Posts Tagged ‘books’
I’m speaking at a seminar in the UK soon. It’s a killer three day event. The hosts originally offered a ticket for the whole event for a very reasonable investment.
And then the usual emails started coming in….. Was there a ticket for just two days, if you can’t make the first day? I have to leave early on Sunday – is there a discount? I want to sleep late on Sunday morning – is there a discount if I miss the first two hours ? (ok the last one was made up….)
I can tell you that personally I’ve paid for a seminar (full price), flown there, stayed in a hotel, because of other commitments arrived late, also had to leave early, and in ONE session, got a 2500% return on my investment from ONE idea….
These people looking for a discount don’t have a financial problem. They see a seminar as an expense – whereas high performers see them as an investment. In other words, they have a MINDSET problem. And that may lead to financial problems if they don’t fix that…
The Principle of the Slight Edge
There’s an interesting fact about investing a penny, and doubling that investment every day.
So – day one – you have one cent in the bank. Day two – two cents. Day three – four cents. Day four – eight cents etc.
By day 28 – you’ll have over $5 million saved (go ahead – do the math).
The idea is that major change starts with a small investment.
Now obviously it would be pretty difficult to find a bank that would double your money for you every day — but the point is that seemingly insignificant investments (at the time) can add up to something very significant over time.
Recently I attended an excellent seminar, where I got to learn from James Malinchak and Brian Tracy. It was a four day event which covered a lot of ways to improve my skills as a speaker, and more importantly, it has already improved my business a lot.
I’ve stated earlier that I spend a lot of time travelling and teaching seminars – I did over 26 events in the last year . So why did I spend one of my few free weekends attending an event?
Because I spoke 26 times last year! It’s part of what I do – and along with giving formal presentations – it’s a big part of what most fitness professionals do, yet most don’t think of improving that side of their business. think about it – essentially, when you meet a prospective client or do an initial consult for a team – you are performing a public speaking presentation. It only makes sense to sharpen your skills in that area as well as working on your training skills. Every fitness professional should attend one of these events.
The main reason I attended however, was that I am a big believer in that idea of “Principle of Slight Edge”. Basically the principle states that small changes made over time can add up to big results. Or to put it another way – I only need to learn one thing from a seminar or book in order to gain a slight edge as my return on investment. And that slight edge can add up to huge rewards.
I heard Brian Tracy say that if you read one hour per day you’d be an expert in a couple of years. One hour is not a big investment. But when you add that up over the course of the year – that’s 365 hours. Or nine 40-hour work weeks.
One of the turning points in my career was when I invested one training session’s worth of income each week into education. In other words I invested in myself. I took the fee from one client, one session per week and consistently invested that into educational books, or CD’s.
That investment amounted to 2 books a week on average. 52 weeks a year. And I translated the information that I received into action — into more clients, better results, faster progress. After a year the return was so great that I then doubled my investment….
Close to sixteen years since that turning point I still make the decision to continually reinvest a significant portion of my income and time into education. All I need to get is one idea, a reminder of something, a different way of looking at something, or clarity on and it pays dividends. In fact just being in the room at these events with like minded people has me buzzing with energy.
Change your mindset. Get a slight edge.
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AC
Tags: If, at a seminar for fitness trainers, I asked what newsletters or journals they read on a regular basis – I think most would answer with one of the fitness profession newsletters or association journals. If I asked which websites they read most often -other than facebook :) — I’m fairly sure that it would be a “fitness” website. If I asked which magazines they read most often – it’s usually fitness magazines.
When I ask what they charge and why – it’s usually based on “what other gyms charge…” or “other trainers in my area”, instead of a cost analysis and “step away” outcomes. We’re not looking outside of the fitness world for ideas.
Only reading or studying within your own field is a flawed approach because you simply cannot outperform your most common influences and your own mindset. You have to put new stuff in before you can get new stuff out.
Dan Kennedy uses the example of having 4 close friends or family members who are devout Catholics. In that situation, it would be very hard to truly be an atheist as you’re surrounded constantly by one point of view. You might not even question anything (or know that there is something to question) until you are exposed to new material.
Your own thinking is always going to be the average of your most frequent relationships, and influences within your own “world”. To change your thinking – you need to change what you put into your head, and who/what you surround yourself with.
