Authority in Fitness: Experience and Insights from Andrew Coates

Authority in fitness experience and insights from Andrew Coates.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance and movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Prophet Podcast.

Welcome back to PT Profit Podcast. My name is Chris and I am giving you your intro for this episode with the one and only Andrew Coates, a good friend of mine and friend of the show. And he will be talking to Beverly about not only his podcast relaunch of the Lift Free and Diet Hard podcast, but also his experience presenting some of the key takeaways that an aspiring presenter may need to be aware of. Some of the benefits of networking with people at events, many of which he will actually be speaking at or attending. And they talk about some of the nuances of just being in the space, the specialties, the things that don't often get talked about, like the importance of customizing your business, very similar to what we do with accelerators in our program. And that is it is not a one size fits all situation. This is honestly going to be a very engaging lesson, so make sure that you tune in and enjoy.

Andrew, thank you for joining me on this show today.

How are you, Beverly, it's nice to see you again. It's been quite a while. I've been wonderful. Lots of cool stuff coming up.

I know I can't wait to dive in. Like I said before, it's a pleasure and a privilege to have you on the show and I cannot wait to, to dive in today.

All right, it's great to come on these. I actually value podcast appearances highly. It's. There are people in our industry and who've earned the right. I think some smart and successful people. Give a couple examples. My friends Dr. Alyssa Olenic and Molly Galbraith and they politely will, but unapologetically will say no to requests of their time. They're very busy what they're doing, but I think, you know, pod appearing on podcasts for almost anybody to get the opportunity is one of the highest leverage things, especially at scale. It's been incredible. You know, people are kind enough to include me as the, as a guest on their podcast. So I always savor the opportunity and I always try to make a priority of it. So that's the attitude I try to.

Take with this and I think it's Such a good one. So speaking of podcasts, yours had a complete overhaul. Rebrand. What was the concept behind shutting the podcast down, restarting it? What are the intentions that you're hoping to bring with your new show?

This is a fun topic. I don't think anybody's asked me this yet. So for a very long time, over seven years, I've had a podcast that the original first 150 episodes was me and my old co host, Dean Guido, still a great friend of mine, awesome human being, one of my biggest supporters. And then he had to leave because he was having his first kid. Right. Life, priorities change. But he was very insistent. I carried on. So I renamed it into its current form, the Lift Free and Die Hard Podcast. But the old episodes, they just naturally took this course. Where again, seven years ago, there wasn't all the podcasts we have now. Podcasts are very ubiquitous. Back then there weren't a lot. And the first 10 episodes we got people like Dr. Mike Israel, sohe Lee, who are friends of mine, as guests. Those episodes blew up. It drew a ton of attention to us. So we were one of the more visible podcasts. The entire industry and coaches were plugged in. So it ended up becoming conversations that would help coaches with their careers. Wonderful along the way, pretty much the first 300 or so. In a way, it was selfishly having conversations that were probably extremely instrumental in my career development as well. It was like, you get an hour with this brilliant person, you pick their brain, you share the episode and share the ideas with everybody. And it was doing really well for a very long time. But as career developed and enhanced along the way, I had this nagging feeling that there was an incongruence between the type of people that I was ultimately helping in the audience that I was coaching and the audience that the podcast was for. So a little bit of back and forth about it. And then there's the stuff. If you run a podcast for a while, you get the people in your DMs going, hey, you know, can I come on your podcast? I got really great content. And you're just like, ah, right, like. And that stuff always made me uncomfortable. Like, I'm very proud of the guest lists I've had. I'm very happy to ask wonderful people on there. I have a very clear idea of the type of guests that I think would fit. And so that sort of stuff, it's the same thing hosting a conference. You get people like, hey man, can I come on the rock? You know, how do I get on the roster it's like holy, like buy a ticket. You would have a wonderful time just being immersed and attending this thing. And I know it's status seeking behavior and that stuff I find very loathsome. So between all that and between an acceleration explosion of online coaching business, I still work full time in person, try to keep up the writing obligations, serve all forms of media, interact with everything that's coming at me. A big rise in public speaking stuff. And it hit a snag maybe middle of last year where I was noticing it wasn't feeling passionate about the the format. I was overwhelmed with the amount of things I was juggling and I wasn't feeling as passionate about preparing for it. So I let the podcast go on hiatus. Right. There was even a point right around episode 300 where I was actually going to permanently shelve it. The episode 300. Me and Dean comes back, we talk about it. But then pretty quickly, a couple of, couple of friends of mine who are very big figures, the entry were hoping to come on to talk about stuff they were doing. I'm like, okay, this is too valuable. It's a very valuable format. So it took a little while. I brought our friend Chris Little in brainstorm with him and I had him get me a new logo. It's the same name Live Free and Die Hard podcast. But I really wanted to restructure the way that I approached the conversations and I brought on a whole bunch of big industry friends, guests of mine for a big splash. For the initial episodes, I've just had Jordan Syat and Dr. Mike Israel and Dr. Alyssa Olenik and lots more planned. And I'm loving the preparation for it. The audience is loving it. The coaches are still loving it because these conversations are still valuable for coaches. But now these are more topic based things that are really for the end user who are the people we're trying to help anyway, as opposed to stay in this echo chamber of just the trainer stuff. And I just knew I needed to pivot it.

