The Summit of Success

One languid summer day in Santa Barbara, I received a phone call.

“I would rather look like Princess Leia,” the voice stated on the phone.

“Rather than what?” I asked.

“Rather than Jabba the Hutt,” she replied gloomily.

“Well,” I questioned. “Do you have limbs?”

“Of course,” was her answer.

“Then that should be easy,” I remarked.

The self-proclaimed Jabba the Hutt on the phone was actually an aspiring actress named Liza. After being frustrated by numerous role rejections, which were later given to JLo-fit women, she became determined to say farewell to her favorite pastimes of beer, pizza, daytime soap operas, and her green microfiber sofa. She went on a strict no-carb diet and hit the treadmill. After two days of feeling starved, exhausted, and angry with her career choice, she plopped on her couch, pressed PowerOn, and ordered delivery while sipping her favorite lager. Hello old friends, goodbye Princess Leia.

A week later Liza decided she couldn’t do it on her own – she needed help. As Liza sat talking to her help, me, and answering some of my questions, I began to sum up the situation. One, her motivation to get fit was external – the fat-hating Hollywood. Two, she had no previous experience with good nutrition and exercise habits. Three, she tried to be perfect on her first attempt to change these habits, and four, when she became frustrated with her struggles to be perfect, she quit. Although Liza may have countless good qualities to her character, slacking off, or excuse-making, was one of her challenging ones.

Liza hadn’t so much as walked a mile in ten years, but on her first day I took her on an hour-long walk on the beach. Her boxer Sammy accompanied us. She had a tough time. After two weeks of hour-long walks three to four times a week, I took her on one with a slight incline. As she became accustomed to that, I told her that in two months I wanted her to hike Rattlesnake Canyon, a steep nine-mile roundtrip hike. For the next month, I moved her from walking slight inclines to decent-sized hills. The month after that, I had her begin to jog slowly on the beach. Two weeks later, she was running up slight hills. The following month, I had her hike halfway up Rattlesnake Canyon and then hike back. She did this a few more times, and at the end of the month, she conquered the entire nine-mile hike.

But she was not done. The next day, I informed her that I wanted her to run a local 5k race, that was taking place in three months, in under 25 minutes. She looked at me, aghast. I intentionally told her 25 minutes (a time I knew was above and beyond her current capabilities) so she would work even harder. I had noted so far during our training that she would work hard when I was around, but for training sessions without me, she either didn’t go at all or gave a pathetic effort. I wanted to get her motivated to give a consistent good effort throughout the week, instead of just one or two times a week. I started her on more cross-training exercises, like kettlebells and boxing, so she wouldn’t get bored. Her training started progressing into a more consistent regiment. And although on race day she actually did quite well, running the race in 27 minutes, I still acted slightly disappointed and compared her to faster runners so she wouldn’t limit herself to that one achievement. I kicked up her training a notch and told her to start competing in two races a week.

Eventually, Liza became a well-known running competitor in town. But I didn’t stop there. I started having her train others. She completed my certification program and started training others, not only for a little extra cash while she tried to make it as an actress but also to keep herself in the Princess Leiaesque shape she had acquired.

 How did I get Liza to go from couch potato to top local competitor and trainer? It’s all about perception. You have to tweak your client’s perception of reality. Michael Jordan stated, “My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.” With a small change-up of pronouns, this quote gives you a guideline as a trainer. You need to have this attitude: “If I push my client towards something that she thinks is a perceived weakness in herself, I need to turn that perceived weakness into a strength.” If your client is an excuse maker, like Liza, this means taking her perceived weakness – quitting when it gets hard– into a strength – wanting to push harder.

 Notice how I didn’t start Liza with failure. Had I, she would have perceived training with me as impossible. Instead, I implemented a program of slow progression with her. I started with doable goals for her weight and fitness level. I waited until she adapted to walking and then moved her on to walking up hills. When she adapted to that, I moved forward from walking up hills to slow jogging on flat ground. In this particular step of progression, she was regressing as well. She did move from walking to jogging; however, she went from going uphill back to staying on flat terrain. You often need to regress with your client in order to attain progress. Think in terms of a growing tree. For a tree to grow upward, its roots must extend downward. Likewise, I needed to make sure that Liza was growing a big and deep enough foundation to support and maintain her progress.

