Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Cody McBroom on How to Build a Successful Fitness Coaching Business

Episode Date: May 17, 2019

For better and worse, online fitness coaching has exploded over the past decade or so. I say that because on the one hand, this has enabled many people to affordably connect up with legitimate experts... and get into great shape, and on the other hand, it has also led many others into the gaping jaws of the legions of charlatans, shysters, and phonies who have swarmed the online coaching space. And unfortunately, the coaches who get the most eyeballs and buzz often aren’t the ones who offer the best services, and many superior coaches are struggling to gain any traction whatsoever let alone become a screaming success. I have quite a few of the latter folk in my orbit and so I thought a longform discussion on how to become a successful fitness coach would be worthwhile. I’ve spoken about this before as I have a coaching service that will do just over seven figures in revenue this year, but I felt like I couldn’t fully do the topic justice as I was able to “shortcut” the process by first achieving notable success as an author, podcaster, blogger, and entrepreneur. By the time I launched my coaching service, I already had a large and loyal following, and it’s not exactly helpful for me to tell aspiring coaches to just do what I do—to first write a few bestselling books, then create a top-100 health podcast, then create an 8-figure supplement business and a couple blogs that get a couple million visits per month, and then voila, your coaching business will soar. That’s why I wanted to get somebody who a) has a bigger coaching business than me and b) has built it more traditionally to come on the show and share their insights about how to go from nothing to something in the online coaching game. There are probably quite a few of those somebodies out there, but I particularly liked what Cody McBroom is doing and so chose him for the interview. As you’ll learn, Cody has done very well for himself, his business, and his clients, and in this episode, he shares a very down-to-earth, practical roadmap for following in his footsteps. 10:27 - What is your advice to people who want to become a personal trainer and have their own business? 29:08 - How do you become a better coach? 33:37 - Are there certain personality types that wouldn’t work well as a coach? 1:18:41 - What are your thoughts on how to find passion? 1:28:26 - Where can people find you and your work? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Muscle Life Podcast. I am your host, Michael Matthews, and this episode is going to be about building a successful fitness coaching business, online fitness coaching business. Now, for better and worse, online fitness coaching has absolutely exploded over the last decade or so. It really just mirrors the explosion of social media, right? So, and Instagram in particular, as social media and as Instagram has gotten more and more popular, online fitness coaching has gotten more and more popular because if you have a body and you know how to get a bunch of eyeballs on social media, you can now be a coach, right? And, you know, I say for better and worse, because on one hand, this
Starting point is 00:00:46 trend has helped many people affordably connect up with legitimate experts and get into great shape. While on the other hand, it has also led many others into the gaping jaws of the legions of charlatans, shysters, and phonies who have absolutely swarmed the online fitness coaching space. Unfortunately, the people, the coaches who get the most eyeballs and the most buzz often are not the ones who offer the best services and sometimes who are actually just ripping people off. And you have many superior coaches out there, people who could do much better by their clients, struggling to gain any traction whatsoever, let alone become a screaming success. Now, I know that I have quite a few of the latter folk
Starting point is 00:01:39 in my orbit because I hear from them fairly frequently. And so I thought a long form discussion on how to become successful as a fitness coach would be worthwhile. And while I myself have spoken about this before I've recorded at least one or two episodes on it, I feel like I can't really do it justice because how I got to having a successful coaching service that will do just over seven figures in revenue this year is interesting, but not very enlightening and certainly not very practical because I was able to shortcut the process by first achieving quite a bit of success as an author, podcaster, blogger, and entrepreneur. And by the time I launched my coaching service, I already had a large and loyal following. I had a lot of people who were asking for a coaching service.
Starting point is 00:02:36 I would get asked almost every day to start a coaching service. And so I did, and big surprise, it took off. And while that's cool, it's not very helpful for me to tell aspiring coaches to just first write a few bestselling books, then create a top 100 health and fitness podcast, then just go create an eight figure supplement business, and then create a couple blogs that get couple of million visits per month. And then voila, your coaching business will soar. It will be easy. And I don't say any of that to brag or sound pretentious, but that is the reality. That was the sequence. I didn't launch the coaching service until I already had the bestselling books, a very popular podcast,
Starting point is 00:03:22 muscle for life was very popular. It was getting well over a million business per month. By the time I launched the coaching service, Legion already was doing very well. Maybe it may not have broken eight figures in revenue. I think it did actually. I think it was over 10 million a year in sales by the time I launched the coaching service. And so that's how I did it. But I feel like that story again, is it's just not very inspiring and it's definitely not pragmatic. And that's why I wanted to get somebody else on the podcast to talk about it. And specifically somebody who a has a bigger coaching business than I do. And B who has built it a bit more traditionally and built it from the ground up
Starting point is 00:04:03 worked just on that business, didn't build something else and then include it like I did. And so I wanted to get somebody like that to come on the show and share their insights about how to go from nothing to something in the online coaching game. And there are probably quite a few of those somebodies out there, but I particularly liked what Cody of those somebodies out there, but I particularly liked what Cody McBroom is doing. And so I chose him for the interview. And as you will learn, Cody has done very well for himself, his business, and his clients. And in this episode, he shares a very down-to-earth, practical roadmap for following in his footsteps. This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So
Starting point is 00:04:52 instead, I'm just going to quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my hugely popular and 100% natural pre-workout supplement pulse. It has sold over 250,000 bottles in the last several years, and it increases energy, improves mood, sharpens mental focus, increases strength and endurance, and reduces fatigue without the unwanted side effects that you probably experience with many other pre-workouts or the dreaded post-workout crash. It's also naturally sweetened and flavored and contains no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. And all of that is why Pulse has over 3,100 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average and another 500 plus reviews on my website, also with a four and a half star average and another 500 plus reviews on my website also with a four and a half star average
Starting point is 00:05:48 so if you want to feel focused tireless and powerful in your workouts and if you want to say goodbye to the pre-workout jitters upset stomachs and crashes for good then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Pulse today. And if you're not sure which flavor to get, I highly recommend Blue Raspberry. It's my personal favorite. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order. And lastly, you should also know that I have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back, period. You don't have to return the products. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any other hoops or go through any other shenanigans. So you really can't lose here.
Starting point is 00:06:45 Head over to www.lesionathletics.com now, place your order and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet. And if for whatever reason, they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now at least. Let's get to the show. Cody, welcome to my podcast. Thank you, man. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for coming on. The reason why I wanted to have you is I get asked fairly often about getting into the fitness industry. So I hear fairly often from people who say they want to get in the fitness industry and they ask what should they do? And then also I would say
Starting point is 00:07:29 that's the majority. And then there's a minority of people who specifically say they want to become a coach. And they're asking me how, what's my best advice to go about doing that? And in both cases, I feel like I just can't be all that helpful. I don't have great advice to share despite having some success in the fitness industry. I've tried to write some stuff to be helpful. I've tried to record some stuff to be helpful. But the thing about me is I got to where I am in an unusual way. So take my coaching business, right? So we have probably close to 400 active clients now. It's going to do close to or just over seven figures in revenue this year. And that sounds impressive. But how I got there was most people listening know my story. I
Starting point is 00:08:16 self-published a book back in 2012, had no following, no connections. I was nobody as far as the fitness industry goes. I just published this book and then that book did really well. Then I wrote other books and those books did well. And then I started writing articles and those articles did well. And I started recording podcasts and those podcasts did well. And then I started this supplement company and that company did well. And then along the way, because I was getting asked by so many people to coach them or ask if I have any recommendations for coaching, if I don't do it myself. And then I had somebody working with me who specifically wanted to not just coach people, but wanted to build this coaching business. And so I was just like, okay, we'll do it then here.
Starting point is 00:08:57 Here's the business for you. I will be the marketing person. Essentially. I will make sure that you always have leads, I guess you could say. And so it went from zero to, I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but it probably went from zero to like maybe 500K in income in the first year just from that. And again, that's cool. It's fine, whatever, but it's not very helpful for people who are asking me how should they best go about getting in the fitness industry or getting into coaching, you know? Yeah. I think you literally went in the reverse fashion compared to most people in that sense, because, you know, I've been coaching, like I said, for eight years now, and now I have a successful podcast. Now we're shooting more video content. Now we have
Starting point is 00:09:39 a handful of eBooks that we put out and sell, But usually you don't start by selling books or, and a lot of young coaches don't even have the courage or they're just intimidated to put themselves out there enough to feel confident doing a podcast or a video or even posting on Instagram. So sometimes the content comes after the expertise I feel like, and that's usually the most common thing. And I know that's how it was for me, but in the same sense, I do believe, I think we touched on this right before we actually started recording. If you're not willing to put out content, good luck having a successful, especially online coaching business. Because if you can't educate people with free social media platforms everywhere now, there's so many different
Starting point is 00:10:17 opportunities we can use these for, for our own marketing. You're going to have a very big struggle creating success in the online coaching space because that's our platform to present our expertise and get people coming in. So should we start at like where I started and what I recommend people like kind of what I wish I would have done better with or so on and so forth. So we can kind of like start from the beginning of what people should start by doing. Yeah, let's start there. And then along the way, maybe I'll throw some questions at you. Cool. So I think in my mind, you shouldn't sell a product that you're not willing to buy. So you probably read quite a bit of books, right? Especially in the fitness category, before you started trying to self-publish your own book, you became an expert in training.