Yeah, I love that. Okay, so what I'm hearing is I'm going to say two things because I think a lot of people miss this, is that coaches usually become coaches because of me Search and we're always sharpening the saw and sometimes hearing episodes that are designed for our clients, the general population, the people that we're trying to serve, the people who are inundated with social media content that are encouraging them to drink their urine, for goodness sakes. Yeah, you know, coaches need to hear that too. And I think for two reasons. One because we're always evolving and growing and that never changes. And two, because sometimes we get so caught in self focused, in our own stuff that we forget our clients sometimes need to be just be reminded, don't drink your own urine.

Well, you raise a key point here. There's a significant rise in mainstreamed podcasts. Whether the podcast is specifically about, let's call it human optimization, lifestyle, nutrition, fitness, et cetera, or they're the more entrepreneurial ones. And I mean, I'll say it straight up like I, I'm not a regular listener of A diary of a CEO Stephen Bartlett. Right. And I mean, he's had Dr. Mike Israel on Amazing and then, but he's come under a lot of fire and criticism for continuously platforming charlatans like people who are absolute grifters and not subject matter experts. And you know, there are lots of other podcasts that kind of do the same thing. There's a podcast I love, won't name it usually brings on really good guests, but then at one point brings on Vani Hari, the food babe, who is one of the most OG charlatans, grifters, and completely unqualified nut bags. And seemed like she had disappeared for a while and now all of a sudden she's in front of like, I'm Canadian. She's in front of US Congress talking about food dyes and shit. It's just like, good lord. So while you can't compete directly with the big, big, big dogs of this podcasting industry, it would be nice to have an alternative that is fully based in like, you know, evidence based practice and just a better quality of guests. And I just had the good fortune of having access to that tier of the industry. So it's like, why not continue to platform those people, share those people. And you know, and where, where appropriate, you get great emerging figures within the industry with good messaging, great backgrounds. And then I can also platform those people.

Yeah. You know, I always feel for those people who have great shows. Right. These are the industry experts. And it's something that I'm always working on with my clients is to remember that we have to, to do our best to not get into our hubris nature. Right. Because I said so is not enough of a reason. It doesn't matter if you have a huge platform or you're just starting out. We always want to back up our claims and that's how we can sleep at night. At least that's how I sleep at night. And I give myself that grace to change my mind because I'm Adaptable, Right. So I think that what happens to a lot of these people, like the diary of the CEO is that they have no expert knowledge and maybe they've gotten so big that somebody else is like, oh, you're gonna love this person. And then they're interviewing them and they're like, hey, what? What?

