that exist, which one is positioned best within them, positioned best to solve our health issues, right? It's that. It could be so much bigger than it is if everybody just figured it out that if we work together,

not only is are we going to succeed at getting people healthy in real ways, we'll all make more money as a result of it. I mean, here's your evidence right now. Your average gym charges how much per month? It's like 20 bucks a month to go to a gym and have access to all this equipment. They know you're not gonna show up. How much is a cell phone cost? Or how much do people spend on Starbucks?

Why is this happening? Because we suck. We suck at providing value. Really, if people really understood the value, Jim's would be, it would be a much different market and there'd be a lot more specialty. Especially economy, healthy people, in terms of our healthcare system in general, like it's going to help in that direction.

You know, there's just so many benefits to greater products, healthy people. A healthy person that's out in society that's going to have a healthy outlook and is going to be a vibrant, energetic person that's looking to benefit people around them versus kind of where we're at right now, which is again, we're so disjointed and you brought up even just the medical industry too, and like how fractured that's been over the past few years and just the type of service like we're providing people now

and how that's all changed. And so yeah, we have a very big uphill battle in terms of, but it all starts here. It all starts with that ownership of like your own efforts that go in towards your own health and how to make those healthy habits and how to stick with those healthy habits. I do think there is a unique characteristic to the fitness industry that perpetuates this problem. That's different than most other spaces. Not that it does not in other spaces,

but I think it's the amount of people in our space. It's unique how great the percentage is. And that's the scarcity mindset. Yeah. I feel like in our space, it's greater than any other space. And I think that has a lot to do with the type of person that's attracted to the space, to be a voice or to build a business in it.

I think most of us were driven by deeply rooted insecurities and the things that made us quote unquote successful at fitness are those insecurities. And a lot of times the natural progression to that is to then build a business or start a company or work for a company related to that feel because it's helped you so much. But in reality, you have it moved beyond that insecurity and so that you operate from a place of scarcity. And I just think that's greater in our space

than anywhere else. You know what's funny is that when I first started, I value or I rated my success as a trainer by the dollars of training that I could sell every month. How many people I could sign up? And what was the amount of revenue that I could generate? And it wasn't that long before I started to realize that I could sign up people all day long, I'm very convincing, I could whatever, but people were not maintaining what we had

accomplished together on their own. They just couldn't. My fail rate was as high as everybody else's feel. I could just sign up more people. And I remember looking at that, you talk about the same thing out of them, where you're looking at it and you're like, I'm really not a good trainer

if this is what's happening. And when I changed my approach to sustainability, longevity, really getting this person to really figure this out, I didn't lose sales. I made more sales. That's what I'm trying to communicate to people in our space that are watching right now is this is not a sacrifice of your business. Your business will grow if you do it this way,

we have this weird skewed idea that if I do it in the right way, I'm not going to sell as much. I'm not going to make as much. Not true. You'll do better if you do it this way. So the first thing, I think, the first big mistake that all of us make, especially the people that seem to get the most views and eyes, is that we communicate perfect too much. Like, we get so in the weeds with, wait 90 minutes before you drink your coffee, get 15 minutes of sun exposure, make sure you eat your food

and it comes from these sources and chew your food in this particular way and make sure you stand up for at least five minutes after whatever and grass fed. No, it's fish, no, it's vegan, no, this nutrient, no, it's that nutrient, it's like, we communicate perfect so much that the average person we lost them completely. Because they're so far from perfect

that if I communicate to the average person, oh yeah, what you need to do is you need to lift weights four days a week and then three days a week you need to do specific cardio. Every day you need to do mobility. I mean, I lost you already. You're like, well, I don't even work out once a week. There's no way I could do all that.