The scary part is that your mindset and belief systems aren’t really built from anything other than the average of your experiences – or more likely – the average of the thinking and experiences of your five or six closest influences.
It’s hard to change belief systems when everyone around you is thinking in the same way. That’s why we need to look outside of the fitness field if we want to really elevate and change our profession.
It’s unlikely that you are going to reinvent the business concept in your industry when you only look within your industry for information (especially as when you think about it – it’s essentially an industry that’s really just looking back at you!). You need to create or establish different relationships and different input in order to change your thinking (one of the reasons why mastermind groups and coaching groups are so valuable). Without new ideas an opinions, growth never happens.
I can remember a top strength coach telling me that no product in the fitness profession could retail at more than $50-75. (Of course at the time, I agreed enthusiastically – after all it was one of the top names in our field!! He must be right).
But he wasn’t.
Because meanwhile you could purchase 12 30-min CD’s on “The speaking business” for $997.00, a course for the carpet cleaning business for $1497.00, an 8 -hour audio cassette program on buying mobile homes for $599.97, a home study course on plumbing for $8000.00 or a “martial arts school” marketing course for $2376.99
The coach’s perspective had been influenced by being too close to the fitness profession for too long. My perspective was being influenced by his, and so it continued, with my mindset being passed on to others also.
But there were several ideas outside of our field that were game-changers. We were just thinking “incestuously” (another Dan Kennedy-ism) and looking at the average of what our field was already doing and trying to do more of the same. We should have been looking outside of fitness for new ideas.
Martial arts schools for example were charging 4-5x what trainers were charging (for group classes). They still charge more per month than pretty much any “bootcamp” business charges, despite being pretty close in terms of what is offered (instruction and training in a group setting).
And that’s just a difference on pricing. There are a ton of other factors that make up our services that we can change and improve just by looking outside our own little world.
For example – The “drive-through” window originally came as an extension of the ATM machine at banks – but the fast food industry saw the idea and used it (the first “drive-through” businesses were in fact banks!)
When Subway realized that “drive-through” wouldn’t work for them – they changed their image from “fast food” to healthy choices (and maybe even weight loss) and then they used Jared as their spokesman after seeing a Mens Health article on weight loss methods (where Jared was featured).
So fast food “stole” ideas from banking and Subway had an idea from Mens Health magazine!
We need to look outside our industry (whatever industry you are in) and continue to innovate and change the game.
Action Step: look at a completely different business and how they are generating leads, converting leads to customers and retaining customers and decide how you can use that idea in your business. what would an art gallery do? What would an auto repair shop do? A Vegas casino? A beachfront resort? A sports bar? A limo company?
That’s why we at Results Fitness are studying outside of our field.
Over the past couple of years we’ve been studying Starbucks, Zappos, (we’re in the Zappos Insights group), the Ritz Carlton, and Disney. Because of my travel schedule I’ve been taking notes on the way Virgin America is changing the game.
And Starbucks have literally reinvented themselves since Howard Schulz returned:
“Starbucks is not a coffee company that serves people. It is a people company that serves coffee, and human behavior is much more challenging to change than any muffin recipe or marketing strategy” – Howard Schulz.
You can pick up Howard Schulz’s latest book here.
Get out of your own little world – your own head – and think differently.
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AC
I spoke to Jim Wendler a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about goal setting and best practices.
Jim mentioned that when he was playing football, everyone wants to “win the game”. Jim’s approach was to tell them — “Just win the play. Win the play and the game will take care of itself”
Great advice.
Any task can be broken down into smaller more manageable steps. Business, training, weight loss etc.
A 4 year business plan can be broken down into one year goals. And then a goal for each quarter.
Then – we can further break that down into monthly targets. Then weekly. And then daily, perhaps even hourly.
But it just comes down to this….. Take care of the next client or customer. Do that and everything falls into place.
If you want to lose 50lbs — just take care of the next meal. The next workout. The next set. The next rep. Do that and the 50lb weight loss takes care of itself.
The whole premise is similar to the “process goals” that I talked about on Facebook — just set a number of workouts to be completed in the month and focus on the process of just getting the workouts in – not necessarily the outcome that you’d be looking for. If you take care of the attention to the process, you’ll take care of the outcome by default.