And that's part of it too. So there's a curse of knowledge. I'll give you an example. And normally I don't fire around memes, but it, I'm in a mood today. So here for it's whenever we listen to people and oftentimes they can be credentialed authorities like a legitimate PhD. The example I've often used is Neil DeGrasse Tyson. He's a renowned astrophysicist. Now I'm at the point now where I, I'm very wary of anybody who purports to be a science communicator across a broad spectrum of stuff outside of their domain, their area of expertise, their area of education. So Neil seems to be a very credible authority on astrophysics and I'm comfortable saying that. But then he's wandered far afield and he's, you know, in various domains said very pseudo scientific or completely like nonsensical things. He has in places talked about nutrition. And of course this is the thing, you tend to trust these authorities and what they say because they sound very sure, convincing they have the authority. But then all of a sudden they start talking about something you actually have high level knowledge and education in, like nutrition, and you go, wait a second, that's blatantly false. And so he was talking about carb insulin hypothesis and you know, in the context of fat loss, I can't remember the exact quote, but he was very much purporting that the carb insulin hypothesis was the thing and, and calories didn't matter so much. And I'm like, that's objectively false. And yet you are an authority speaking way outside of your area of expertise. And I'm not interested in going, oh. I also don't believe in throwing out everything about Neil DeGrasse Tyson. He's just a famous example here. It's just like I would recommend that people use this as, as a illustration of, listen to him about physics, but question anything else that he says. And there are tons of these PhD figures. There are people that I love. Brilliant. I mean let's, let's give a charitable example. I just had Dr. Mike Israel on the podcast. Mike is, he's a Ph.D. is in sports physiology And I'm actually pretty comfortable given the fact that I've done deep dives on his nutrition stuff. That is, he's very steeped in evidence based practice when it comes to nutrition. Great. All right, I verified that. Now he's been talking about AI. I actually asked him a lot of questions about his thoughts on AI. Mike's actually pretty good about admitting that this is just kind of like his deep dive and belief system. I also don't think he's talking like he is a software developer in the midst of the progression of AI, but he's just got a lot of thoughts and philosophy about it. So could that be subject to flaws and bias? Even subject matter experts in their own field can be vulnerable to bias. Now I think the conversation we had and what he's been talking about on social media is, is fun and interesting and I don't think there's anything problematic there. But it's just that you still go in with a critical lens and go, okay, is this person as credible to talk about this particular subject as they are about, you know, their area of expertise, what they've been practicing for a very long time, what they have formal education? So if you go in looking at that, then you at least, what if you hear something that you don't have a base of knowledge, a fundamental lattice work of knowledge on, and you hear someone that you don't know much about and they have the flag of credibility on the specific thing to go in and go, all right, you know, do I take this at face value? Because oftentimes the people who end up on these platforms are usually better storytellers, they're more well spoken. And sometimes that means that they are credible authorities. But sometimes it means that they're actually very convincing people in a gray area or outright grifters. And again, you get someone like Avani Hari who will, you know, likes to say things like if, you know, she's one of many who says stuff like if you can't pronounce some ingredient in food, you shouldn't eat it. Which anyone who has an education in biochemistry, nutritional science, etc. Knows that this sort of shit is nonsense. And fundamentally, yes. Do we want to consume, on average, you know, more whole, healthy, natural, minimally processed food? Yes. But there's also naturalistic fallacy too. Like there's a lot of genuine poisons that exist in nature that we should not consume in almost any amount. She's one example among many that weaves compelling narratives and is a convincing storyteller. And there are lots of these people. So it's, it's questioning things and applying critical thinking and don't just take things at face value. And especially, and this is the hard part, especially if it confirms biases, especially if it aligns with your pre existing belief system. And I'm probably going to butcher this, but let's. What. What is the saying? It's like strong beliefs loosely held, I think is sort of a metaphor for this. It's just be willing to actually challenge your narratives, your belief systems and in the face of genuine evidence, ask yourself, why am I holding onto this belief system? What is a narrative? That why is this intertwined with my identity and my sense of being? Is it because I feel like I'm part of a tribe and in order to question this belief system, will I lose favor or will I no longer be part of this tribe? And I don't think most people actually like pause to think what's going on there? Why do I believe what I believe? It's hard to challenge this.