Starting point is 00:10:59 You read a ton of stuff. You curated all this knowledge around this space of fitness, and you created your own book method philosophy on that topic. That's what made you an expert and a successful author. I believe in the same exact thing with coaching. Before I started coaching people, I hired coaches and I believe that's probably step one. It doesn't mean you need to go spend a bunch of money on masterminds or get a business coach or anything ground zero, but you should probably hire a personal trainer or a nutrition coach or an online coach or a bodybuilder that you know that is going to help you do your own training, your own nutrition, give you client updates. Let yourself experience that position, be in those shoes and see what the systems look like. Because I see a lot of people who love
Starting point is 00:11:38 training and I've had this talk with coaches that work for me at the very beginning like, okay, cool. You understand this concept. You understand this philosophy very well. Now you come on board. If I handed you 10 leads today, would you know what to do with them? Do you have a system to onboard them? Do you understand how to track their progress? Do you know what a program should look like? And in-person and online is completely different when it comes to programming. And we can touch on that just because you're not physically there. But I think the first step for everybody is you should experience some kind of coaching or training or nutritionist help in some way, shape or form, because you need to understand how people go about it in the industry. And you need to be in the client's shoes in order to help clients later on. So step one, in my
Starting point is 00:12:17 opinion, is just getting a coach. After that, we can kind of step into the realm of actually working as a trainer. And I guess we could assume people have education at this point. You know, like I don't think anybody needs a four-year college degree in exercise science in order to be a coach nowadays. I think it's pretty obvious. There's so much information out there that you can kind of self-educate and become a successful entrepreneur, a successful trainer, so on and so forth. I went to school for two years for training and nutrition stuff, but I wouldn't contribute my success to that whatsoever. I think the hours of studying, of reading books from people, like some of the people you've had on the podcast, Mark Ribiteau, Eric Helms, Alan Aragon,
Starting point is 00:12:55 going into like Mike Boyle and the functional movement screen with Greg Cook and doing stuff like that for years and years is really what helped me. So if you want to go to school, you can, it's not required, but I think some kind of education. So you need to set it up yourself and spend time reading, going to workshops, doing things like that. Just, that's a good thing to highlight is, and again, I'm just speaking from the many conversations that I've had with people who have reached out to me is you have to get educated first. I would say there's that. And then just to throw it out there and then give the mic back to you is you're going to have to, well, maybe you don't have to, but I think it makes a lot of sense to get to a point where you are in good shape yourself. Now, of course, if you're completely out of shape, I would say good luck trying to become a successful coach.
Starting point is 00:13:40 But you don't also have to be, I think, you don't have to be super jacked, but you have to be fit. Lisa, if I were getting into it, I was thinking myself, be like, yeah, step one, get educated, learn the 20% that's going to give you 80% of what you want. And with a certain target market in mind, who am I going to serve? Am I going to be serving young kids who just want to look cool on Instagram? Am I going to be serving people in their thirties and beyond who have families and jobs and lives? And so I'd get specific as to like, who is my target market? What exactly are they looking for? And then, okay, how do I educate myself on delivering that to them? And fortunately in fitness and in most things, you're going to get the majority of your results by just doing a good job executing on the fundamentals. You don't really have to get fancy ever in a lot of
Starting point is 00:14:29 things really. And so I, you know, there, and then apply it to yourself, get results yourself. Anyways, those are just some thoughts to interject. And before I would do that, before I would even take on a client personally. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's why I was kind of saying like, you should probably hire a trainer, but in the same sense, like as you're going through this education process, use those things on yourself as experience. Like I can't even explain how many, and you're probably in the same boat, how much bullshit I tried on myself before I even had a client because I was just reading and experimenting and there wasn't a lot of information. I mean, there was a lot of information, but there was so many like fads coming out when I first got in the industry
Starting point is 00:15:07 and bodybuilding was really huge and supplements were different than they are now. There wasn't a lot of honesty in that space. So I tried everything, but because I tried everything, I learned a lot and I tried everything in the training realm too, from full body to upper, lower splits to bro splits to high intensity cardio, low intensity cardio, bootcamp stuff, CrossFit, like everything I can get my hands on, I've done and I've tried because it gives me experience that I can speak on. But I agree with you too. I think not enough people will openly say like, the reality is, is if you're in fitness, you should look fit. I mean, perception is a pretty big fucking deal. And even if you want to say like, I can be the smartest
Starting point is 00:15:43 trainer, it doesn't matter if I'm fit. I agree with you. But the reality is, is, you know, you wouldn't hire an accountant or a financial advisor or a real estate agent that dresses like a slob. You probably want someone that looks clean and professional because the first and we're human beings, we're judgmental. We can't get away from that. I mean, as it should be though, I'd say it's, it's beyond that. It'd be like, would you want to work with a CPA whose finances were a mess? Whose personal finances were a mess? No. And even as a CPA, it's like, no, I really know what to do. I just have no self-control and I just don't do it myself, but I can do a good job for you. I'd be like, nah, sorry. I'll go find somebody else. So true. So yeah, dude, I think one of the biggest things
Starting point is 00:16:22 is just spending time on yourself, man. Try these things out, get fit. I mean, when I first started, I was in school at a community college, but they had a personal trainer and health coach program there that I went through for two years. And that whole process, I had to do an internship. So I did have a couple of clients. I had to do it for my college degree, but I was trying everything on myself. And I actually had some soccer injuries in high school, gained a ton of weight, and then went into this. So I lost like 40 to 50 pounds throughout my college practice. So I was learning and applying. So people saw my transformation. I was documenting it, which is a big key. Back then, social media wasn't as big, but I was blogging because I was like a big medium back then still. And you know this, obviously you started way back too. So I was
Starting point is 00:17:04 blogging my journey, blogging what I was learning, blogging what I was trying on myself and on my intern college clients and stuff like that. And then after going through that process and actually living it, actually transforming my body and educating myself on my own, that's when I finally sought out somebody to actually take me to the next level.
Starting point is 00:17:22 And I think this is very important is like, you should go work at a place that ideally has a coach above you who is very intelligent, very smart, can somewhat mentor you. I happened to find a job at a place called Vigor Ground. And the guy who owned that named Luca Josefar, really well known in the training world, had a ton of connections and was super smart. I went there and worked for free for four months at the beginning. And my whole goal was just to learn. And I think people need to step into it with that attitude. It's like, you don't need to try to make the most money at first, just try to find more education. So I came in, he had trained everybody on the planet as far as like niches and categories and
Starting point is 00:17:56 different types of people. And that was my experience to actually shadow and watch a professional do what they do in a specific setting. The problem with a lot of things is nowadays, now that online coaching is so big, people try to jump straight to that point. And I'd love to hear your take on this too. But in my opinion, I think you should get hands-on before you get online. I find it much more applicable to the online setting. If you've been in the trenches and you've actually trained yourself, you've actually trained people in person, you've experienced that camaraderie that is in the gym. And when you're hands-on and in person with people, I think that your methods and your
Starting point is 00:18:29 training programs and your understanding of human connection and how people are actually going to use your programming online is going to be much more productive because you've experienced this stuff in person, if that makes sense. I don't know if you agree with that or not. No, I do. It makes sense to me for sure. I would want to do both and I'd want to see the difference, you know, because you're going to run into different issues in person than online
Starting point is 00:18:49 and the solutions might be different. And I think also there's something to be said for, I mean, I like that you said you work for free in the beginning. That's the opposite of the entitlement mentality that we see in a lot of young people out there. Not that you have to necessarily go work for free, but the thing is, yeah, you weren't paid money for that time. But what you got from that is honestly probably at this point worth way more money than you ever could have gotten, even if you would have been paid a decent wage. What you learned during that period in terms of, I mean, everything that you saw, how to work with people effectively, you would have paid a lot of money for that yourself. So the fact that you just got it for free is actually a bonus. You know, I've told people that have reached out to me, again, if it were me starting a coaching business, when I get to that point where I'm ready to take on clients, I would train people for free in the beginning in exchange for testimonials, in exchange for documenting their progress. I would get progress pictures and I would get a video testimonial in the end. So I
Starting point is 00:19:50 would probably go for five to 10. And then I would feel like from a marketing perspective, I have something really to offer, but I think I'm getting ahead of our discussion a little bit. Yeah, no, no, but I totally agree. And I think the big overarching theme is just experience, right? Experience through education, experience through personal training yourself. So you're in the gym. And I think you have to enjoy it, right? I mean, that's also probably a reason to do it in person and see, because I would assume that if you don't enjoy it in person, which always is in-person exchanges are always more pleasurable, period. Just having a person in front of you makes you feel you get more joy out of interacting with people in person than over an email or DM or something like that. So I would
Starting point is 00:20:31 think, and this is where I'm curious as to your experience on this, because you have a lot more hands-on experience building and running a coaching business than I do. Because again, I've been more of the marketer and then more of the, I can bring people, but I've relied on my team of people to really be in the trenches. But if you don't enjoy training somebody in person, I just don't see how you're going to enjoy training people over the internet. Oh, a hundred percent. If I didn't enjoy it as much as I do, I wouldn't have worked for free for three months. You know what I mean? And I love that process. It's what started my career. It's what got my foot in the door, connected me to so many people and showed me what was possible. I mean, I was there all day, every day because I loved it. But once you start getting paid for
Starting point is 00:21:12 something you do for free, it's like a whole nother set of motivation because now you realize that it can actually support your lifestyle. But I do 100% agree. I think that in-person connection and you have to do that to understand what you want your career to be. Like when you go to a public gym and you actually train people people whether you do it for free at first or not i was lucky enough to find like a functional facility i mean like sleds and athletes and like cool shit like that rather than having to start at la fitness but the reality is most people do have to start at a 24 la big box style gym and the cool thing about that though is and it's all about perspective but if you walk in there and in my whole goal at the beginning was like, I want to train soccer
Starting point is 00:21:48 players because I played soccer. I injured my knee, gained weight. That's how I got started in this. I want to help soccer players until I realized that college soccer players were broke and couldn't afford personal training. So then it was kind of like, when you go to these places and you work, they're not filtering leads for you based on your desire to train soccer players. They're like, here's a lead, sell them, train them. So you end up working with men, women, old, young, athletic, never been in the gym. You have to become a chameleon and understand all these different perspectives, all these different types of people. Some people are intimidated by the gym. Some people love the gym. Some people have been athletes their whole life and they want to get after it. Some people are afraid of a barbell. Like you have to understand these different
Starting point is 00:22:27 personal connections and these different personality types. That's what helped me tremendously. So now when we have a client apply for coaching online, I can filter through their application and understand who's going to be the best fit out of our coaches. If I'm going to take them on, we interview them on the phone and we can get a better idea of where they're at and how to act with them, how to communicate with them. But I would have never taken that away or known how to be this way for my business today if I didn't have all those years. I mean, I was a trainer in person for six years before I really started an online coaching business. So it was that experience that helped me build. Now, what I will say is throughout that whole process,
Starting point is 00:23:05 I was creating a shit ton of content. And I think that's really key too. You should be documenting this process and not really thinking about money in the sense of it because I built content for six years for free. There was no cash out for me writing blogs or posting on Instagram and sharing stuff on Facebook. It was just to share information.