The conversation with Jim reminded me of a lesson my Taekwon-Do instructor taught me (excerpted from The Total Body Breakthrough)
I can remember having to face a scary opponent in a championship match once. This guy was on the covers of all the martial arts magazines and this was my first time competing in this weight class. He was bigger, stronger and more experienced than I was.
In short, I was terrified. My instructor, Mr. Campbell, recognized this and asked me –
“I know you’re scared. On a scale of one to ten, how scared are you?”
I answered with no hesitation “ TEN!”
He smiled and said – “Ok. How scared would you be if this match was only one round in length?”
I answered” Not as scared. Maybe a seven out of ten”
He said “Well keep that in mind. You only have to fight the first round. But what if the first round was only one minute long? Would you still feel the same way?”
Me: “No. That would maybe be a five out of ten”
Mr. Campbell nodding: “Ok. What if it was just a single exchange in the middle of the ring? One time. Then it’s over. How do you feel about that?”
Me: “ Ha! No problem. Maybe one out of ten. I’m too fast for him if it’s a single exchange!”
Mr C: “Ok – let’s just attack once and then we’ll take it from there”
At this point I’m buzzing with excitement, stepped into the ring and attacked my opponent. And just repeated that single activity over and over. No fear at all.
And I won the fight.
Success is just a series of small behaviors repeated over and over. Set the behaviors in place and the outcomes will arrive in due course.
As we enter into the second quarter of 2011- take a look back at the goals you set earlier this year.
Are we on track?
What do we want to accomplish from now before the end of the year?
Break it down into smaller steps.
And just win the next play.
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AC
“Someone who knows the state capitals of 17 of 50 states may be proud of her knowledge. But someone who knows 47 may be more likely to think of herself as not knowing 3 capitals.”
-Chip and Dan Heath discussing ‘gap knowledge’
Made to Stick
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Twenty-four years ago I passed my first degree black belt exam. The day I actually received my belt – my instructor tied it on me and told me – “Now, you start learning”.I was confused at the time, but as usual, he was right. I learned more in my first six months as a black belt, because of the sparring partners I now had, the opportunities that were open to me, and my ability to absorb information at a higher level – than I had in all my previous years of training.
Then in the next six months – my knowledge and ability continued to develop rapidly — I learned more than I’d learned in all of my years of training again. It was like my knowledge level was doubling every six months. The black belt wasn’t the end — it really was the beginning.
I think being a fitness professional is the same. If you’ve been a trainer for five years, and you are still actively learning, attending seminars, reading — you’ll learn more in your sixth year than you’ve learned in your entire career so far. Your ability to filter good information from bad, to interpret research, and to know who to listen to, who’s work to read etc is so vastly improved that you can actually improve exponentially. As long as you are still studying of course :)
I’ve read 30 books this year so far, attended six seminars, read countless journal articles and business magazines, listened to audios and watched educational DVD’s. I don’t think I read 15 books the first year I was training people. I maybe didn’t read more than 30 books in my entire college education.
Craig Ballantyne told me that he has spent more money on education this year than he made his first year as a trainer – in fact he’s spent more than most trainers make in a year. I bet he’s learned more this year than he did back then. And I know he’s earned more (tip – that’s not a coincidence).
Keep learning.
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AC
YOU MUST READ A LOT TO SUCCEED!
Here are the reasons:
1. Varied, diverse input of ideas, viewpoints, life stories, examples, all the essential raw material poured into your subconscious mind, for it to sift, sort, try matching up with other puzzle pieces it already has, so it can occasionally yell “Eureka!” and hand you something profitable or life changing… Without the new stuff it just sleeps and you wander aimlessly through life. Wealth Secret! You can’t manufacture anything without raw material.
2. Without exposure to others’ thinking your own range of thought shrinks.
Soon, you’re a mental midget. Your range of thought narrows, like your range of motion shrinks if you don’t move and stretch.3. You can’t stay current.
You must read a monstrous amount and you’ll probably still be behind. You should be reading a book or two, half dozen magazines, a few newspapers every week.
If not you become a dinosaur.4. If you want to influence anyone, including your children, they need to see you advancing and reading.
They need to hear you talking about and acting on what you read.
Every successful person I know reads a lot. Now, I don’t know if that’s just a coincidence, but I doubt it. Either way – it’s an easy thing you can commit to doing to improve your chances of improving in any field you’re in.