  Additionally, Liza’s progress was being stifled by inconsistent habits. She would go all out only one or two times and then give herself an unwarranted break for the entire rest of the week, not working out at all. She was yo-yoing. This was a reflection of her perception, which understood exercise as an end and not a means to an end. In order to get her past her self-stunting excuse-making, I needed to change her perception – stay a step ahead of her. This is when I told her to run the 5k. However, I also needed to start pushing her harder in our training sessions to lead her toward a level of competing. She had a good enough foundation to really get into gear, but because she was an excuse maker, the practical implementation of this required a little bit of trickery on my part. In my next training hour with her, the day I planned on telling her about the 5k, I made sure to tweak her perception within the actual session and waited until the end of the session to fiddle with her long-term perspective. Here’s how the session played out:

 

Perception change # 1:

“All right Liza,” I said with confidence. “You’re going to run twelve stadiums today.” She looked at me like I was crazy, but I knew that I was already one step ahead of her. I really wanted only nine stadiums, but I told her twelve so that her “quitting early” would really be quitting right on schedule.

 

Perception change #2:

After two stadiums, she was tired and breathing hard. For the third stadium, I had her walk, skipping steps. She thought she was getting a break from the original training program, but I had planned it all along as resistance training for the day’s workout.

 

Perception change #3:

I had her continue the run/walk pattern for two more stadiums. While she struggled through the fourth stadium, I walked alongside her, showing her breathing techniques to control the air going in and out of her lungs, distracting her slightly from the pain and also teaching her something new that made her feel a tidbit more in control of her body.

 

Perception change #4:

Even though I said not until the sixth stadium, I gave her a short break after the fourth. She thought she was getting off easier when this was also what I had planned all along.

 

Perception change #5:

I had her run the next stadium, the fifth, advising her to focus on the breathing techniques I showed her earlier. Again, her focus on the pain of the exercise was distracted slightly by her concentration on breathing.

 

Perception change #6:

After that she was really tired. So I gave her the biggest self-interest motivation: If she beat me to the top running every step while I walked every other step, I would subtract a stadium, decreasing from twelve to eleven total. She gave it her all on this one.

 

Perception change #7:

I saw that she really gave it her all on the previous stadium. I repeated the same deal but didn’t shave another off the “fake” total. She realized that if she legitimately gave her all for this seventh stadium, I would be more likely to give her bigger breaks.

 

Perception change #8:

I had her walk the next one, skipping steps. She thought I was cutting her slack, but again, she was getting resistance training.

 

Perception change #9:

The ninth stadium was the last one I wanted her to do, but she was starting to complain. I gave her an ultimatum: if she ran really fast, this would be the last one. If not, I would add another stadium and push-ups. Although it wasn’t much, she pushed herself on this last one. I called it a day.

 

 

 

Perception change #10 :

As we said our goodbyes, I told Liza that I wanted her to run a local 5k in three months. In that instant I raised her perception another notch, heightening her goals from running nine stadiums to running a race. By being a step ahead of her and focusing her mind on a bigger challenge, I drop-kicked the possibility in her head of getting the rest of the week “off” – she had to prepare for a race now.

The numerous distractions and tricks I threw Liza’s way only helped her performance in the workout. I perceived her weakness – quitting when the going gets rough – and turned it into a strength by getting her mind to believe she was getting huge breaks throughout the workout. In her mind, doing two more stadiums to reach eleven would have been impossible. If I had given her the real total of only nine stadiums, she would have wanted to give up much earlier. By telling her she had it worse, I actually made the workout session better.

However, I could not end there. Remember that while you are modifying a client’s perception, as a trainer you need to constantly be checking in on your own perspective. You need to stay in touch with your client and read their personality. If you have a client who can give 100% consistently, she does not need the “fakeout” of saying twelve stadiums when you really want nine. She needs the full twelve-stadium challenge, if not more. As a client progresses, you need to keep challenging her. Have her enter additional races and other competitions. As she slowly masters this, move on to the last element: training others. When Liza finally got to a place of consistently performing well and competing frequently, when she could rely on her own perception to push her, I still needed to push her one step further. I told her I thought she would make a great trainer and advised her to enter my certification program. When she passed that, I hired her as a trainer. At the end of all this, Liza not only had achieved her desired fitness goals but also had generated the habits to remain fit throughout her life. And one of her new greatest satisfactions is helping others achieve these same happy results and being paid for it!