Starting point is 00:23:22 But what that does is it builds your trust. So when you launched your coaching business, you literally had years of trust from people, right? They see you online, they read your books. They're not going to worry about getting a bad product because you've shown your expertise. You're not going to bring in coaches to coach clients under Muscle for Life unless they are experts, right? So people know that. And I think you need to build that trust with people. So anybody out there who is starting, even if you're at ground zero, as you're listening to this podcast, as you're studying and reading books and looking at research reviews or however you're doing your thing to build your expertise, you should essentially be
Starting point is 00:23:56 reading and researching and then delivering that message through content. Because the best way to really ingrain it is to execute and to teach it. And that's part of like, you know, the more you talk about a subject on your podcast or you write about it, I'm sure the better you know that information. So people get intimidated about putting themselves out there because they're not a quote unquote expert now. But the reality is, is you're more of an expert than the 34 year old soccer mom who doesn't understand what a macro is. So it's up to you to take this information and deliver in a way that she can understand. So going back to like where people should be at and starting coaching business, if you're at ground zero and you haven't done anything yet, I do think experience in your own body, your education, and then getting a job somewhere that's who cares about how much money you're going to make? Are they going to give you leads? Because leads are going to be the hardest part. Obviously, you have to be great at marketing. These gyms do the marketing for you. You should step into a role where they just hand
Starting point is 00:24:52 you leads and you can build your expertise as an actual trainer or an actual coach. Obviously, nutrition is kind of a different realm, but it's the same thing. You should work for somebody else or you should be in a position where you can start testing your skills on people like you mentioned for free. I remember even going as far as like people would write a check and I wouldn't cash it unless they didn't follow through with the 12 week program. Like they would come to me, they would write on the check like $400 or whatever it was. And I wouldn't cash it unless they didn't check in, they didn't follow protocols, so on and so forth, because then it gives them some accountability to actually do the work that
Starting point is 00:25:27 I'm giving them. But nine times out of 10, I would just rip up the check right in front of them. But by the end of this process, I did this for a few months at least. And I took a bunch of people on and did that. I had a ton of testimonials to use on Instagram or Facebook or just try new things like intermittent fasting. This is when Jay Fruja wrote the renegade Diet. That was like the warrior diet and that kind of came out. So it was like way back when this first happened. And I was like, okay, let me try this on people. Macros weren't a big thing yet, but meal plans were. So I made some like bodybuilder like meal plans, which I used to do my physique show
Starting point is 00:25:57 because I had my experience in that. Tried that on some people, see what works. And it wasn't until doing all these different things that I started understanding what people are actually going to adhere to. Like you mentioned, like 20% of the stuff is what's going to get you 80% of the results. The reality is there's a lot of shit out there that we can use, but there's only a little bit that people can actually understand and adhere to on a very consistent basis. So it's your job to go find that shit. And that means more than just educating, but actually putting yourself through it, like you mentioned at the beginning. Yeah, I think there's something to be said for educating yourself on coaching itself.
Starting point is 00:26:30 So you have educating yourself on the diet and exercise nutrition side of things. Sure. And again, you don't need to actually know. I mean, you need to know a fair amount, but I would say for what the average everyday person wants, you probably don't need to know much more than is contained in my books for men and women, especially these new third editions, which are expanded. And I'm not saying that just to plug my books. I'm just saying, you know, 130,000 words, maybe you need to read as much as 200,000 words to have a good grasp of what the average everyday person needs to understand and do to get them to where they want to be.
Starting point is 00:27:08 And again, for specifically what I'm referring to is, I mean, those are my people. That's my crowd. Everyday people who have lives, they have jobs, they have families, or they're in school and they're not going to live in the gym. They don't have two hours a day to be in the gym. They wouldn't want to even in the gym. They don't have two hours a day to be in the gym. They wouldn't want to, even if they could. And the average guy maybe wants to gain, let's say 25 to 35 pounds of muscle over however long it takes to do that and get his body fat down to somewhere around 10, 11, 12%. And for, for women, maybe 10 or 15 pounds of muscle in the right places. And some are on 20% body fat. That's it. If they can just do that and maintain that
Starting point is 00:27:45 for the rest of their lives, they're gonna be very happy and enjoy their workouts and get strong and so forth. For that, you don't need to spend hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours studying about the intricacies of bodybuilding or strength training and so forth. You just need to know the fundamentals and get people to do it.
Starting point is 00:28:03 But then there's also the whole art and science of coaching, right? Because a lot of people are hiring coaches for the accountability, for the psychological and emotional support, and for the troubleshooting outside of just the technicalities. Because yes, at this point, there's so much good content out there. Many people who sign up for my coaching service, they have read at least one, if not more books of mine. They've read a lot of my articles. They've listened to a lot of podcasts. They actually know what they need to do more or less. In some cases, they want it customized to them, which makes sense because we work with a lot of very busy people, business people, men and women. Sometimes they're traveling a lot or their schedule's just crazy. And it is, they just want someone to do the work for them. They could do it
Starting point is 00:28:49 themselves, but it might take them 15 hours to kind of muddle through it. And they'd rather just have someone else put it all together for them. And then they also like the follow up and accountability and so forth. But that is also, I think something that, again, if I were going to be diving all in on the coaching, I would be educating myself on both sides of this. There's the diet and exercise and nutrition stuff. Then there's also how to be a better coach. What are your thoughts on that? And how do those things differ? I actually think that that piece is, if not as big, bigger, because like you said, like if you buy one of your books or Eric Helms, his books are almost like the new ones, almost like too in depth for the starting trainer. Yeah, no, no, it is.
Starting point is 00:29:28 I mean, I think Eric's I mean, I love his stuff, but it's that's for a more advanced person, in my opinion. Hundred percent. And we love that stuff. I love geeking out on that stuff. But I agree. Like if you buy one of your books, I have an e-book out on nutrition and I've had other coaches ask me, why do you give away so much information in there? Like they can they don't even need you at that point. And I'm like, well, the reason is, is because that allows them to get started. That teaches them the fundamentals. It educates them so they can be compliant and consistent once I give them direction. But like you said, they're hiring me for accountability, for support, for communication, for understanding how to navigate through their
Starting point is 00:30:01 busy lifestyles. Cause you and I have a very similar demographic. So I think the coaching communication and just human connection is actually just as big, if not bigger, how you display this information and connect to the person. So they actually follow it is what coaching is about. And that's what I think years of experience in person helped me do like being in person, talking to people, seeing people being coached. That's really what helped me be an expert in this because I understand the way people think. I understand what a busy lifestyle is like. I run a hectic job. I have a daughter. I have a really busy lifestyle. So I understand what it takes to navigate through these things. So it's experienced myself as well. I always recommend to people reading more on things like Tony Robbins, Mastering Influence
Starting point is 00:30:42 or Emotional Intelligence. I can't remember who wrote that book. Crucial Conversations. These things are books and study material that are gonna help you actually connect to the human beings because we can take all this information from online. We can curate it and create cool infographics in content about macros or training drop sets
Starting point is 00:31:01 and all these cool things, and people will eat it up. That's great. Put as much information out there about training and nutrition as possible. People hire coaches because of human connection, plain and simple. And I think the people that gravitate towards that
Starting point is 00:31:13 and the coaches that actually understand this and understand how important it is, those are the ones that are super successful. I mean, there's nothing against people in the labs doing research because, I mean, they're in the forefront that's helping us navigate through bullshit and give our clients things that actually make sense inside their training and nutrition. But that's not real life always, right?
Starting point is 00:31:32 Science and personal application are two different things and the gap's not always bridged. So it's our job as a coach to read the science, read these things, and then try to kind of navigate for the client and understand like, is this actually applicable in real life? Does this make sense for the average guy who just wants to see a couple abs and be a little bit more confident about his body, get bigger arms, right? Like they don't need to go to the 10th degree in the science of training and nutrition and bodybuilding. So based on what you were just saying, I think it's just as if not more important. And I think the best thing for people to do, number one, again, going back to having a coach, get a coach that understands this too. Whether you join a coaching program, you get a mentor, you have a trainer person, you have a boss that kind of mentors you or leads you. I think having somebody coach you in that way will teach you a ton and you
Starting point is 00:32:19 don't need to go get a therapist or anything. But if you have somebody talking to you about the mindset behind things, communicating to you in a different way, talking about lifestyle factors, you're going to understand it more. You're going to be able to apply it more. Everything we take in from that person that affects your life, you're going to be able to use better in your practice. I think 50% of your studying should not just be training nutrition, but 50% of it should also be the mindset, the conversations, how to connect with human beings, how our brain works, behavioral. And this is why I love Precision Nutrition. They don't get nitty gritty into the science of macros and things like that, which I think is important, but they do a really good job talking about
Starting point is 00:32:55 becoming more self-aware, habit change, behavioral awareness, like things like that, like changing behaviors. That's what shifts people and gets them to actually stay consistent and trust you long enough to hire you for long enough to make money and be successful as a coach. So if 50% of your time is spent doing these things too and understanding these philosophies and these principles, I think you're going to be much more successful as a coach. And it really does take studying. You can't just know training and nutrition and step out there and expect people to hire you. And I think that stuff is kind of evident in content too. You know, when people listen to your podcast or my podcast, they can hear our voices, they hear our stories, they hear what we're talking about and they can understand
Starting point is 00:33:32 that it's real, it's raw, it's relatable. And that's really what triggers people to buy coaches. Interesting. And in terms of personality types, what are your thoughts on that? Like, do you think that coaching is just, it's well-suited? I would think that there are just certain people that don't have the personality fit. Yeah. And I would say that even if that were the case, it's not that that person should just give up. Oh, you're fucked.