I don’t know where I heard this first, but people who don’t read, get the same amount of information as people who can’t read!
UPDATE (2/9/11)- got a lot of emails and facebook messages yesterday asking what I’m currently reading.
Here’s the list that I’m getting through right now:
Training: Conditioning for Soccer by Raymond Verheijen
Nutrition: Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
Business/Mindset: Mind over Money by Klontz , The Art of NonConformity by Guillebeau
59 seconds by Wiseman
Newsletters: Dan Kennedy Marketing Newsletter, James Malinchak Speaking Hot Sheet, Nick Nanton Branding Newsletter
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AC
In Part One, we covered the reasons we wrote NROL for Abs, and you explained your core-training philosophy and methodology. But core training is maybe one-fifth of the program in our book.
Let’s start with mobility, since that’s the way readers will start all the workouts. Pretend I’m a reader who picks up this book with the goal of finding a bunch of exercises that’ll help me get ripped abs. How do you convince me that the mobility exercises are just as important as the core training? What do I lose if I don’t work on mobility?
AC: Take a look at most 70 year olds and get back to me! That should be reason enough.
Let me illustrate this with a story. When I got out of the hospital in 2006 I was struggling to regain fitness. As part of my “comeback” training I was doing multiple sets of push ups. I think I had worked up to 4 when my Dad came to visit from Scotland.
Watching me struggle, my Dad dropped to the floor and banged out 10 “marine style” push ups (where you clap your hands in front of you between each rep). He was 64 at the time!
About 18 months later I was visiting him and challenged him to see how many he could do. At this point my Dad was unable to get into the push up position.
What had happened in the 18 months?
He’d retired. My Dad had a physical job all his life. Since retirement he’d become sedentary and lost mobility faster than any other qualities..
Mobility is the one thing we take for granted that can enhance all our other training, and our overall quality of life the most.
So I’ve done the mobility exercises, and I’ve done the core training. I finally move on to the weight room. But once I get there, the strength workouts in NROL for Abs have me doing all kinds of things I’ve never done before.
There’s a bench press where my shoulders are on the end of the bench and my feet are on the floor, with my torso completely off the bench. There’s a one-arm row where I have one hand on a bench, my feet on the floor, and my body in a plank position. And there are some squats and deadlifts that are so evil I can’t really describe them to a family audience.
People who know you know that you do everything for a reason – every exercise is part of an overall training mechanism. Take one part out, and you’ve changed the entire program.
So why these exercises? What do they offer that you can’t get from the basic movements?
AC: My goal was to present an athletically challenging program where we are training core “all the time”. Of course there are some traditional exercises in there, but in order to provide a new stimulus I wanted to provide some more challenging exercises for people, rather than just say “Add 5lbs and start over”.
Once you get past Phase One of the program, the workouts finish with 5 to 10 minutes of metabolic training. The exercises themselves are pretty simple – burpees, kettlebell swings, body-weight squats, push-ups. But they kicked my ass. I started doing the metabolic training at the beginning of the workouts because if I waited until the end, I didn’t have the energy for them.
Even so, I got leaner on this program than I’d been in years. This isn’t really a question so much as an observation that if you want to get lean, you have to get way the hell out of your comfort zone at least once or twice a week.
AC: I think everyone needs direct metabolic training. The problem is that for years we’ve prescribed traditional cardiovascular exercises (jogging, cycling etc).
If we think about jogging, one mile is around 1500 plyometric reps with forces of 2-4 times bodyweight. If our goal is just to challenge the metabolism and cardio systems of the body – that’s a ton of joint stress. Cycling reduces the loads obviously, but of course there are more repetitions involved.
So the way we do “cardio” at Results Fitness is to do high intensity metabolic circuits where we take something like the kettlebell swing and perform density circuits. Studies came out of Truman State last year showing kettlebell swings to have an oxygen cost higher than running (with similar heart rate responses), but with about 20% of the reps performed when compared to a mile run.
Basically it’s a more effective and safer option than traditional cardio when the goal is purely cardio conditioning and calorie burning.
The downside, you’re going to have to work!
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AC
PS – You can pick up a copy of the New Rules of Lifting for Abs – HERE .