You know, I'm done. And so I end up just talking to a bunch of other fitness fanatics. We're not extending a hand or just standing on a pedestal looking down. Oh, that's what it looks like. What a great analogy. Well, we also care too much about how perfect we sound versus how, how, this is why, too, you see situations where, you know, and, you know, get a really intelligent or experienced, knowledgeable fitness expert who is putting down, you know, some Insta-famous kid who's got a lot of people

that they're helping and supporting, but the truth is that kid is found a way to help more people than this person who has got a higher education, more experienced, and their angle is to put that person down versus looking and going like, what is he doing that I'm not doing to communicate to the masses like that. And of course, they'll default right away to the, oh, he's just, you know, showing his fancy cars and he's doing all these things that are just, but it's like there's also

something in there that they're communicating around health and fitness that is breaking through to a group of people that that other person isn't getting through to. You know, we had someone, I don't know if you guys saw this last week, somebody asked me a question on my live Q&A. And it was, they asked me if I get really mad about the people that come on our, my input media IG and answer the questions,

you ever noticed like on our quads? They're trying to scour for a lot of time. Yeah, and they're trying to poach clients off of that. And I said, no, it doesn't bother me at all. And I said, it reminds me when people used to ask me or used to think that I was crazy for allowing other trainers to train my clients. They'd always say to me, like, aren't you worried

that the trainer is going to shark your people and they'd always say to me, like, aren't you worried that the trainer's gonna shark your people and they're not gonna come back to you just like the same question that the people are gonna shark these people and we're not gonna get it. It's like, the way I look at it is like, that's a great reflection of myself. And like, if somebody else can get on our IG and communicate the information that we've been busing

our ass well. Better than us. Better than us. Yeah, shame on us. To help that person. been busing our ass. Better than us. Better than us. Yeah, shame on us. To help that person. Yeah. Did it's a win. Right.

Yeah. And it also serves as an educational tool for me. Like, oh, wow, I could get better at communicating that because this person came on my IG and said a few things and won that person over after all the stuff that we've put out, put out for free and tried to help people. I don't look at that as like, oh, you're trying to poach me or, oh man, it's gonna hurt my business.

I look at it as like, oh, I could be better about how I communicate that. I just think that I think that's rare in our space. I think the natural reaction for most fitness peoples to have this knee jerk reaction and go like, oh, fuck you and like turn it into this like competition with each other. When it's like, wait a second, if we both agree that the goal is to help as many people as possible and somebody else comes on my page or somebody else finds a way to communicate

that information, to get these people to change their behaviors for the good and they move the right direction. I don't look at that as like a competition thing. I look at that as an opportunity to me for getting even better at communicating this information. 100%. And you don't lose that client, by the way. You know when you lose clients, when they sense that you're afraid of them getting better information, and you try to suck them.

I remember distinctly switching how I approached health and fitness in regards to this early in my career. I did this way too often in the beginning. Somebody would come to me, they'd tell me they only have a couple days a week they could work out or they don't want to change their diet just yet or whatever. And I would sit there and try to convince them to make all the changes now. I would sit there and communicate perfect.

Like I know you only said you could work out twice a week, but really if you worked out four days a week here's what you could do. And I know you don't want to touch your diet, but let me just show you what we could do if we change this, that, follow the meal plan. Otherwise, it's a waste of time. I remember saying stuff like that. And either I would convince them, and then they fail, okay, shortly after, or I would blow them out, and they wouldn't sign up with me. And then I would feel good about it. Like, well, they weren't serious, type of deal. And when I had that, you know, that kind of self-reflection, like, am I really helping people?

This was one of the first things that I changed. I'll never forget, is my favorite example I've used this before, I had a client come in, referred to me by one of my doctor clients. He used to train doctors and at some point, they started referring to me patients. And this particular doctor had been working on this patient trying to get her in for a long time. Tell her, hey, look, you need to work out. It'll be good for you

when this person's like, so anti-gem, I hate that atmosphere, I hate the whole thing, whatever, finally convinced her. She came in to see me. And I remember that I had other trainers sitting at desks next to me when this all happened. So she comes in, I introduce myself, first words out of her mouth. I'm only working out one day a week. I'm not doing anything on my own and I'm not touching my diet. And I don't want to get sore. And I remember hearing Snickers from the trainers behind me thinking I was going to blow her out. And I said, no problem. We'll start that way.