Starting point is 00:33:57 There's nothing you can do. But maybe they should look at doing something else in the fitness space. Maybe coaching is not the best choice because they're going to feel like they're always at odds with themselves. And again, this is me just theorizing, but have you come across that just having worked with a lot of people who I'm assuming coming up to where you're at now, you've had a lot of people apply that want to be a coach of yours. of people apply that want to be a coach of yours, but have you come across that at all where it's not so much like where you feel that this person is just hardwired in a way that is going to make it very hard for them to succeed as a coach or not really? Honestly, yeah. I've actually had a few applications that I've turned out because of that. They had the knowledge base of training. I've even had people who I have coached. I've done their training, done their nutrition.
Starting point is 00:34:42 They understand the principles. They know my systems because they've experienced it. But like I said, I think I said it earlier, like kind of like a chameleon, they can't blend in and just start a conversation. They're not super outgoing. They're not confident about who they are and they're not confident about speaking. And I really do think that you need to be confident. You need to be, and this was kind of weird for me to actually understand and like really be able to start to apply in my life. But being a leader, being an influencer, being somebody that people want to be like is actually a good trait as a coach. And at first it was weird for me to hear like somebody, a mentor tell me like, hey, dude,
Starting point is 00:35:15 like people want to be like you look like you act like you, you should lead them. You need to be a leader. You need to be a mentor. You need to understand your role and provide that to them. And I thought it was really weird because I was like, no, I'm not an influencer. I'm not a leader. I like training. But I had to understand that I had created success in a certain realm and people did want to experience that too. And I needed to step up and be a leader and be able to display that to them. And I think some people just do not have that personality type. It doesn't mean it can't be
Starting point is 00:35:41 created. So the reason I turned those applications away was more so because we're in a position where it's like you apply for a coaching position. You've already coached. I already know you have experience. You go through a three month internship and then we hire you as a coach. Now you're working for boom, boom performance. I don't have the time. Um, as much as I wish I do, I don't have the time to kind of like hold hands and help people bridge the gap from that position because you know, I can people bridge the gap from that position. Because, you know, I can teach you the training and the nutrition, like that's easy, but to change your personality type or get you to open up and be more confident, that's really difficult. You need to
Starting point is 00:36:14 want that inside. And sometimes you need to be born with that. So I do think that's a big key. And then it's the same thing with clients. Like when we have clients apply for us, I'm really trying to figure out their personality type of who they're going to fit best with, right? Like what kind of person is this? What kind of diet are they going to gravitate towards? What is their stress like in their lifestyle? What triggers them positively or negatively? And that's going to dictate what coach I pair them with or if I take them on, so on and so forth. And I think it's easier as you do confident. And you can, I mean, share your thoughts on this. I know for me, when I started a podcast, when I started putting more information on Instagram and writing more blogs and doing all that stuff, I became more confident as a coach. I became more
Starting point is 00:36:53 confident as a person. And I have no problem starting a podcast and talking for an hour by myself alone in my office because I've built this personality, I guess. I've built this confidence in myself to be able to put that information out there and talk about what I do in such a confident way that people actually trust it. And I think that's what worked really well for you is because you went reverse and you started the content game first,
Starting point is 00:37:15 people trusted you so quick. Whereas most people struggle because they're not putting that information out there. So people aren't trusting their information. If they don't trust your information, they won't hire you as a coach. But that helped me a lot. Yeah, absolutely. No, I completely agree with that. And I would say that if it were just a confidence thing, that's probably if somebody wants it bad enough, I'm sure that they could build confidence,
Starting point is 00:37:37 develop as it also, it kind of goes hand in hand with, so let's say someone's starting out and let's say they're not very confident and we've all been there. And you know, in some ways I would say it makes sense to not be confident when you are, let's say you're young, you haven't accomplished anything at all, really in your life. We're all there. Maybe some people got a really early start and for them, by the time they were 20, they had some neat things to show for themselves. But for most of us, that wasn't really the case. And at best, maybe we did well in school. We had that and we had some confidence in that area where we go, well, I did well in high school. So I don't know what that's worth exactly. But I guess I can be confident in out, or at least it makes sense to start out without overbearing confidence, especially when it's not grounded in anything real, because what that leads to, and I've seen that, you know, I'm thinking of a couple people right now.
Starting point is 00:38:36 So super overconfident people, right? One person, young 20s, thought that, you know, he was just God's gift to the world. Everything is just going to be so easy for him. Life is just going to be so easy because he's just so inherently extraordinary, right? Hadn't really accomplished anything that is impressive or was impressive to me, at least, and was certain that he was going to be wildly successful by the time he was like late 20s. And if that didn't happen, then he would consider himself a complete failure. And that sets you up for failure far more so than feeling completely unsure of yourself and uncertain of what you can do
Starting point is 00:39:20 or how well things are going to go. Because what happened with that guy is life kicked him the nuts over and over and over. And he has a much different perspective now. And he's grown out of that. He's matured. But his delusions of grandeur did not materialize. He eventually realized it was all just a mirage. And that also made him not work as hard. And you just make a lot of really basic mistakes. Whereas you have someone starting out where I think it's, you can have confidence in your ability to figure things out and get things done, but starting out with a realistic assessment of like, you know, yeah, I don't feel confident putting out a bunch of content because I don't really feel like I know
Starting point is 00:40:00 what I'm talking about yet. And sure, that can get a bit weird in terms of imposter syndrome. I'm sure. I mean, I even deal with that sometimes. I'm sure you do as well. Yeah. Where you just sit back and reflect for a minute. You're like, you just feel like, what do I actually know? I don't know anything. You know what I mean? And then like you said earlier, but if you're sure compared to maybe someone like Brad Schoenfeld, I don't know anything about muscle, the physiology of muscle growth. That's true. But I know a lot more than the people that I'm helping. And I know what I need to know to help them get to where they want to be. So that's enough for me. And I'm always working to
Starting point is 00:40:37 know more. But of course, it doesn't matter how much work we do. The amount that we don't know is going to always dwarf the amount that we do know. It doesn't matter if that's actually all we did was study 16 hours a day every day, because inevitably there are more questions, there are more unknowns, there are more things that nobody knows. And you realize that as you become more informed. But if you start out and you're like, I don't really know that much, I do not feel confident in my ability to put out content. I would say embrace that feeling. Yes, that's correct. You should not feel confident because if you do not know enough to speak correctly, accurately, intelligently for 10 minutes on,
Starting point is 00:41:13 let's say energy balance, macronutrient balance, let's say those two things, right? I just feel like that. Maybe I'm just speaking personally because it's something that I've always tried to cultivate in myself is a sense of humility. And I'm not saying that to say I'm a super humble person. I try to keep my head in proportion to my body, but I benefit from that in that it has always pushed me to do the work and do things that maybe other people don't want to do and not look for shortcuts. And so in the beginning there of where you don't have the confidence to take on a client, I would say if that's because you actually don't really know enough to get good
Starting point is 00:41:51 results, that's probably good. And you can work at that and develop that confidence. Do you go through that process yourself? Oh, a hundred percent. I think the difference in people that are successful, it actually goes back to what you said at the very, very beginning, like you have to enjoy this stuff. So when I didn't understand caloric energy balance, macronutrient balance, all those things, I went and researched it. I started tracking my macros. I applied it to myself and I read everything I could. Now there's so much information out there that I was able to actually start applying stuff immediately. And after a day or two, I had enough in my head to understand enough to explain it to the average individual. I'm not going to compare to Eric Helms or Alan
Starting point is 00:42:29 Aragon back then at all. But, and this actually helped me a lot understand like where I was at. One of my mentors said, cause I think I compared it to Lyle McDonald or somebody like that. Like, well, fuck, like this guy is so smart and blah, blah, blah. And they're like, do you think any of your clients actually know who Lyle McDonald is or Alan Aragon? And I'm like, probably have no idea whatsoever. And they were like, okay, well, you're going to be the smartest person that they might know about macronutrients. So it's up to you to help them understand it a little bit better. Right. And that helped me kind of just understand where I was at and that that was okay. Like, I don't need to be at these people's level right now because I'm just here trying to coach and help average individuals, right? As I grow,
Starting point is 00:43:08 I will get smarter. I will rub elbows with bigger names. Now I'm speaking in front of 40, 50 people at the local nutrition seminars and stuff like that. Like I better know my shit, obviously, but back then I wasn't doing that. So I think that you just kind of have to understand where your place is and, and accept that. And instead of letting insecurity scare you or lack of confidence scare you, let it motivate you to actually go learn and study and build your expertise on whatever topic it is that you are insecure or unsure about in the first place. And that's what I always did. Like I always had this saying, and I always say it to this day, my anxiety is my excitement. So if I get anxiety or insecurity
Starting point is 00:43:44 about anything that's going on, it's really just my excitement. So if I get anxiety or insecurity about anything that's going on, it's really just my excitement. Like I'm really excited to grow, to learn, to build this thing. And I'm getting pretty worked up and I'm probably having some anxiety about it. So instead of letting that overcome me and stop me from taking action, I'm just going to stop, breathe, and study more, learn more, and be better at this. So when I take action, it's that much better. And I think that's the mindset people have to have. And if you are truly passionate about training, nutrition and helping other individuals, I think that's not going to be a problem as long as you remind yourself of that throughout that process. Because the reality is, is everybody's going to get insecure. Everybody's going to get anxiety. Everybody's going to get stressed. Like it's just
Starting point is 00:44:21 part of human life. It's part of being an entrepreneur. It's part of being a coach in general. You just have to understand how to navigate through those things and actually accept this helped me a lot to accept that they're going to happen instead of believing that perfect balance is possible or that never having anxiety or stress is possible. Just accept that it's going to happen and learn how to deal with it better. Build your stress capacity instead of thinking you're going to eliminate it forever. Like nobody is that happy and that balanced and that peaceful that everything is just smooth sailing. Right. To that point, there was a book, I think it was called Peak Performance by Brad Stolberg and I forget, it's two authors. And in the book, they were talking about elite athletes,