Well, I think there's two things, right? There's three I'm gonna say three things is number one is that sometimes I, you know, I say this to myself and I'm almost, I always say this to my clients too. Is that do you want to be right or do you want to get results? And so what I have found even in my own experience is the more dogmatic I have been in my pro. In my approach, whether it's messaging, business building or, or, you know, it usually has been a reflection or indicator of my, of my years of experience because I want to be right so bad. So I'll hold on to like, oh, well, I figured out how to do this. And it's usually just a reflection of youth in inexperience of doing the practice. Because the more a master becomes a master I see they become more open to. Here's my claim. But I can be a critical thinker. I can be open to. It depends. Right? Like Dr. It's right. You, you also bring up the difference between an authority and an expert. They're different. And there are a lot of people who have authority, but their expertise is thin. But the true experts who know they have authority also sharing their opinion, they're usually not afraid to say, hey, this is my opinion. I'm thinking through this. And that to me I'll lean into that because I can trust that and not the person, their process. So there's something you said I want to go back to because I think it's also really important. You Were talking about podcasting, how it could also be a door or practice of presenting. Getting in the door of, you know, showing up like this is how you can practice presenting. And so I'm curious how you have noticed the both of them, you know, work together.

Probably a lot of levels of this One, number one is, do I explicitly think that just getting on podcasts or even hosting one is a good prerequisite on its own to then stand on stage in front of a group of people? No, everything's different. For example, I've even found that if I try to record a podcast solo or like a YouTube vlog type thing and I'm just talking at myself, it doesn't work very well. I don't hold the flow very well. I don't like it. I need someone on the other end of the screen in a dialogue, in a, in a podcast episode. So therefore, I do interview style for my podcast or I'm a guest on a lot of podcasts and I find that flow works really well. And in front of a stage, an audience, there's a lot of skill involved with public speaking. And a mistake, there's a lot of mistakes that presenters make. I've seen lots of this stuff, so I'll.

Go ahead, tell me. I'm excited.

All right. One mistake people make is they will just splash a bunch of text up and they will read from the text. Okay, that's, that's a big mistake. Just, just don't do that. But another mistake is standing up and not drawing the audience in and engaging. And I do something simple. Routinely, anybody who's ever seen me public speak, I tend to prompt the audience to get to raise their hands with a lot of questions, a lot of prompts along the way. And what I find is it, it's a pattern interrupt. It gets their attention, it keeps them engaged. And I try to, when I'm practicing for a public speaking thing, I've got one literally in a couple of weeks. I try. There are some, there's some bullet points, sure, but I try to use a lot of pictures as references to be prompt, to remind me of the story that I'm weaving in. So storytelling is an essential part of public speaking. And. But if you have too much going on on the slides and people are trying to read your slides, it's competing with their attention to also listen to you and you're going to lose them. So you got to minimize text based stuff. So, yeah, holding the audience is a really critical one. I mean, I've seen other goofy things. I Remember, there was a conference I was speaking at, and. And my. My talk went really well, and there's another guy there and I wasn't a big fan of. Anyway, and he's since been more or less disgraced in the industry, and I'm not going to get into specifics, but got up on stage and it's sort of an insecure, narcissistic, pompous little. Anyway, and gets up and he's. We. I think you know who I'm talking about. And he starts. And he's talking. He's using big verbose language and, you know, theatrics, and he's. He's talking two levels intellectually above the audience. And I. And I know in part it's born of insecurity to try to display, hey, look at me, I'm superior to you because, you know, anyway. So the audience is just not plugged in at all. He misread the audience, didn't like, realize who's there in front of him, and halfway through just gets frustrated, throws up his hands, tells the them to bring up the lights, and then shifts gears and then kind of like locks it in a little bit. But it was just like, wow, okay. But you misread the audience and you were just talking down to everybody. And that's not the answer either. Right. So you don't see that sort of thing very often. But I can't stress it enough. No matter what format you're in, podcast or whatever, I like to have it interactive and conversational as opposed to lecturing and authoritative. Does that make sense?

Perfect sense. Me too.