Now, I had learned at this point that if I'm going to convince this person to do anything more than what they're committed to, my best chance would be to get them in within whatever they told me they can do and then show them something, show them something, give them a good experience and that's what happened. I said, yeah, no problem. And I remember the look on the person's face when I said that, she was shocked. She thought I was an anteler, don't bother. And I give her a nice reason to not come in. She said, yeah, no problem. Once a week's financial, she's like, it is. So yeah, we could, are you doing anything now? She said, no, I said, well, once a week's more than what you're doing now,

you'll definitely get stronger. We don't have to touch your diet to improve your strength. Of course, if you worked on diet, probably we get better, but that's okay. I'll start where you're at. You'll come in. You probably, you might get a little sore the first time as we start to figure out the right intensity, but then soreness is not something I aim for. And we have this wonderful conversation. She signed up and literally this is how it worked out for a year I trained her once a week. Then she asked if I could train another day a week. Then she asked if she could have exercises to do on her own. Then she said, how do I cut sugar out of my diet?

Then she said I should cut heavily processed foods out of my diet. So over the course of three years completely transformed this woman's life. And she became somebody where this was a part of my diet. So over the course of three years, completely transformed this woman's life, and she became somebody where this was a part of her life. Had I not approached that out, had I communicated perfect to her, she would have never started, we would have lost her forever. Well, it's an interesting sort of philosophical conundrum.

I think a lot of trainers when they first start, like they wanna show their worth so much and they wanna be so involved with all these decisions. And really, it's very condescending because the person coming in, you don't think that they didn't think maybe some more time carved out in their day would probably help or like,

maybe I should get more sleep or maybe I should move this meeting and so I can have more work out. They've thought of all those things already. So you can do a lot in terms of the beginning of that might be their thought. It's like, well, I got to go hire a coach. I got to have them tell me what to do. I got to have them provide me with just a meal plan or something that's like, here's these things and I'm just going to follow this and it's not their idea. They didn't come to conclude that. They didn't find themselves there.

So this is, none of this is their journey. This is just something that you've conjured up and written for them and what you find out later as you mature as a trainer is that you have to you have to work with them on their journey to find where that path is taking them. Totally. And so you foster that all the way through from the very beginning wherever they are. So you're able to shape and cultivate that for them instead of just stamping it. Here's all the answers to the test boom, just following.

Well, what's more effective, a client showing up because you're basically forcing them to show up to an extra day, or the client coming in an extra day because that's their idea. That's a leadership question, right? Managing out of fear versus on motivation, does it support that? Yeah, no. I was gonna ask, what you guys think is the out of fear versus on motivation, does support that? Yeah, no.

I was gonna ask, what you guys think is the root cause of that? Like what caused us, we all experienced that, we all probably came from a place like that. Is it go back to the insecurity? Is it, I'm so insecure about my knowledge because I'm so green and new, and so I feel I need to be authoritative, and I have to tell you like,

this is what you need to do, like, oh, one day a week, that's not gonna get you. I think that's part of it. But I also think if you have good intentions, you look at the person and you know how big of an impact, like good health would have with this person. And so you just wanna give them all the answers. You just wanna tell them, oh my God,

you really wanna do this? You're excited to help them. Here's your diet, here's your workout, it'll change your entire life because you know what it could do for them, but that's not how people learn, that's not how people develop lifelong habit. It doesn't work that way, it just doesn't.

But I get, I used to get it so excited because I was like, oh, I could totally fix you. Just do everything I tell you. I know exactly what you needed to do. I think part of it too, I think that's the early years where you lean heavy on the science and the studies and what the research says, right? And the research says that this many days per week at this rate will, you know, give you this

and anything less than that is less likely to whatever. So I think this is an area where, you know, you learn some of this new information through studies or certifications and you go, oh, so then you go back and you're you you forget about the behavioral aspect or you don't know about the behavioral aspect yet. You have an accountant for, oh, that's great. This is what the research says that they should be doing. But what I realized over my decades of training was, oh, God, 90% of those people can't follow that protocol. So what do I have to do in order to potentially get them

that, oh, okay, well, now I have to make different decisions. Or I don't think that's discussed, to be honest with you. Yeah. And out of the education and the certifications and they don't go to heavy on behaviors. And like, you learn to experience, that's one of the biggest things. Like, you don't really see how this all plays out because you haven't worked with enough human beings. Human beings are complex.