Starting point is 00:45:00 elite performers, learning to view the like pre-event anxiety in a positive way. They still feel it. It feels the same. But instead of letting it kind of spiral out of control and thinking, I'm so nervous right now, and then it turns into fear and then it negatively impacts their performance, if they could learn to see it positively, if they can learn to see it, this is my body getting ready. And this is how I should feel. And this means that I'm going to have my best shot at performing well, that made a big difference in their actual performances. And so I've done that before. If there are things that I'm going into where I'm like, I don't know, this seems a little bit, I'm not sure. I'm not sure how
Starting point is 00:45:42 this is going to go. Was it probably a year ago, Maybe a little bit more than a year ago. I went on the Kelly and Ryan show, right? So live TV, I've never done any live TV. I went from doing zero live TV to, I think at the time it was the number one live morning show in America. I don't know, millions of viewers. And so that alone, I was like, normally this is not supposed to happen, but I'm not going to say no. So sure, let's do it. I didn't even tell them I've never done this before. I've never done live TV before. I didn't tell them. And so I get there and we're prepping beforehand and we're trying to run through the routine. How exactly is it going to go? And we do not have enough time to prep period. It's just because it was all rushed. And they had, it turns out
Starting point is 00:46:22 the exec producer of the show had, they were having a meeting and they want to get a fitness guy on. He goes to Amazon. He sees my books. He's like, this guy's stuff is everywhere. Just get him. And then like one of his direct reports, also a producer on the show, went and checked out my YouTube channel. And I post podcasts, which are just audio. But then I also have videos where I'm just talking about stuff in my office, in my house. Right. And so that guy watched the videos. He's like, Oh, cool. He can talk about things. He'll be fine. And so we're under prepared. Really? We can run through this routine just a few times of what I'm supposed to do. And then that's it. And okay, good. See you tomorrow morning. And
Starting point is 00:46:55 you'll, you'll be going. I think it's almost a bit odd in that I don't get a physical reaction. I don't get nervous easily at all, but I was a little bit nervous. I was like, oh, well, hopefully I don't fuck this up. Basically, I guess in the scheme of things, it doesn't really matter. So there's, I have maybe, maybe that's one of the reasons why I have a part of me that's like, I don't take anything all that seriously. And so even if I were to completely botch it, I could honestly probably laugh at it. But it made me think of that book though, where I was like, well, it's normal to feel a bit nervous. And I'm going to take that as a positive thing. And I'm going to know that a heightened CNS activity level is going to serve
Starting point is 00:47:37 me well, because I'm going to be on TV and I'm going to have to be telling them what to do. And we're going to end up probably making some jokes. And anyways, I just thought of that as just a little tip. Whenever you're nervous for something is see it as a positive thing. See it as this is how you should feel. This is your body preparing for whatever it is that you're about to do. Yeah, no, I love that. And it's funny. It made me think of there was that show with the athletes and they'd like did a, I think it was Travis Pastrana. He was about to do some crazy thing on a dirt bike and they had his heart rate monitor and they watched his heart rate slow down as he was getting ready. Like he got calm as he was there. He like closed his eyes and he probably was doing the same thing in his head. Like looking at
Starting point is 00:48:13 it as a positive, looking at it as an opportunity experience. I definitely get what you mean when it comes to like speaking in front of people or doing big events and things like that. A hundred percent always feel nervous, but as soon as it starts and you kind of get in your groove, it just is over. But I think the most important thing is that you just said, yes, you didn't say like, oh shit, let me think about it. I didn't even think about it. No. Yeah. I just, yeah, yeah, sure. Take action. Yeah. And I think that's super important. Like take opportunities. And I think a big, it's funny cause like we've gone, you know, 40 something minutes
Starting point is 00:48:39 about confidence in education. You know what I mean? Like, I think it's important for people to understand that just building your expertise and being confident, teaching that to people is some of the biggest pieces of coaching like that and understanding human interaction are two of the biggest pieces inside of owning a coaching business. Because if you're not that person that is a leader and can help people learn, you're going to have a tough time having people hire you as a coach because they're hiring you for human interaction and for you to hold them accountable, support them and lead them to a result they want to see. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks
Starting point is 00:49:26 can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at MuscleForLifeFitness, Twitter at Muscle social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram
Starting point is 00:49:45 at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. I think a big thing for me that I would like to throw into the podcast for people to know is something that it's always changing. It's always changed for me inside my business, but getting my systems in place to where they actually ran smoothly was one of the most important things for me. As I started scaling, I remember having like 10 clients and feeling super busy. And then I got to 20 and I was like, Oh wow, this is crazy. And then I got to 30 and I was like, Oh shit, I don't know if I can handle this. And then 40 and I was like going insane. Right. I didn't know how to handle
Starting point is 00:50:22 it until I built systems like Google sheets, Googles, like funnels, like things that are just going to organize the payments, organize programming, have like kind of like templates for me to use that I can kind of drag and drop systems and macros or training or whatever I'm doing. Once I really dialed in systems and it's hard to really go over exact systems without being like on a webinar showing what these look like. But having systems that actually work for you to track your clients, track their progress, track what they're doing, track billing, like all these things, it takes so much work out of it. And a hundred clients felt like I was with 40 clients once upon a time, you know, and as we scaled and built that, and then I got other coaches and shared my systems, it allows us to have hundreds and hundreds of people working with us because of that. So one big tip for people out there who are, whether you are a brand new
Starting point is 00:51:08 trainer or you are somebody who has been training for a while and you're just looking to grow and get better and better, you have to have systems in place. And I feel like a lot of people are pretty unorganized or they rely on something like TrainerEyes or an app to just organize everything for them, which I guess you can do, but I don't believe it's the smartest choice to just rely on an app software to organize your business. I think you should actually have some systems in place to help guide you and track your clients and get them to the right place. And even have progression models inside of your training. Like how is that being recorded? Especially in the online setting where if you're training people in person, it's probably not the best idea, but you could technically see your client twice a week. Every time they come in, you give them something completely different. There's
Starting point is 00:51:47 no periodization, there's no progression, nothing. But if they have fun, they're probably going to keep paying you because they come in there and have fun with you. That's an event and experience that they cherish essentially. And they feel like it is valuable. They get a sweat, whatever. Online is completely different. Your programs have to make sense. There has to be progressions built in. You have to know when your training program is going to switch, what the next phase is going to look like. What is it going to look like at the month three if they're going to be working with you for longer than a 30-day grace period, which I highly suggest having some kind of contract in place that keeps people for a while. But you have to have these systems in place so
Starting point is 00:52:23 people are actually getting results because two months down the line when nothing's making sense, they're not being educated or learning things. So they're not really staying compliant and they have nothing to show for. They're probably not going to keep paying you. Yep. We've gone through that on my end, that same process. I think we did a pretty good job staying ahead of the need for systemization. the need for systemization. I'd say most people in business tend to be under organized and under systematized in their businesses. I have met people who I feel put too much work or have put too much work into building systems before they even have something that warrants a system. You know what I mean? And in a weird way, it was like a way to avoid doing the real work. You know what I mean? It's more fun to like build out spreadsheets and build out organization charts and build
Starting point is 00:53:09 out forms than it is to recruit people and sell and do the dirtier work of building a business. But for anybody listening, if any of that sounds good to you at all of what Cody was just saying, what I'm saying, read the book Enith by Michael Gerber. It's all about the importance of having systems and building a business that has extraordinary systems that ordinary people can run, as opposed to a business with shit systems, but extraordinary people. And I've been on both sides of that. I have some, everybody who works with me, I feel is a very above average person and in different ways, different people have different strengths,
Starting point is 00:53:44 above average person and in different ways, different people have different strengths, but I've been in a place in my businesses where they definitely were running well more because of the extraordinary efforts of some extraordinary or far above average people, as opposed to having good systems in place that even though maybe these above average people would be running the systems, I wouldn't necessarily need such a high caliber person to do whatever the job is. So it's that point of making time to work on your business versus just always working in your business. If you always just work in your business, you're going to be stuck with a fucking job. And it doesn't matter how much you enjoy working. I'm that kind of person. I'm sure you are as well working just for the sake of working. It doesn't matter how much
Starting point is 00:54:30 you enjoy, I would say the context of your work, because when you get into building a business, inevitably there are things you're going to do that you don't really like to do. If you could just delegate that and never have to look at that type of work ever again, that's just what your gut says, yes, please. And you're going to have to do that stuff. So, you know, I'm sure that you've experienced that code, right? As much as you like training, as much as you like fitness, all this stuff, you got to do stuff that you don't really like that much in the course of running and building your business. Yeah. And so then building systems is key for even for being able to turn stuff over. If you want to be able to hire somebody to do some
Starting point is 00:55:05 work that you either don't like doing, I would say for me, there's some work I would not like doing like being a finance person. I just don't find it interesting. I just don't. I don't care to really... I've educated myself, I would say, enough to be smart with how I handle my personal money and my business's money. But I'm not even very interested in investing, for example. I'm not interested in the stock market. I don't care enough to want. I'd rather just make more money and have a fiduciary who does a good job managing that money and have that money make money than trying to dive in myself and maybe try to eke out even, I don't know, 20 or 30%
Starting point is 00:55:47 better returns on the money. I'd rather just do other things to make more money. And, but for me, it's been not, maybe not so much like work that I just hate doing because I don't know about you, but for me, even if I have to do something or I'm like, well, that's going to be annoying. Once I get into it, it's no longer annoying. Once I'm doing it, it's actually okay. once I get into it, it's no longer annoying. Once I'm doing it, it's actually okay. And so a little like thing that I've used, I write about it in the, in the, in a book of mine, the little black book of workout motivation. I think it's just a simple little productivity quote unquote hack is if there's something you don't want to do and everybody knows, okay, eat was eat the frog first, whatever, do it first thing in the day, get the stuff out of the way.