So as for the actual skill, I think if you get comfortable responding to questions and talking and being able to work from a knowledge base and freely flow with thinking. Like, for example, when I come on a podcast, I do not want notes or any idea what the questions are going to be. I like responding to the questions and that over time, you get much better at it, and that's a valuable skill. Great. When you go on stage, you want to be really prepared. You know your material, but you don't want to memorize to the point where you're trying to actually memorize and recite the flow. Exactly. You just want to know your materials really well so you can riff. Take out the number of times that something over the course of the weekend, after the slides are prepared pops into my mind, and I actually weave that aspect into some sort of story on stage because I know the material to riff on. And I think it's not dissimilar. Just Knowing having expertise in fitness, nutrition, anything aligned to what we do, and then to be able to respond in real time to prompts and questions about it on a podcast. I think podcasting can give you great confidence to set you up for public speaking. But I promise you, if you. If you are leaning into public speaking, you have to do some special direct preparation for it. There's a couple of great books that I think. So. I remember when I got my first pub public speaking invitation. First thing I did was text my friend Luca Hosar. He's a great public speaker. And so I'm like, luca, you got any good books on public speaking? So he gave me two, and it's Talk Like Ted by Carmine Gallo is, I believe, the author. And then Gallo also wrote the Storytelling Secrets of Steve Jobs. And Steve Jobs was a master presenter. You know, storyteller, you know, theatrics, all that sort of stuff, using props. And there's even little things, like, people need to know this. The person who stands behind a lectern and has an obstacle between them and the audience, that's a barrier between you and the audience. And you may be up there feeling safe, hiding behind it, but it's not a good thing for good public speaking to actually, like, put something between you, the audience. I remember I was at an event last year. There was this tiny little stage, and there was a table and this lectured, and I literally had people move this lecture out of the way, so I did not have something standing between me and the audience. But now we're getting hyper technical.

So I'm curious for you, you know, when, as a public speaker, I'm assuming that you are speaking primarily at fitness functions for other coaches, Correct.

Mm. So there's. There's something here that I'm going to hijack it. Maybe you're going here.

No, go. Tell me.

There's a lot here. So, in my experience, I go to these events, and there's a lot of fitness professionals who crave it. They. They want to get up on that stage, and it feels great. It is definitely a nice feeling of accomplishment and recognition in the industry. But on a level, there's an element of a status game, and it's. I don't like status games, but I recognize them for what they are because oftentimes what people are craving is thinking, well, if I get on the stage, it will make me. It validates me. It puts me in the league with the other people who are already speaking this event. And I get this all the time when people are asking to come speak at my event. And I can pretty much comfortably say that in all of the events that I've spoken at in the last four years, which is actually quite a number, I do not believe I've ever directly gotten a client in my business. This goes back to the podcast Pivot, from speaking on stages at industry conferences. Now, guess what? I love being immersed in these environments. I love this stuff. They've enriched my career, getting to spend time with kindred spirits and friends. I've dragged people like Chris Little down to these kind of events. It's, it's connected him with great people. It's enriched my world and created opportunities I couldn't have dreamt of. But as a direct vehicle to put clients in my business, it doesn't work well at all. And so what I actually encourage coaches to do is I think the skill of public speaking is great, but you're looking in the wrong place. Don't seek industry approval and status. Look locally, look in the space that you're operating and can you lean into local corporate wellness? And it may be volunteering at local schools, businesses, et cetera. There's a great book on this called Authority Content. It will talk tactically about how to set these sort of things up and film it and document, and you can showcase this. And you know, what pays well? I mean, if you're a, if you're a Brad Schoenfeld or some of the other, like, preeminent figures in the industry, you know, you're, you're Dr. Lane Norton, et cetera, you can, you know, quote, demand a nice speaking fee that makes the travel worthwhile. Martin Rooney's definitely done this for a long time, etc, Right? There are figures in the industry, but for the vast majority of us, you know, most cases, my flights and hotel are taken care of. That's a wonderful, excellent. And I don't complain about, oh, I'm taking time away from where I could be working over the course of, like, a long weekend when I'm traveling. This is fun stuff to go to. I, I'm not going to complain about that. That's, that's missing the point, too. But it doesn't pay and it doesn't generate clientele unless you're a business mentor. Now, if you're a business mentor, it might be a valuable opportunity. But I also think there's too many coaches try to pivot out into the business mentorship side of things, and they're just in a rush to get away from actually working with the people that we said we want to help. In the first place. Right. Why I still coach full time in person. Like, I don't want to leave that stuff. So I think the real opportunity that can both pay you directly and put you in front of the type of people who may become your clients is local corporate wellness type speaking. And even if some of it's volunteer, it helps you create connections. A really good resource dive into is Jonathan Goodman's new book, the obvious choice. Jonathan's book is a codex for bypassing the social media status game and trying to yell in a noisy, loud, big platform. And trust me, as someone who's done social media and done well with social media, I understand the flaws in that. But Jonathan's right. If you're very tactical and wise in how you approach your local environment, you can do extraordinarily well without ever having to play social media games. And I think too many coaches get caught up in the chase of status. And whether it's, you know, hoping that they get to speak at the industry conferences or hoping that they can build a large social media folder. I know lots of people now. I know lots of people who have large social media followings who are struggling in business. I also know a lot of people who have large social media followings who are. Those are reflections of credibility and authority and like business success. And they're doing extraordinarily well. So I don't like the blanket statement that, oh, you know, look at these influencers with large followings that can't pay their bills. Those exist. Trust me. There's a lot of industry leaders, big followings. They are doing so well with their businesses and they turn around and they create a lot of great media and resources for other people and they have large followings as a result. Okay. But the order is what matters. They built the credibility, the business success, and that helped their brand grow. It wasn't. It's rarely skyrocketing social media virality first that feeds into a business. I've seen examples of it. They're uncommon.