And there's a lot of variables you don't anticipate and to actually work with people on them. Yeah, bottom line, when you're talking with someone, if we're trying to reach, by the way, we're trying to reach the people who are getting fatter, who are getting sicker, who have poor health issues, okay? These are not fitness fanatics. There's a hierarchy of steps that this person can take.

Stop communicating perfect perfect because that's not how you get there. You don't get there by jumping from where you're at now to perfect. In fact, that's a guaranteed way to fail. You do steps, which might mean, and I've done this before, hey, first step, drinking extra glass of water a day. Oh, how much weight am I going to lose? Nothing with that. But it's the first step. Let's build a habit there. Or the first step, walk for five minutes. Am I going to get totally fit from that? No, but you might notice something from it, and the only thing you might notice is that

you can do it, and then that might encourage you to take the next step. There's a hierarchy of steps, and if we communicate perfect as the only way or fight with each other over who's more perfect, or we're communicating to the average person is you're wasting your time unless you do everything perfect unless you eat meat from cows that were blessed by a monk and they're grass fed and they only, the grass that's organic and that grows on the west side of the hill because it gets both sunlight

or weird shit like that. You are gonna lose everybody because nobody is, you can't even think that that's possible for them. So forget that. The second thing is how condescending our space can be to the average person. This is when they say things like, you're just lazy. Just get off your ass.

Pain is weakness leaving the body type of deal. When you're communicating that to somebody who's never developed behaviors and structure around health and fitness, who also has life stresses and kids, maybe they're dealing with mental health issues, they have a job, like, are you gonna win anybody over like that? Are you gonna win anybody over by looking at them and saying, well, you know what your problem is? You're just lazy. That's your problem. Okay, cool. I'm gonna go try harder. Yeah. Well, you're an asshole and I'm gonna go do this So I'm not gonna do this anymore. You know type of deal. I think the reason why that there's so much of that because I think there's actually a

percentage of people who actually think they want that and need that There's people that that have that you know, massacres type of personality where they think like I need to be beat up I mean, yeah, that's when you hate yourself so much. That feels good. That's what I mean. So I part of why I think it's perpetuated in our space is because the trainers are getting this feedback of like, oh, my client likes it. Oh, they need it. They need me to talk shit to them.

They need me to be condescending because that's what motivates them. They want that kind of militant personality. And so, and then you add in the hype and motivation bullshit in our space. And so the combination of that with people thinking, that's what they want and need, I think this is why you get so many of these condescending trainers presenting information.

I remember once I had a moment where I realized how condescending I was, I had a family member by, we were, I don't remember where we were, we were buying food and they got fried chicken, okay? And they're like, oh, you know, I'm trying to lose weight, so I'm going low carb. And like an asshole, I scoff.

Like, you think fried chicken's healthy. Now, I saw the look on their face, which was like, I just shared with you, because you're a trainer, what I think I'm supposed to be doing, and you just maybe feel like a complete idiot. And guess what? I will never reach out to you again, or now I'm embarrassed, or now I'm going to give up. And I remember the look on their face, and then realizing, wow, what a dorkish shit.

Yeah, what a shitty, why did I scoff? Right. I wasn't supportive and, you know, there could have been a much better way that I could have communicated or maybe nothing. Maybe it was just, they made a comment and I said, oh, cool, we're trying to go a little far from her. Yeah.

But it was that condescending like, you know, I would do this too with people when they'd say, I'd say, what do you do for exercise? I walk. You smell rough. Yeah, I remember being like condescending about that last time. I don't know, I mean, everybody walks. I guess I'm really an extra guilt. Yeah, you remember doing that?escending about that. I mean, everybody walks. I guess I'm really, I'm really, yeah, you remember doing that?