Starting point is 00:56:22 It's going to be the most annoying first, which I don't necessarily agree with. I think blocking your time out, it depends on your situation. For some people, it makes more sense, I think, to block time and use your most productive time for the highest value stuff. And in other people, depending on the jobs, it actually might make sense to just, I have to do all these random fucking things today. I'm going to get the most annoying of them out of the way. But if make a deal with yourself that you'll start doing it. And if within you give yourself 10 minutes, you got to do it for at least 10 minutes. And after 10 minutes, you can stop. And chances are, no matter what it is, after 10 minutes, you will not want to stop. You'll just want to keep going. And so I found that to be true so much so that I really don't
Starting point is 00:57:03 even entertain thoughts or feelings of, I don't really want to do that. Or that found that to be true so much so that I really don't even entertain thoughts or feelings of I don't really want to do that or that's going to be annoying because I know that once I start doing it, it's just not going to be a big deal. So for me, though, it's been there's a lot of work that goes on in the businesses that I don't want to do because I know it's not the highest and best use of my time. I know it's something that I should delegate. I know it's something that somebody else should be doing and I should be doing stuff like this. I should be writing books. I should be doing other publicity things, going on radio shows or going to other people's podcasts. I should be writing articles. I should be producing content, blah, blah, blah. And so in order to make a job occupiable by somebody else, in order to make it easy for someone else to step into the shoes and that you don't want to wear anymore. Systems is key. You have to have a really codified, systematized job that takes somebody from not knowing much about it. Maybe they have some
Starting point is 00:57:58 previous experience doing similar types of work, but they don't know how you want it done and how your systems work. To go from that to being able to do the job well with minimal handholding. That's the goal that I'm working toward in my businesses. And that's really an all hands effort because we need to hire this year, like Legion, the supplement company, probably five to seven people. And there's a bit more of codification that needs to happen before I'm comfortable hiring people because it's very hard to hire somebody and just throw them into something and say, up, figure it out. You figure out the system or you just look at what we're doing and turn it into a system. It might sound easy and it might be easy for people who are naturally maybe more systems thinkers and who have experience doing
Starting point is 00:58:43 that kind of thing. But that's very intimidating for most people. So no, you have to be the one to do that. You have to be the one to say, this is how it works, break it down into its component parts. Here are the keys. Here are the fundamentals. Here's how this flows from one thing to the next. Here's how we go from this little incoming thing to this great outgoing thing. So that, that, that's been my experience. I think that, I mean, it starts with a attitude and a mental shift too, because you have to not only be a quote unquote personal trainer, you have to be a businessman. You have to understand that these things are priorities. And if you want to scale, you do have to do the work. That's not quote unquote fun, or you can't just have the attitude of all I do is train. Like that's not the reality of how a business works. And I know for me, like I had a big,
Starting point is 00:59:28 it was a big light bulb moment when I first, so the first employee I hired was my assistant. And when she came in and she was just like, none of your shit makes sense. Like, I don't understand your calendar. I don't understand your schedule, any of this, like how are leads coming in? How are you doing this? And it's like, how is this even running so well? So her and I had to sit down and break down everything. But then that led me to believe like, first of all, I became so much more efficient and was doing so much more work when she came on that I realized how much I needed to prioritize my systems even more. So my plans of hiring other coaches, I was like, oh shit, my systems of how I coach clients needs to make sense and be usable for any coach that I bring on. Because now
Starting point is 01:00:06 somebody else is stepping into my business and I want them to use the same exact system to work with the clients that are applying for my company's coaching so that no matter who they work with, it's the same exact experience. Even though they might not work with me hands-on anymore, they at least get a coach that's going to work the same way because they know my philosophies, they've worked with me before, they've studied my stuff stuff and they have my systems. So I think it is really, really important. And cause a lot of people look at it like, Oh, I'm just a coach. I don't plan on hiring coaches underneath me yet. Like even if you're at that point, set yourself up now, because I promise you, you will have more successful clients and you'll be more efficient
Starting point is 01:00:38 with your work so that you can spend time doing the shit that you actually need to do more often, like blogging and content. Like you said, like I'm very much in the camp of, you know, like when I wake up in the morning, like I didn't touch my phone until 9am this morning because I had to write a blog. I had to finish some video stuff. I had to send out these newsletters. Like I had content to create and I want to do that at five in the morning when nobody's awake and I just have like my coffee and quiet, you know what I mean? Like to me, that's the best time to do it. I didn't do my emails and all the stuff that like is behind the scenes that people don't see on quote unquote Instagram, like the business stuff. Like I do that later on because for me, my mental fatigue settles in at
Starting point is 01:01:14 around 3 PM after I've been doing content all day. Now I have to really do the stuff that is more mindless, but just needs to get done. And then I think as you grow, you can outsource more like, and just let go of control. Like even for me, I don't know if it was hard for you, but there was certain things like I had a hard time letting go of. Cause I was like, well, I sell better than you and I can do this better than you. And this is my business, but I had to just be okay with like, okay, somebody else is going to do this role now. And it's going to help me. It's not going to hurt the business. Like let them do their thing. So I can spend more time doing my precious stuff. The stuff that really makes the business, like let them do their thing so I can spend more time doing my precious
Starting point is 01:01:45 stuff. The stuff that really makes the business move, the stuff that I'm good at, like you said, podcasting, seminars, workshops, content, things like that. Like that's what I need to spend my time doing, but not everybody can outsource at the beginning. So I think just understanding where the process is going to take you is really important though. Yeah. Yeah. As far as delegation goes, I've run into that a little bit and I would say the biggest reason why I haven't is probably because again, I have very, very good people and that's not to say that you don't or anything. It's just that I'm just actually giving the credit to them. I've been able to turn over really completely some major aspects of the businesses and have them
Starting point is 01:02:22 run smoothly and just know that, not that I am never going to pay attention to it again, but also with setting up KPIs, setting up statistics, right? So numbers, things I can track, things that are quantitative so I can know what's going on. And then having good meeting rhythms in place where we have productive meetings on a regular schedule and we all, and it's me. And I'm thinking with some of the key guys that are in my businesses and how we stay coordinated and everything, which I picked up a fair amount from the book, scaling up for anybody who's interested. I don't do all, I don't do a daily huddle. We were trying it for a bit and I was like,
Starting point is 01:02:58 this just seems like a waste of time. We don't need, we don't need this. I don't mean, I don't really follow anything dogmatically, but I'm willing to try a lot of things if they make any sort of sense. And so with, yeah, I would say KPIs in place, having a good meeting rhythm, a good schedule on meetings and having them follow an exact format so we can stay coordinated. I also keep lists throughout the week of things that I want to discuss in those meetings. So I don't have to try to remember. So when we get there, it's productive. Like I have, cool. I have these, I have these five things. These, these are what are, here's what I want updates on. And then also of course, having people in the office with me is key because I can, although we don't have a lot of ad hoc meetings because they're generally
Starting point is 01:03:36 a waste of time and generally indicate that there's just inefficiencies elsewhere. But if there is something I can go right over to the cross the way here and ask what's going on. So yeah, those are just, those are just my experiences so far with delegation. However, I have experienced the frustration of delegating things to people who are fucking incompetent. And that is one of the, I think it's one of my biggest pet peeves is working with incompetent people. I actually hate it more than anything else that pops into my mind. It's probably one of my top things I actually hate. It's not that I hate them. I hate the experience of working with stupid, incompetent people. And it's particularly working
Starting point is 01:04:17 with because in everyday social interactions, I could care less. I'm not even thinking how smart or not smart somebody is or how competent or incompetent they might be. I'm just there having a conversation, do whatever I'm doing. But as far as work goes, I don't know. It's just a different mentality for me. And so maybe that's also why I have, you know, I've gone through, I haven't gone through that many people, but particularly some freelancers. I, at this point just have so little faith in freelancers in general. I think generally they're just unemployable. That's my conclusion. That's why they're freelancers. And that's not always the case. I've worked now. I still work with some freelancers who are very good, but these are people who I would say they almost have their own
Starting point is 01:04:58 business. They're not just a, they're not like some 27 year old kid living in Vietnam, uh, freelancing. You know what I mean? Yeah. There are people who very well could, like they could be a very valuable employee to somebody, but they're not because they either have their own business or like I work with an editor who's a very good freelancer and she worked with Penguin. She worked with Random House and another might've been Harper Collins as well. And I believe she started freelancing when she had her first or second kid and she wanted something a bit more part-time. That makes sense. She's fucking great, but it's hard to find those people. Um, so being very, uh, intolerant of incompetence has also helped me in that it's very clear that I don't think I am an unfair boss or anything. I don't think I put unrealistic demands on people, but if somebody can't get a job done, they're just not going to be around long. Yeah, no, I can agree with that. If I know that the systems are good,
Starting point is 01:05:57 everything can be made better. In fact, you person who's going to be doing this job, that's part of the job is I want you to make this better. But if I know it's good enough that somebody who is competent should be able to do the job and it's not working, I'm just finding somebody else. Yeah. No, I couldn't agree more. I haven't had too much experience with that inside of my own business, but when I worked elsewhere for sure. But I've also been pretty damn picky about who comes onto my team for that exact reason, because I think that's what helped me kind of navigate through that and not worry about incompetent people. And just having people that actually have the same vision and values as you. So like building this to the scale you want to build this isn't a surprise or an exaggeration to anybody. Like they're on the same exact fucking page and they're ready to do what it takes to get to that place. And it's an all encompassing mission together. It's a movement, you know what I mean? And I'm sure everybody, I mean, I was talking to Roman before you jumped on the line when I signed on and I can feel that in him. So like, that's a good example of somebody that you would want on your team.