On another note for trainers, do not use the concept of perception is reality just for excuse makers. It is a vital tactic for any client because you always want to take your client to the next level. However, there is an alternate level to focus on: instead of trickery, give awareness. Pretend I have one new client, Ben, who does exercise throughout the week, albeit minimally. He tells me that he frequents the gym, with a regiment of ten minutes on the treadmill, ten push-ups, and ten lunges. A star trainer will ultimately lead Ben to a possible workout for an Olympic athlete. So first, I progress him through several levels, like this:

High school athlete level

• Thirty lunges, twenty push-ups, jog a mile

 

College athlete level

• Jumping lunges, crunches holding a twenty-pound weight, push-ups with a twenty-pound weight on his back, five 400 meter sprints

 

Competitive athlete (professional, Olympic) level

• Jumping lunges carrying a one hundred-pound weight, crunches holding a fifty-pound weight, push-ups with a one hundred-pound weight on his back, and then five 400 meter sprints, five 200 meter sprints, and five 100 meter sprints, all with a parachute

 

Of course, progress like this would occur over the course of many months, but throughout it I am instilling in Ben a perception of reality for a more competitive lifestyle, giving him awareness of a higher level at each step.

The concept of perception is reality is not limited to the world of athletics and fitness. It can also be applied to the business realm. My personal training business did not start out as a giant, leafy, shady tree. It began as a skinny stick with measly roots. First, I started out training my high school friends, who were trying to gain weight and muscle, for free. Then, I helped their parents lose weight, at no charge. Between three of my friends’ parents, they lost 150 pounds in a year. As I witnessed this success, a new perception emerged in my mind – my training knowledge and ability to coach others was valuable! I soaked up this perception like water, and my roots and tree trunk grew. My friend’s father, who was a doctor, saw the successful results of my training and asked for a consultation with me. Now that my roots and trunk had grown and I had a stronger foundation of confidence, I charged him $60 for a consultation. With the information I had given him in an hour, he lost 40 pounds on his own. As I heard and witnessed more triumphant testimonials from clients, I started raising my rates, working my way up over the years from $100 per session to $800 per session. I started training models, Fortune 500 CEOs, and even professional athletes. Today, my tree provides a great deal of shade, i.e., I have an abundance of leaves or “success stories,” so I charge $2,500 for a consultation. But I still do not want to stop there. I have taught a few seminars, and after I have done a few more and develop a confident perception of myself as a seminar speaker, I plan on offering $20,000 seminar package to corporations.

Your entrepreneurial endeavors can benefit greatly from a tree growth-like progress and keeping one step ahead of yourself. Just as you wouldn’t expect to run a 5k in under 25 minutes with no previous training, you should not expect your endeavor to start a business to be perfectly successful on your first try. Expectations like these could potentially cause you to squash all your other entrepreneurial ambitions if they are swallowed by failure on your first try. Additionally, your business does not have to be perfectly mapped out and structured in order for you to start it. It’s all right to be honest and admit you’re in the beginning stage of your company. Better to get it started and improve the business as you go along, and learn from your mistakes, than delay starting for five years while you try to get your ducks in a geometrically straight row. Especially if you’re in the service industry, get started quickly. But, you ask, how do I get clientele if I have no one to vouch on my behalf? Well, start out by performing your service for free, like I did. If you’re a trainer, try helping your friends with their fitness goals. Then perhaps move on to their parents. If they experience success with you leading them, then you can get testimonies and start charging per hour. If not, you can keep tweaking your program until they do experience success with you. In this way, your perception is constantly being changed by the actual experience you are getting – your own training for training others. As your training methods lead more and more people to their fitness goals, you can slowly start increasing your rate. It is important to continue raising your rates and your own personal abilities of your service so your business can keep growing. Otherwise, you are setting a cap on yourself, putting limits on your success. Also, expand your clientele. Don’t be afraid to branch out. You can keep your current social network and have a new one.