How many people we turned off because of that type of attitude where it's like, and this is when people feel like they can't connect. Or they break the math down on how many hours are in a day. That's a classic condescending thing. Like the average person doesn't know how many hours in a day and how many days are in a week. Fucking asshole. Like I really need you to break that. That's what I you fucking asshole. Like I really need you to break that.

That's the ritual you need to do. I really need you to break that math down for me. So I knew how much that was failing at getting a shave. Or like, you know, I can't afford to buy super healthy food. Oh really? Because you go to Starbucks every day and I know you buy chips. Let's add up the math and then you show them.

Looks like you could tell me a point. Gotcha. Has that ever convinced anybody? I mean, that's the difference between I've said this before, like the good clothes are in the great closer, right? A good closer has learned all these rebuttles and guilt people make people feel stupid ways of overcoming their objections, but a great closer can pull somebody into it, can pull somebody into wanting to make the change to wanting

to make the cell like that's and it's through listening and asking a lot of right questions and leading, not punking them into thinking what they're doing. We're just making them feel embarrassed. They're embarrassed to ask you a question. You remember feeling like that in class, where you had a question, but you don't wanna ask it because you were embarrassed. That's how our space can make people feel.

We can make them feel like that, by the way, by being condescending to each other. So the bodybuilder who's communicating something for hypertrophy, then you get the functional mobility, whatever guy, and he's gonna talk condescendingly about, oh, well, he probably can't even, he probably can't even go across monkey bars or something like that, right?

But did he communicate something with some value? Like, why are we doing this to each other? That's a really, really good point that can't be highlighted enough because there's a lot of people that don't ask these questions or say anything in fear of being rejected. And then another fitness professional says something that that person probably thought or believed and then the other fitness professional trashes that person. It's the same as you picking on them. They feel like, oh my God, I thought that too.

And so that infighting amongst us, it's silently hurting them and your business and you don't even realize it by being that way. You know, everybody's viewing all the comments back and forth and yeah making their concluding their own ideas and yeah it just makes them feel even smaller through that whole interact. Totally which brings us an x1 which is this no empathy. We have no we're so bad at empathy for the challenges that people have to beginning or start in this journey. And the reason why we have no empathy is because we found this journey, oftentimes thrown in securities combined with obsessive discipline and dedication because we found something that we loved, we made it our career. So for us, it's easy. Oh, you know, working out every day,

I wake up at 5 a.m. Oh, eating healthy, you just got to make healthy choices. You know what I tell the fitness professionals and influencers and health people who have no empathy for people who might say it's hard to eat vegetables Or it's hard just to walk more is I like to point out the shit that they're challenged with so that's great John that you like that How's your relationship doing? You know, oh, it's a tough for you You act like an asshole and you can't control yourself or what about your drug problem or what about your gambling issues Or what about the fact that you can barely support yourself because you're shitty at your job. So it's like, we all have challenges. So every time I hear someone say something to me,

that's easy for me. I try to remind myself of the stuff that I just can't seem to figure out. This is what we're dealing with with a lot of these people. They just can't figure it out. And it's not our job to not have empathy, it's our job to help them figure it out. And they're not you, they're not us. Otherwise'd be in the space otherwise they'd be working as fitness

Just half half the space is like a 15-year-old teenager, you know, like in dog years right? They're experienced to be a trainer. They're at 15 years old You know regardless if they're 35 40 or whatever They're a teenager in in the fitness space still thinking they know it all, and they haven't figured out what they don't know yet. I think we all experienced that. I think that's a part of the growth.

And again, I feel like I can connect all this back to the insecurities. That's why it's unique to this space, where I think this is more of a conversation in our industry than it really is in any other competitive industry that's, there's lots of competitive industries, but I think it's, it's the most monetized attribute, though, if anybody comes in, it's like if you got insecurities, we got the answer for you.

We get answer, we're always like looking for that and like, sharking on it, right away, which kind of puts us where we are instead of leading with that helpful hand. Yeah, it's like, oh, you feel shitty about yourself? Yeah, come on over here, I got the answer for you. which kind of puts us where we are instead of leading with that helpful in. Yeah, it's like, oh, you feel shitty about yourself? Yeah. Yeah.