Starting point is 01:06:54 That's going to help grow. You know what I mean? So a hundred percent agree, dude, I couldn't agree more on that. Yeah. Character character is hugely important with hiring. I think good culture fit in a good person, honest, hard working matters a lot. We do, we do a fair amount of testing before we hire people, which helps weed out people who probably will not work and then have a bit of an onboarding process to make sure where they come and they meet everybody. And we really want to make sure I want to do my due diligence upfront. And I would say mostly there's the avoiding the waste, obviously, of trying to go through five people to get somebody who finally fits into a job. That
Starting point is 01:07:32 sucks from a business standpoint because you lose time, you lose money, but it also sucks from a personal standpoint. I don't want to have somebody come on that had this happened one time and I felt bad about it. And I was like, I need to do a better job on our hiring systems where I brought somebody on to write and super cool dude moved up here was super into what we were doing, but we hadn't done enough due diligence on his ability to actually do the job. And within a few months, it was just clear that it wasn't working and I had to let him go. But I mean, I helped him pay for him to move back. And cause I actually felt bad. I was like, shit, I didn't do a good enough job vetting this guy. And this is what has resulted. So then we really started to pay more attention to our hiring systems and putting multiple steps in place to make sure that like, I really want every person that I hire to
Starting point is 01:08:22 work out and to be here until the end, you know? Yeah. When I was working as a trainer for somebody else, there was a pretty intense internship process of like working for free and you didn't coach anybody at the beginning. Like you just studied, you shadowed, you did those things for like a full month and then you started kind of getting ingrained. Learning that process helped me a lot because we have that in our system. So I actually went through something something literally the exact same thing you're talking about. Since we're an online coaching company, I don't need to fly them here or anything, but same thing. I thought this person was going to be great fit as a coach, but as the internship process went through, I just realized
Starting point is 01:08:56 that they just weren't on the level that we need because our coaches are experts and we have to present them that way. The good thing is, is that this is all behind the scenes. So people don't see that through our content or in the media or anything like that. So our internship kind of has that same way of us truly vetting somebody's knowledge and communication skills to work with the client. And we take them through that process. And if they're not a good fit, we just kind of exit them out. But it's never a fun thing. Like you said, from the personal side, it's like, fuck, like, I really like this person. They're a good human being. And I don't want to tell them, Hey, sorry, changed my mind. It's not a fun thing. Like you said, from the personal side, it's like, fuck, like, I really like this person. They're a good human being. And I don't want to tell them, hey, sorry, changed my mind. It's not a good fit. But the reality is, is the business has to grow.
Starting point is 01:09:30 And the only way to help more people is if everybody's on the same page. Yeah. And it's better for them too. If you truly believe that they're not going to work well in your business, one, you're probably right. You've been doing this long enough and you've seen enough. There's a reason why you feel that way. And then two, I would say to hire them in spite of that is doing them a disservice because it's going to be even more of a letdown for them when three months, six months, who knows how long later until you finally are like, yeah, no, this is most certainly not working. I was right, but I didn't listen to my gut or whatever. So I think you're doing them a favor by letting them down early and nicely and
Starting point is 01:10:12 allowing them to go find something else or somewhere else where they will be a good fit. Yeah, no, I a hundred percent agree. Absolutely agree. You know, I wanted, I wanted to mention one other thing that you had mentioned on in terms of developing passion, because that's something that I get asked about still fairly often, is various questions about passion and its relationship to success. you are going to have to be passionate about something relating to your work. And again, building a business means you have a bunch of different hats that you have to take off and put on every day of a lot of different things that you have to do. I would say, do you need to be passionate about all those things? No, definitely not. But the core activity, what's the core value of your business? What's your core product, your core service? It could be that that you're
Starting point is 01:11:04 passionate about. That's this type of business, right? I would say yes. If you do not, and how does that manifest? I would say if you're passionate about something, one, you probably would do it regardless of whether you're paid or not. Two, you enjoy learning about it. And it's not a chore for you to read books or read articles or listen to podcasts about it and that it's inexhaustible too. It's not like, oh, after a couple of books, you feel done and you feel like you know enough and you're ready to move on to something else. I'd say probably should feel a bit of excitement even at the prospect of doing it and feel just naturally drawn toward it and feel curious about it. I'm just going off the top of my head in terms of
Starting point is 01:11:46 how that actually manifests because the word passion sounds nice, but what does it really mean? And so as far as coaching goes, yes, I 100% agree. You have to feel that way about the activity itself or it's just not going to go well. In terms of business. You have businesses that just sell knickknacks. Like for example, you might have a business that just sells things on Amazon. I know people who make a lot of money selling things on Amazon, like flags and magnets and shit. They're not passionate and they make millions and millions of dollars when it's all said and done net, even like these are very successful people. And are they passionate about flags and magnets and coloring books and stuff? No, not at all. But they're passionate. In some cases,
Starting point is 01:12:35 there's an aspect of what they're doing that they just really enjoy. And in some cases, specifically, Amazon is like a game. It's like a puzzle. And being a good Amazon marketer is very different than just being a good marketer. You need to be a decent marketer. You need to be decent at selling things and persuading people, but you need to be good at Amazon marketing. And that's very different. That's more just knowing how to play the game. And so there's one guy, that's just what he just loves it. He's just into what's the next little thing that he's going to learn because he's deep into, I guess you'd say masterminds. Most masterminds are just bullshit, but some of them in the,
Starting point is 01:13:15 if you're big enough in the Amazon game, there are some people out there who are very big and they actually do share things. And so he just loves finding out what's the next thing, his contacts in Amazon, what's coming down the pike, how can he get more out of the advertising? And it's just tinkering. And he's just, for him, it's like working on an engine or something and just making it more and more efficient, making more and more money. And he's passionate about that. So you have that side as well.
Starting point is 01:13:39 You have people that are passionate about marketing in particular, and they don't really care what they're selling. They just love selling things. And so that's another angle. But the reason why I'm saying all this is I do think that to be successful, whether it's in the fitness industry or just in general, there has to be something that brings you alive, that makes you feel alive and that you're drawn toward. And it really engaging in that activity puts you into that flow state. So in my work, what I'm most passionate about is I like creating content. I like researching. I like writing. I like marketing. I really like marketing. There's some elements of business development that I like. And I like, I can't say I'm passionate
Starting point is 01:14:19 about hearing from people and seeing the results that my work produces, but it's definitely very enjoyable. Passion is just not the word, but it's very rewarding. Like hearing from individuals who just email me to say, Hey, I read your book. I really liked it. And it's three months later now. And I've lost 25 pounds and I feel so much better. I look so much better. And my relationship with my wife is better now and blah, blah, blah, like that stuff just makes me feel good. It's like my junk food. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, I absolutely know. I guess that factors into the passion.
Starting point is 01:14:53 Well, I just think if it's not there, the coaching business isn't going to be successful. Yeah. You can grind, you can grind, but I'm thinking again, even to myself, like, okay, if I had to be my director of finance, Logan, who loves that shit, he loves finances. He loves numbers. He loves systems. He loves spreadsheets and he's very good at it. And he's fucking into it. Could I do his job? I could grind my way through it. I just wouldn't be as good though, because you only have so much force you can bring to your life every day until you got to go to sleep and recharge. And the more internal resistance there is, the sooner you run out of energy. So finding something where not only there's not resistance, there's actually,
Starting point is 01:15:35 it's like the skids are greased. When you push a little bit in that direction, you just go, you just get so much more done. And that ultimately that's how I see success is it's doing a million little things, right? It's making a lot of good decisions. Of course, you're gonna make bad decisions. You got to make more good decisions than bad decisions. And you got to make bigger, good decisions than, and you know, you can make a lot of little bad decisions and some really good, big decisions and get by, but getting to where it, let's say, I don't know, whatever anybody's individual definition of success is, but in business, let's just say
Starting point is 01:16:10 seven figures in revenue, right? Because statistically speaking, what is it? Not even 1% of businesses get there or something like that in annual revenue. Okay. Let's say that, but getting there just requires so many little things that need to be done that just take time. Let's just look at it as literally you have 50,000 individual actions that need to get done before you are going to... That's the quantity and the quality needs to be there too. They need to be making good decisions along the way. But once you get those 50,000 things done, you now have a business that's going to do seven figures in sales in the next year. If you are not passionate, if you don't have that combination of qualities that I was just talking about, it just, you'll never get to that finish line. And one, it'll just take
Starting point is 01:16:56 too long. And the longer something takes, the more likely you are to give up. And then two, the quality will be out to where you might take 50,000 actions, but only 10,000 were the right actions because you made too many bad decisions because you didn't take the time to inform yourself or you weren't interested enough to really think things through and really try to figure out what's a very good decision here. What's a very good way of solving this problem, a very good way of exploiting this opportunity. So that I just think without passion, it's going to be very hard. But I would also say that there's something to be said for developing passion too, because I don't know about you, but my entry into all of this was really a curiosity that
Starting point is 01:17:37 started with writing. So when I was younger, I didn't know when I was 17, 18, all I knew is I was a good student. I was confident in that. I'm good at learning things. So that's good. That's like a meta skill. But what am I going to learn and what am I going to do and how am I going to turn into money? I don't know. And how I even found my way into writing was just... Actually, I was just like, I like reading. I'm naturally drawn to reading. Nobody has to force me to read. I'll sit down, I'll read stuff. I like to read widely. I have a lot of random interests. Maybe I would like writing. It wasn't that I felt that it's my calling. I was not strongly drawn toward it at all. It started just actually as
Starting point is 01:18:14 a curiosity. And as I started to do it more and more, I was like, fuck, I actually like this. This is cool. And it turned into passion. So the reason I've been, this is a long tangential monologue. The reason why I'm saying all these things is because I hear from people so often that think that because they don't have passion right now, they're kind of fucked basically. Like I'm not passionate about anything. What am I supposed to do? And my answer to that is, have you tried? Like there's gotta be something that you at least find a little bit curious that you know you enjoy reading about or listening to or where you just feel a little bit drawn toward it i think you can turn that into passion what are your thoughts how how is your experience with that ben yeah no i agree i think that you know for me it was transforming my body and that's what i was
Starting point is 01:18:59 curious about and as i went down the rabbit hole i got more and more and more curious and that's what bled into passion. Once I understood how to do it myself and became extremely passionate about what's going to transform my body, get me stronger, build confidence, change my mindset, so on and so forth, that's when I wanted to help other people do it and spread the message because I was so passionate about it and so curious about doing it to myself. I could only imagine how awesome it would be to help other people do it. So I think you're right. I think you do. I don't necessarily think you can go searching for hobbies that become passions that become careers, but I do think you can kind of, everybody has things like you just said that you're curious about, like go down that rabbit
Starting point is 01:19:37 hole, start embarking down this curiosity journey and see where it takes you. And you never know what's going to happen. I get people all the time that ask me, how do you wake up every morning and do what you do? How do you wake up at five? How do you get up and start writing content? And it's like, cause I fucking love this shit. Like I'm so passionate about creating content and helping other people that it's just not a question. And I think that's what people need to find. And, and if you're going into the coaching industry, cause I know we were talking about coaching business, if you're going into this and you don't feel like that urge to just constantly do something more with it, do better, have a bigger to-do list, create more content, I don't think that it's the right career path for you. Or you need to find an avenue within fitness that's going to
Starting point is 01:20:17 allow that passion to kind of spread. Like for you, it might not have been coaching, it was writing instead. And that could very well be people who think they need to be a coach. It could be something completely different in the industry, but you need to find that curiosity and you need to find something that you wake up to and you don't hit snooze. It's like, I'm ready to grind and do this because I really do love this stuff
Starting point is 01:20:36 and I really can just keep working at it and keep grinding at it nonstop because that's really all I want to do. So for me, it's just finding whatever that is. And you should know, like, if you don't feel that way as a coach, coaching is probably not for you. Like that really is how it should feel when we go into this shit. Yeah. At least after you've done it for a bit. Right. And you've started to get good at it because it's also hard to be passionate about something that you suck at. You know, I would say my little foray into golf, it was when I, when I was in Florida, I was playing maybe four to six hours a week.
Starting point is 01:21:05 But in the beginning, I played some golf when I was younger, just enough to ingrain some bad habits, basically, that I had to unlearn, which was not very helpful. But it just was something that I was curious about. I wonder if I would enjoy this. All right, start doing it. And I find myself wanting to do it more and getting more curious. I start reading books about it. And so that starts to develop. I wasn't, I wouldn't say I was passionate, but I was like, yeah, this is, this is worth my time. I could see this going somewhere. And I was curious then,
Starting point is 01:21:34 could I get good enough in a, in a year to year and a half? Could I get good enough to play in local tournaments and have fun? You know, not just make a fucking fool of myself. So start putting more time into it, more time into it. And it never fully turned into passion though. When I saw that it was going to take quite a bit more work to really get to where I wanted to be. And I wasn't willing to give it that time. It's not that I was afraid of the work or anything. It was just four to six hours a week, given my schedule was already, I felt like a bit of a stretch as it was. And it was probably going to take, if I would have kept to that rate, maybe
Starting point is 01:22:10 two and a half years or so. My point is that when I started, I was bad and I was annoyed. I'm on the driving range and anybody who has tried to play golf, you know what I'm talking about. It's just a uniquely frustrating game because you can't do shit actually. You know what I'm talking about? It's just a, it's a uniquely frustrating game because you can't, you can't do shit. Actually, you know, you go, you go and play basketball. You start, I don't play basketball. I never have. I could go right now. And a guy who works with me is a good basketball player. And he could be like, cool, here's how you shoot. And I'd be like, all right. And I guarantee you it wouldn't take long for, I could start making decent baskets where I'd feel like I'm, I have, at least I'm doing something.
Starting point is 01:22:45 Golf is not like that. You start and you're terrible. First, you have a hard time even hitting it. And then you start learning to hit it. And then it's, how do I make this thing actually go where I want it to go more often than like one out of every 20 strikes, right? Anyway, so as I started to do more of it, I got more interested in it. And maybe it could have turned into a passion. But if that wouldn't have happened, I would have do more of it, I got more interested in it and it could, maybe it could
Starting point is 01:23:05 have turned into a passion, but if I, if that wouldn't have happened, I would have just ditched it. I would have just been like, nah, this is, this is not for me. I can put my time, I can find something else because that's, that's what I want out of a hobby. At least you want to, you want to have that flow experience. And that requires a bit of what we're saying is passion, but as when you break it down into its component parts, that's really what it requires. So as far as coaching goes, I'd say in the beginning, if it's a curiosity and you're like, yeah, that might be fun. And you start getting into it and you find yourself more curious about how the body works and how to change body composition and you experience it yourself.
Starting point is 01:23:35 That was the thing that was very similar for me. That was the trigger that really pushed me into the fitness space was what I do with my own body. I was like, wow, that's actually pretty cool. pushed me into the fitness space was what I did with my own body. I was like, wow, that's actually pretty cool. I wonder if I could do this with other people. And as I did more of it, I got more and more into it and just kept going with it. So as far as coaching goes, yeah, I think it makes sense to, in the beginning, you probably are not going to be very passionate about it. One, because it's going to be uncomfortable. You're not going to be good at it in the beginning, at least in the grand scheme of things. I don't care how precocious you are. I don't care how many talents you have. As far as in the bigger picture, whenever we start out at anything, we're bad, period.
Starting point is 01:24:14 We're just bad. The best of us starting out newly at anything, we're bad. And yes, it is. Maybe there are people out there who they find something and from the first moment, they are super passionate about it all in, even though they suck. That hasn't been exactly the experience for me. It's been something where I'm like, oh, that's interesting. That's interesting. But then as you get better at it, that becomes a positive kind of reinforcing feedback loop where I think it's much easier to get passionate about something as you get better because it just becomes inherently more enjoyable and you want to feel that way more and more. And so it becomes putting your time into that becomes more alluring than putting your time into the many other things
Starting point is 01:24:57 you could put it into. Yeah, no, I a hundred percent agree. But I think, and I think you just have to push past that. Like you said, it's always going to be uncomfortable. It's not going to be an easy experience. And if you can move past that, then it. Like you said, it's always going to be uncomfortable. It's not going to be an easy experience. And if you can move past that, then it's a possibility. And that's the big key there. You know, Seth Godin wrote a book called The Dip that I did not read, but I think that was the premise of it, actually. Because on the cover, I think it was a line graph and it's like going up and then it's
Starting point is 01:25:21 dipping down to a new low and then swinging back up to a new high. I think that was the premise basically is getting into something. You have that initial high and like, oh, this is great. And you learn your first little skills and you feel like you're making progress every day. It's kind of like newbie gains in the gym. And then things start to get hard and they start to slow down. And all of a sudden you're not really getting better anymore. And you're running into problems that you don't know how to solve. And you're having to do things that weren't as fun as in the beginning and even doing the things that were fun in the beginning are not so fun anymore and you have that dip and i think the book is i don't know if it's necessarily how to get through that or if it yeah it probably is
Starting point is 01:25:58 it's probably a bit of like how to know should you keep going is this going to get better or is this right is this just not for you yeah like. Like, how do you understand that? I think for something like this or for something that's going to turn into a successful business, I think it happens faster than not. Or you just have to have the courage to chase your passion, like something you're already passionate about, but you don't believe can become a business or become a lifestyle or anything. I think you do need to keep gravitating towards that.
Starting point is 01:26:24 Even for the people, like you said, the guy on Amazon, like he has a weird passion about Amazon marketing. He probably didn't think that like, oh, I'm going to keep pursuing this Tetris like marketing that I love. And it's going to lead me down the path of being a millionaire who sells magnets. Like that's probably not the route he took, but he just kept chasing what he loved to do. And I even look at business like that, dude, like in content, I look at all that stuff like a game, whether we're talking about leads, sales, views on a video, downloads for a podcast, followers, like how well a program is doing,
Starting point is 01:26:54 like all of these numbers that we're looking at, like to me, I try to look at them like a game because it de-stresses the situation and it takes a little bit of pressure off and allows me to actually have fun with these statistics and all the numbers that we're tracking and the analytics we're looking at to make sure our business grows and all the different facets because we have Instagram and podcast and YouTube and Facebook and all these different things are newsletters that go out and everything's connected with the eBooks and like having these funnels that lead from one thing to
Starting point is 01:27:21 the next. Like if you can make a game out of that, it becomes a lot more fun and you'll get way more consistent and put more effort into it and not be so stressed about it. And those things are what is going to build the business anyway. Totally. I would say being able to view life that way is it can be hard sometimes,
Starting point is 01:27:37 but I'm the same way in that I do consciously try to view things. Like I was saying, I don't, I try not to take things too seriously, including myself. And I guess one perspective that's helped me kind of cultivate that mindset is just treating things like a game and having that mentality. Like it's not, we're not playing for blood here. This is just a game. And, and I mean, I tend to view life that way as well, because ultimately
Starting point is 01:28:01 we don't know what comes next. Who knows? There are many, there are many theories, but we'll find out and we might, everyone might be wrong. So I just try not to take things too seriously. I try to maintain that kind of mentality that it's a game and I'm going to play to win and we'll see what game comes next. I don't know, or is there no game next? We'll see. Yeah, no, I agree, man. A hundred percent. All right, man. Well, this has been a great discussion. It went a bit longer probably than both of us anticipated, but I appreciate you taking the time. And why don't you let everybody know where they can find you, your work specifically. You've mentioned you have a few eBooks. I mean, what do on. It's been a blast. When the conversations go longer than expected, it always means it's a good conversation. So I'm always happy to stay in chat. We didn't really talk about this at all, but my nickname is Boom Boom.
Starting point is 01:28:50 So if you look up Cody Boom Boom, all my stuff will pop up. I don't think anybody else has that name, but boomboomperformance.com is where everything's there. My podcast is the Boom Boom Performance Podcast. That's on there. Ebooks, anything that they're interested in. There's a shit ton of free content on that place. So any more information you guys want from me is there. And most of the stuff that
Starting point is 01:29:09 I personally put out is on Instagram and you can follow me at Cody.boomboom. I put out most of my stuff there. Awesome, man. Well, thanks a lot for taking the time again. I really appreciate it. Good discussion. Absolutely. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too.
Starting point is 01:29:51 And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you. So instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine. So instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine. Specifically, my hugely popular and 100% natural pre-workout supplement, Pulse.
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