Overall, in the territories of business or training, a change of perception creates vitality, whether it be your own perception or a client’s that needs altering. It keeps raising the bar, continuing to challenge yourself to perform better than you could have expected. It continually raises your knowledge and confidence. Furthermore, it keeps things moving and interesting. Perceive yourself in the success you strive for, and when you reach it, perceive yourself at an even higher level of success, greater than you could have previously imagined, infusing your life with continual achievement.

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These are the goals I like to accomplish with workouts:
1) Always have fun
2) Make a friend
3) Learn something new
4) Get motivated for the next workout
5) Get an awesome workout!

If you can get these concepts across in your lesson, then you will be successful. Too often do I see trainers only achieving one of these five elements. Most times they only give an awesome workout. This is all too easy to do. For example, you could have your clients lift a ton of weights until they’re exhausted, or have them go on a two mile run.

Instead, I want to implement a program where the following happens:

The client comes up to the trainer for their 20th session. The trainer (you) asks how they’ve been since the past week, and how their daughter/dog is doing. Make small talk while warming up with two laps around the track. The client should be breathing heavily during the warm-up, but still able to hold a conversation.

Finish the warm-up in about five minutes and start stretching. Stretching should take about three minutes.

Commence the workout. Make sure to emphasize that if they give 100 percent, then the workout will be shorter. Do two rounds of whatever you’re doing… whether it be boxing, kettlebells, or whatnot. This is still a warm-up—don’t talk about technique too much. After the second round, take a two minute break.

During the break, ask your client how their nutrition has been. See if they have any questions about what to do with the diet. Give them a pointer for how they can improve round three. Remember, we always want to teach—not just train.

I want our trainers, you, to realize the benefit of working with MOVFitness. The most important aspect of working with us is to implement a “school” instead of a session.

If we are able to do this, we will be able to teach our clients so much more with less effort on our part.

Let me show you how.

Trainer style 1:

Sara, a star trainer, meets her first client at 6am. They go on a three mile run and the client starts wheezing halfway through. Sara tells her to push through it, but they slow down a little. Sara tells the client at the end of the session that they won’t run anymore and they’ll concentrate on other areas, ending with stretching. Her 7am client comes and they do some boxing on the beach. The client feels silly and doesn’t hit as hard as she could and keeps looking at everyone watching her box. Sara tries to cheer her up and tells the client about how fun her weekend was, and they talk about shopping for bikinis for the summer.

After that session she has a break until 8:30. Sara takes a break to eat an apple and peanut butter sandwich. Her 8:30 appointment shows up, and they climb four sets of stairs at the stadium. The client gets very discouraged when he sees skinny little girls passing him. (Not to mention his trainer is a skinny little girl.) Sara encourages the client to do some stairs on his own so he can keep up for next week.

Sara has a 9am and 10am. She decides to do boxing with both of them. She teaches the uppercut to both and then calls it a day. She calls her boyfriend and has lunch with him. She then goes out to the beach and surfs for about four hours. When her boyfriend gets off work, she goes home and hangs out with him.

Trainer Style 2:

It’s Monday morning and Billy is ready to start working out his clients. He meets his first client at 6am and they go on a run. While on the run, he brings to his client’s attention that she might have a slight case of asthma once Billy notices she is wheezing. He tells them that in the future, they are going to practice Buteyko, and then they finish their run even though the client is wheezing. Between sessions, he writes in his journal “Make sure to send Sally information on Buteyko tonight.”

Billy meets his 7am client. They go on the beach for some boxing, but the client seems uneasy. He stands beside her and does the workout too—at the same level of technique that the client is doing it. He reminds her at the end of the workout that Janey, his star client, used to be horrible at boxing. He says that with determination and practice, he wants to get her to that level, too. Before leaving, he reminds her that he wants her to learn about exchanges. He asks her if she knows where on the website she can find the information. He writes in his journal, “Send Sally an email about Maria’s testimonial. It will put her in perspective. Send her the exchange information again and emphasize how important it is she knows this.”

Billy then has a break at 8 and eats an apple and peanut butter sandwich.

He assists the 8:30 bootcamp class taught by Matt and works on his own sword fighting. At the end of class, Matt tells everyone to check out a new video he uploaded to the website that will help out their sword fighting technique. He also says Brandi posted up a new recipe last night that everyone should check out.

Billy has a 9:30 appointment and goes over the sword fighting with them. He goes over the same technique he just learned in the bootcamp so it stays fresh in his mind. He even steals some of Matt’s quotes as if they are his own. At the end of the session he says “We uploaded a new sword fighting video that I’d love to have you watch. I’ll send you the address to it so you can practice on your own. You seem to really understand the sword fighting, do you like it?”

The client says, “Yeah, it’s a lot of fun, but I feel like a dork. I don’t look as good as you.”
Billy says, “Well, you’re getting much better. I want you to watch the video and practice. Oh, Brandi posted up a new recipe on the site, too. I know how much you like to cook, so you should check that out as well. We also need to talk with Brandi about supplements. I want you to hear about the multivitamins we recommend. I’m proud of what you’ve accomplished—not many clients are so open-minded. You have learned about blood sugar and exchanges, you’ve taken up sword fighting and boxing, and now I want to get you on a solid multivitamin so we can do even more in the future. I’ll get with Brandi and figure out when a good time for her to meet with us would be. I’ll let you know what I find out when we meet on Friday or maybe this Wednesday if you’re coming to bootcamp in the morning—I’ll be teaching . You should definitely come. I’ll be going over a new boxing routine that is a lot of fun. If not, I’ll see you Friday. Have a good day!”

Billy has another 10:30 appointment. He repeats the same sword fighting workout and tells them the same quotes about the same video and recipe. He also tells them about the multivitamins with Brandi.

Billy goes home and has lunch. He hops on the computer and sends out an email to each client. This takes about an hour because he has to make sure all the links are to the right places. His notes help him make sure he sends the right info to each client.

He also emails Brandi and says he’d like her to meet with him to go over supplements with two of his clients. He also invites her to have a sword fighting session with him on what he learned from Matt that morning.
__________________________

So, do you see the difference in the two training styles? While Sara might be an awesome trainer, she’s just that—a trainer.

A good trainer spends an hour with a client, puts their all into it, and says, “Great job. See you next week.”

A good coach spends an hour with a client, puts their all into it, and says, “Great job. Here’s what I want you to do next…”

I much prefer Billy’s method of coaching. He refers to the other trainers as professionals. He takes time out of his day to follow up with his clients and also to attend a bootcamp so he can learn more technique.

Don’t be passionate about your client just for that one hour. Give them goals for when they aren’t with you, and put yourself in their head 24/7. It makes them feel like you care about them, and like they’re receiving a workout tailored specifically to them. It also improves their overall fitness much more than just that one hour a week does, and leads them to take responsibility for their own health.

Too many trainers get caught up in being the best. A good coach makes his clients look like the best. In the long run, that reflects a lot better on you, and will earn you more business.

What makes a great teacher?

Some may say the best teacher is the leader of the leaders. The one who does their job better than everyone else. Because if they can perform better than everyone else, then they should know how to teach the others too.

Others may say that the teacher who has all the top students is the best. They claim that if you have the top students, then you must be the best teacher. You know how to teach the best of the best, so you must be the best overall.

My opinion? I believe the teacher who can take the worst of the worst and bring them to the top is the best teacher. Not just one time, but multiple times. An example would be a person extremely overweight becoming a star athlete. Or taking a client who is considering gastric bypass and turning them into a nutrition consultant who has dropped 50lbs.

How is this accomplished?

My approach is a concept that allows me to teach everyone. Instead of concentrating on reaching out and learning more, I try to learn how to relate the most basic rules to each person individually. I make my approach sound as if it is ground-breaking when it applies to them.

If I went to my clients and said, “You need to eat a 40/40/20 6x a day, workout upper body one day, lower body two days, and abs one day a week, sleep six hours a night, and do this routine for six months. You are guaranteed success.”

Do you think I’d see success with this client? No. Trust me, I’ve tried.

Instead, I learn 100 different ways to say the exact same thing. The end result: we want our client to eat frequently and work out often. It’s not rocket science.

The beauty of being a great teacher comes in how many analogies, teaching methods, and techniques you can relay to your student to get the job accomplished.

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