Come on over here. I got the answer for you. Yeah. I'm going to beat the shit out of you because you deserve it. And you're going to take these pills and it's going to happen really quick. And here's John, look at his before and after.

Totally works, right? Give us $1,000, you know? Type of deal and the person ends up, you know, failing. That brings us to the next one, which is, it's oftentimes an echo chamber. How often do people in the health, wellness, fitness space communicate to each other and not try to reach the people who seem to be unreachable? I remember data in gyms.

I remember managing gyms and I remember when this data was presented. It was presented because a competitor had come into the market and had blown open a hole that existed that nobody was paying attention to and really got the attention of a lot of people. So I remember this must have been 1999 when curves started to make a splash in the fitness space. So back then, the gym industry really started taking off in the, I'd say the mid to late 80s and then by the late 90s, you had some big players

like 24-of-fitness really start to show the world, like, oh, you could, this could be a big business. And then all of a sudden, this company shows up, and they open up these small studios, they use pneumatic equipment. So it's with air, like air pumps. So it's not even weights, not even weight stacks. There's like seven pieces of equipment that are in a circle. You show up, it's women only, you show up, you do a couple circuits, and then you leave. And they went from zero locations

to surpassing the biggest gyms and chains in the world, literally becoming the number one franchise in the world at a particular time now They had their own issues and I could see why and they failed as a result But what it did is it highlighted What we were all screwing up over what were they missing they were not taking members from 24 fitness gold gym Crunch fitness they weren't taking members from us. They were reaching the unreachable It was a people who were embarrassed to go to gyms who were really overweight, they were women,

and they finally felt like that at a place. And we just didn't reach them. And I remember looking at the data, and they showed us, I remember it. I'll never forget we're in a meeting, they're like, you know what we're doing right now. We just trade members between each other. But there's this huge segment of the population

we're not touching, curves figured out how to reach them and now they're destroying it. This is how I communicate the success of the business all the time when I'm asked. Get asked all the time if I thought that the show and the business would be this big eight years ago and I'll quickly always say absolutely. And that was because when we looked at the space at all the other podcasts, all the other fitness influencers on social media,

they're all talking to the same percentage of fitness fanatics. They're all communicating and fighting over the latest study or modality. It's like that first of all, our clientele is everybody. Everybody needs health and fitness. So literally, we have the whole world at our disposal, but we, the space that is competing over this 12%. Yeah. And it was like, that's not the conversation we want to have. We want to have the conversation that we had with our clients

because our clients weren't that 12%. Our clients were engineers, stay-at-home moms, teachers, doctors, lawyers, like just, they weren't like following 50 influencers and subscribing to the magazines and on the bodybuilding forums and arguing over the latest study that came out, like that wasn't our clients. Our clients were the other 90% of the people and like we weren't from Oprah that they needed to like move more.

Yeah, you probably should. Yeah, so there was a huge opportunity to, and that doesn't mean that we can't communicate to that 12%, I think that we do a pretty good job of still communicating to them, but that's not the focus. The focus is attracting the other 80% to 90%, that everybody else is losing because they're too busy feeding their own ego, fighting over the other fitness.

Over who's more right? Who's more smart? Yeah, who's more smart? Come on. Yeah, we're not reaching most people. We're not reaching most people because we don't focus on what's gonna reach most people. And we end up talking to each other.

And here's a deal. Most people will should, and they have the potential for this, most people could use fitness, wellness, and health to improve their lives. The people in that 10% 12% that you're talking about, Adam, the fitness fanatics, live for fitness, wellness, and health. Most people don't live for the jam. Most people don't live for their workouts. Most live for it They use it as a way to improve their lives supplements. Yeah, Mrs. Johnson Or you know, Mr. Smith they just want to be better parents. They want to have less pain They want to have a better sex life. They want to look a little better in their clothes. They want more energy

They want to be better employees. They want to take less Medications that's it. The 10% that we're talking about wants to add another 30 pounds to their bench press, wants to hit some new PR, wants to compete in some new event, wants to figure out how they could squeeze out longer telomeres on their DNA with the latest, greatest, whatever. Like, I don't care about those people. Not only literally, I don't care about you, because that's us, right?