Uncommon. They're the, they're. They're the exception that proves the rule. And the order is absolutely essential. And I think people miss this a lot. Right. Even if you look at industry leaders like Alex Hormozi, love them or hate him, regardless of what he practices. He started, he, he started with the people that were around him using ads first, and then he built the huge. Yes, then he built the huge books. I love that. Yeah, right.

And Hormozi talks very tactically about what he was doing with that and he understood that the media stuff, which he invests a lot of money in, was a. An important lever at that stage. While they already had a big foundation. I just held up his book for anybody listening on audio. And I like Hormozi's books. Fun fact, the conference where the dude bombed. The Hormoses were originally supposed to speak. So it was me, Jordan Syed, Lane Norton, Alex and Layla Hormozi that were originally due to speak. And I looked at that lineup like, holy shit, that felt nice. So to kind of go back to the status side of things, yes, it can feel incredible like to be featured in that lineup, it's sort of surreal. But at the same time, did that really do anything for me? Like my clients, they don't come to me for that, nor do they even like understand Trainers get it right, but it doesn't matter to the clients. And as it turns out, they had to bail out of that one. But I met them in passing at another event and they're lovely, they're wonderful people. But I like his books, I like the resources. And as you said, he's not. His messaging is not going to be for everybody, but he's also very smart in that he knows who his messaging is for and he repels the people and the people who are crying and criticizing what have you, he doesn't care. Right. It's part of the game for him.

You know, and you talk about the chase of status and I think, you know, I notice too, even in the successful people, whether you love them or hate them, it's not about that. Success leaves clues. And so the p. And they're not the ones that are chasing. They are the ones that are rooted in their, in their message. They are rooted in this is what, here's who I'm calling in and I'm clear and I'm specific. And they let, and they let the chips fall. They're not worried about trying to chase authority because that's all. And this is, this is something I'm always reminding my clients. Right. When you're thinking about self, this is self focused. Shift your chase of status is usually about you shift your focus into service and then it. The game changes. You won't care what other people are doing. All you're caring about is getting your people results, which you can powerfully do within their circumference of, you know, 25 miles in your local area.

My. Everything that I've gotten to do that sort of has the trappings of status of the industry or authority, and I prefer the lens of Authority because I try to apply that writing for the different publications I've written for. That's all a byproduct of experience, client success, etc. Right. Like just staying as a busy trainer, a lot of, a lot of hands on hours to learn and apply things. And then because of travel, because of the connections for the podcast, then I developed a lot of industry relationships. I've supported a lot of people on the way. And then that led to opportunities like an invitation to write Teen Nation six years ago. Even like my friend Dean wanting to start a podcast with me. You know, that was just a connection and then the connections that, that helped enhance. