Posts Tagged ‘Education’

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.
–
AC

After presenting in Seattle this weekend, I took some time to walk up to visit Bruce Lee’s grave.

Bruce Lee was a huge inspiration to me as a young martial artist, and I think that was true for thousands of martial arts practitioners so his grave is visited often.

In fact, Dana White has said that Bruce Lee was the “”Godfather of Mixed Martial Arts”.

Bruce Lee passed away in 1973. Some time in the 60′s he developed a philosophy that there was no single best martial art. Lee felt that fighters needed to cross train in different systems as they all had their strengths and weaknesses. This was best summed up by his famous quote:

Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless.
Accept no way as the way, accept no limitation as limitation

Bruce Lee was violently criticized because of this. Martial artists fought it. They didn’t want to hear it. They wanted to believe that their own style – their own little world – was superior….

In 1993 the ultimate fighting championship was created.

The initial concept was to determine which martial art – under a no holds barred scenario was superior.

It was karate vs judo vs wrestling vs boxing etc.

Fast forward 18 years…..

We no longer talk about martial art styles — we talk about MIXED martial arts. It’s a mainstream term.

We no longer use the term ‘style’ to describe a fighter — we say “he has good stand-up” or a “good ground game”.

Because martial arts have evolved and have embraced a totality. Bruce Lee was correct – there was no superior style. Everything had strengths and weaknesses. In fact, styles were a reductionist approach.

A strong guy  in the American mid-west became a wrestler. A tall kid in Thailand went to kickboxing etc….

But a holistic or total approach to fighting was always superior. A mixed system using the strengths of each to create the best approach possible.

Here we are, 37 years since Lee’s death and the martial arts world has embraced that ideology completely.

But in our world – the fitness world -  we are still arguing about which method is better – powerlifting vs olympic lifting, aerobics vs intervals…. Which certification? Which course? DB’s or Kb’s? FMS or another evaluation? “If you could only pick one exercise…..”

The answer has to be — there is no one single best approach. A hybrid approach will always be superior.
But this does not mean “dabbling” or just picking stuff you like in training. Lee’s approach was to immerse yourself totally in one style to truly understand it.

From wikipedia:

[Absorbing what is useful] … is the idea that a martial artist can only learn techniques in their proper context, through a holistic approach. Styles provide more than just techniques: They also offer training methods, theories, and mental attitudes. Learning these factors allows a student to experience a system in what Lee called its “totality”. Only through learning a system completely will an artist be able to, “absorb what is useful,” and discard the remainder. Real combat training situations allow the student to learn what works, and what doesn’t. The critical point of this principle is that the choice of what to keep is based on personal experimentation with various opponents over time. It is not based on how a technique may look or feel, or how precisely the artist can mimic tradition. In the final analysis, if the technique is not beneficial in combat, it is discarded. Lee believed that only the individual could come to understand what worked; based on critical self analysis, and by, “honestly expressing oneself, without lying to oneself.”

In Lee’s world – the Litmus test of a technique is it’s effectiveness in an actual combat situation.
In our world we can only evaluate a training philosophy honestly by first understanding it completely and then looking at the results it produces consistently over time with our clients. At Results Fitness, if it works, we use it. If it doesn’t we disregard it.

We need to evolve from this reductionist approach and follow Bruce Lee’s lead. We need to become “mixed” training specialists.

Absorb what is useful

–
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.

–
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

—

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.

–
AC

The gap between where you are, and where you want to be – is called FRUSTRATION.

Frustration is eliminated by Education and Action.

Step one: EDUCATION
What do you need to know to get to the next level?

Make a list and start learning.
What books do you need to read?
What seminars do you need to attend?
DVD’s to watch? Audios to listen to? Mentors to meet? People to learn from?

Make a list and then start marking them off.

If it’s a personal fitness goal – it’s the same. Figure out where to get the education you need, whether it’s fat loss, muscle building, cardio fitness etc.

Step two: ACTION
Math problem: Five frogs are sitting on a log next to a pond on a hot day. One frog decides to jump in and cool off. How many frogs are left?

FIVE. Because deciding and doing are two different things.

You have decide what you need to DO with that information. And do it.

“You can’t follow up a million dollar idea with only ten dollars worth of action”
- Jonathan Sprinkles

Education + Action = Results.

All the business knowledge or fat loss knowledge or nutrition knowledge won’t help you until you get off the couch and DO SOMETHING.

It’s not even a matter of working hard, or working smart – it’s a matter of working RIGHT.

Close the gap and get to the next level.

–
AC

Guest blog from my good friend, colleague and fellow Perform Better Speaker Todd Durkin

—

2011 – Your Best Year Yet

By Todd Durkin, MA, CSCS

I am a true believer. Each Christmas I notice everything printed with Believe or I Believe. Cards, calendars, ornaments, pillows – you’ve probably seen as much as I have or more. Well, I do believe. I believe in positive energy. I believe in persistence and mental toughness. I believe in myself and in others. I believe in YOU.

Each January brings the opportunity for a fresh start. We’ve passed through the gate of the New Year and have the chance to make 2011 YOUR BEST YEAR YET. Grab hold of this chance and run with it. So what if the first day of the year has passed. It’s never too late to start getting better. Whether you’re looking for dramatic change in your life or the chance to get 1% better each day, now is the time to be renewed in the spirit of new beginnings.

Keep reading for my personal list of actions and reminders that pack a potent punch and are sure to make a positive difference for you. Read each one. Implement a few or many. Find your favorites and go deep to discover the secret buried within. Then get ready for your best year yet!

83 Ways to Make 2011 Your Best Year Yet

• Be the most positive person you know.
• Get 1% better everyday.
• Define your “game-changing” move in 2011.  Then get it done!
• Take more risks.
• Do something that scares you everyday.
• Be a team builder, regardless of your title at work.
• Remember that business is about relationships and connections.
• People need motivation, accountability, and know how. Deliver it.
• Write your eulogy and then live your life backwards.
• Know your Big 5: the 5 most important things that need to happen by the end of the year to make 2011 feel like it truly has been the best year of your life.
• Read your Big 5 every morning.
• Post affirmations on your bathroom mirror.
• Don’t focus on making money – focus on creating value.
• Lead by executing and getting results. No excuses.
• Strive to be ‘World Class’ in all you do.
• Read The 4 Agreements by Dom Miguel Ruiz.
• Train like a pro athlete – exercise more.
• Eat higher quality foods.
• Get a massage once a week.
• Attend a destination spa vacation each year.
• Have at least one other “dream” vacation each year.
• Remember – no one has ever regretted a great workout.
• Be obsessed with learning.
• Join a Mastermind Group. It will accelerate your results, improve your mindset, and provide you with fertile soil in which to grow.
• Be impeccable with your words – don’t complain, gossip, or be negative.
• Be careful with whom you surround yourself. Just as much as the right people can pull you up, the wrong crowd can bring you down.
• Plan as if you will live forever but live as if you’ll die tomorrow.
• Say please, thank you, and I love you more.
• Give someone a massage.
• Write love letters like you used to.
• Call someone you always wanted to talk to but never thought you could.
• Call an old coach or teacher and thank them for positively impacting your life.
• If you want to resolve a conflict, use the phone instead of email.
• Write a hand-written note to a client or customer.
• When you travel, send letters to your kids on hotel stationary.
• If you want more, GIVE more.
• Do or do not – there is no try.
• The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.
• Journal. What are you thankful for? What are your intentions for the day? Who is in need of prayer today? Where were you outstanding today?
• Clarity precedes genius. Find clarity in writing and solitude.
• Track your success.
• Slow down in order to speed up.
• Be willing to fail. It’s the price of greatness.
• Spend at least 10 minutes every morning in quiet time, prayer time, or meditation time.
• Listen to inspirational music. Create your favorite play list for chilling out as well as working out.
• Listen to books on tape and podcasts.
• Read The IMPACT! Body Plan.
• Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.
• Read The Leader Without a Title, The Greatness Guide, and The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma.
• Watch a Rocky “marathon” with your kids on a rainy day.
• Do what you do best and hire the rest.
• Sometimes good is good enough.  Don’t let “perfectionism” rob you of getting things done.
• “Color code your life,” says my mentor, Wayne Cotton.  Green machine, blue sky, red tape, and mellow yellow. Visit www.nobrowndays.com for more information.
• Complete a 90-Day Wonder. What have I accomplished in the last 90 days? What are my current challenges? What will I accomplish in the next 90 days?
• Remember the 10,000-hour Rule. It often takes about 10,000 hours or 10 years to be recognized as an expert.
• Success takes time. Be patient, but continually invest in yourself.
• Work on your business, not in your business.
• Your big ideas typically come when you are sitting on a beach or skiing in the mountains.
• Hire only “A” players to build a winning business.
• Replace the bottom 10% of your players each year.
• Everyone in an organization should be considered a “leader.”
• Always believe in your dreams, even when they seem impossible or others doubt you.
• Focus, focus, focus!
• Water people everyday – lift people up instead of tearing people down.
• One quick “No” is better than 10 “maybes” or “I don’t knows.”
• Win the day!
• Remember what Walt Disney said, “Everything speaks!”
• Be more spontaneous.
• Block out the noise and focus on the signal.
• Develop a hobby.
• The bigger the dream, the more important the team.
• Run your own race – be authentic and original.
• Speak more. Write more. Read more.
• Turn OFF your TV!
• Eliminate excuses.
• Organize your time more effectively.
• “Eat that Frog,” says Brian Tracy.  Do the things that you don’t like to do or want to do but have to do early in your day.
• Get your mind right!
• Do more of what you love to do.
• Action is like gas in the car. Without it, you will not go.
• Be humble…be hungry.
• Create IMPACT everyday.
• Live by the mantra, “… And then some.”

Implement any single item on this list and you will create change. Combine a few to really rock your world and the world of those around you. Explore, experiment and find your favorites. But remember, there’s more to it than implementing a list of action items. YOUR BEST YEAR YET will require something deep within YOU.

You’ve heard me talk about the power of  “theme-ing” a year. In the days and weeks ahead, spend some time alone with your thoughts to find the theme that’s right for you – the single most meaningful, overarching and powerful pledge you can make to define who you will be and what you will do in 2011. Find it and treat it like an oath. It will deliver.

For weeks now, I’ve been doing this kind of thinking. I searched for and found my theme for 2011. Ironically, when I looked deep enough within and examined my soul, I found it there. 2011 is my year of “S.O.U.L.” I am making a very public pledge to nurture and go deep with my Spiritual development and inner life, to seek Outrageous fun and adventure, to create Unbelievable value and innovation in my work, and to step up and Lead in all areas of my life.

It’s January 13^th my friend. We’re through the gate and ready to run. Lace up your shoes and let’s go. After all, 2011 is going to be YOUR BEST YEAR YET!

Peace and love,

Todd

2011 – THE YEAR OF S.O.U.L.

S = Spiritual development and inner life

O = Outrageous fun and adventure

U = Unbelievable value and innovation

L = Leadership in all areas of life

2011 – YOUR BEST YEAR YET!

–
AC

PS – print out those 83 ways to make 2011 your best year ever and stick it on the wall.
Don’t forget to check out Todd’s latest book – the Impact Body Plan