I love hanging out with you guys and stuff, but I'm not trying to make fit people fitter. I'm trying to get people healthy. You're not moving the needle by focusing there. You're not, I mean, for every one person you get a little bit fitter, you miss out on a hundred people who miss the message, because you're, I mean for every one person you get a little bit fitter you miss out on a hundred people who missed the message because you're I mean how many times did we learn this in last eight years even ourselves right we went out with this in mind

Focused on that yet still like learned our lesson multiple times everyone episodes I know we would do an episode and we'd be like that is so dumb It's so basic like that people don't want to hit and it would viral. Yeah, yeah It would explode compared to these listens. And we'd have these conversations off air with each other going like, man, we just gotta continue to remember to not overcomplicate this message

because every time we think something is too basic or too simple or it's, people aren't gonna like it, it strikes a chord with the masses. Yes, and that's not to say that we don't talk to the 10%. I think if anybody's converted more people to becoming trainers, it's us, even though we talk about the realities of how challenging it is, but what we're trying to do is turn them into real evangelists.

The 10% of the people out there who have really understood and adopted health and fitness, they can act, they're the ones that actually can make the big difference by learning how to evangelize properly and not making the mistakes that we're talking about. The last one, this one is obvious, it's number five, but it probably should be number one, which is that in our space, we perpetuate righteousness

or beauty way too much. Now I get it, beauty in particular, aesthetics, how ripped you are, how buffed you are, how attractive you are. If you wanna get a lot of views, a lot of likes, a lot of attention, if you want an easy, very imperfect, but however easy way to display your potential authority,

then just be sexy and fit and ripped, right? You post pictures of yourself, the average person assumes whether consciously or subconsciously, you know what you're talking about. So it's a very easy way to kind of get attention. The problem is, is that what we're doing is we're selling the side effect, not the main effect. And we're also teaching people to compare themselves

to people that, I mean, they're not gonna look like or they don't wanna live that way in reality and feel shitty about themselves. And that's not a great way to really promote health and fitness for everybody. But that's the main, I mean, that's the main way our space sells. And then the righteousness one is like, you know,

your way is great, but you also miss this one piece. Your coffee is not as organic or could potentially have Mike, you know, Mike would talk to him. You're not making it. You're not making it. You're not making it. I'm not making it. I'm not making it.

Yeah, or, oh, I know you like squats, but it's not as functional as this. Or, yeah, I know you told them to eat protein, but unless it comes from these sources then this potential, whatever. And then again, you lose everybody. The highlighting the beauty or your body and physiques is a tough dance to be had, right? Because there's a part of like, obviously, it does really well by presenting yourself very fit and ripped.

And if people are going to buy and invest in you teaching them how to eat, ride and train, looking the part helps, right? But then there's that fine line of I've built my entire brand off of how I look that I think one of the worst parts about that is the amount of pressure that is for you. Oh, it's hell. I know. To not let the natural ebb and flow of life happen where maybe you're not on a hardcore kick for a month or whatever that or having for bed, you get injured or get some major life threatening disease or another huge priority in your life takes, you know, a, takes the front seat instead of your physical time.

And so that's probably the worst part, the most dangerous part about presenting that so much. But I also understand how powerful it is. I understand how it's of all the industries and spaces, we would be up there with the top three most superficial. Yeah. You know, like it's a lot of people that decide to sign up for a gym membership or make a decision to go on a diet, it's around vanity.

First, it's sometimes it's around health. Sometimes it's the doctor says, hey, you need to go and do this for X, Y, Z reasons, but I would say a majority of the time it's vanity driven it's I want to look better. And so as a professional, there's this desire or draw to want to present your physique to show people that I can do what you want to do. But then it's a double edge sword. It is.

I'll say the remedy is this, because I get it. I get the social proof of looking the part. I know it's powerful. I don't think it's all bad. Here's what I think the remedy is. If this is what you're going to do as part of the way that you communicate your authority, make sure you balance it with really good, really, really good quality information, and make sure you communicate your struggles

and imperfections as well. That's more to protect you, by the way. The second part is more to protect you. Not so much for the consumer, although some people do this as a way to come across as authentic and it could be fake sounding, but really it's to protect you for what you said at them. If you get famous on social media as a fitness person

because you're at 5% body fat, you're screwed. You're gonna have to be 5% body fat all the time. Or if you're that girl that looks really hot and you show your butt and you do all this whatever and you're 25, you've got a short shelf life with your business. What are you gonna do 10 years later? Oh, you're got a short shelf life with your business. What are you going to do 10 years later? Oh, you're going to try and retire real quick, because if you want to continue to build

this business, it's going to be hard to continue to kind of keep that up. Or what if you're in public, people recognize you, or they see you drink a soda or live like a normal life sometimes, or you know, it doesn't work really well. So that's to protect you. But the first part is for your business. You wanna be known for your information and your ideas more than your looks, because your looks are fleeting,

and it's also not that valuable. It really isn't. There's a very small percentage of people that make a lot of money based off their looks. 99.9% of the people watching this right now, that's not gonna be you, just a fact. You just now, you can get fit and ripped as you want, you're not gonna compete with these genetic,

perfect anomalies who are also obsessed with whatever. So it's also not a good business strategy. A good business strategy is to be known for your ideas, those last, those stand the test of time, and if you're beauty fades as you get older, whatever, it doesn't matter. People wanna know what you think, not necessarily how you look.

Well, part of that too, I think, is all of us, as fitness professionals, getting better about communicating what true health looks like, too. I mean, for the longest time, we've celebrated the cover of the magazine look as the ultimate sign of health, and that actually couldn't be further from the truth. And in fact, a very healthy, physique and body, there's a wide range of what it could

look like. It could look on the softer side and then it could look on a much harder side and everything in between and you could be falling all into the spectrum of health. You could be super ripped and be unbelievably unhealthy inside relationship, unhealthy, financially unhealthy, all these other things unhealthy, but look super ripped. And then you could be super soft, but then have all these other things incredibly in balance. And so I think as a fitness professional part of your job is teaching people that, is learning how to communicate that, so that people understand that just this image of this six-pack

abs is not everything. Here's how crazy it is. This is how flipped upside down it is. Of all of the values that improving your health and your fitness and your wellness will provide. Of all of the values, improvements in your beauty is at the bottom. It's actually the least valuable thing in your life. I promise you and it's not just my opinion. The data is clear on this. I remember Arthur Brooks communicating this for happiness. He said you could be a five on a scale of one to ten. Spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. Train your body, dedicate yourself to being perfect. Move yourself up to a nine and your happiness will barely tick up a little bit. With all that time and investment, it'll barely tick up a little bit. So it's also the least valuable thing. It's what we celebrate the most, though, is how you look. The truth is how you feel, your cognitive performance, your mental health, learning how to develop that discipline, your relationships, your mobility, how to fix your relationships,

your energy, your mobility, how it affects your relationships, your energy, your libido, like all those things are so much higher than just your beauty. By the way, if you're lucky to live a long life and I say lucky, some people are unfortunate, don't live very long, if you're blessed and lucky enough to live a long life, you're gonna lose your beauty anyway.

Do you think you're gonna be a hot 65, 7 year old walking around? That's down at the bottom. There's a very short window for when that really matters anyway. The truth is that people, it's in our space, promotes, and maybe they don't say this, but the way they promote it says this, that beauty is the most important thing that fitness will provide you. When, in fact, it's actually the least important thing.

I think that's the biggest part of this message, agreed. Look, if you like this show, head over to MindPumpFree.com and check out all of our free fitness guides. Down below them all, they're totally free. MindPumpFree.com. You can also find all of us on social media, Justin is on Instagram at MindPump. Justin, I'm on Instagram at MindPump. Just definitely.

And Adam is on Instagram at MindPump. Adam. Thank you for listening to MindPump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and on Instagram at MindPumpatom. and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee, and you can get it now plus

other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is MindPump. introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time this is Mind Pump!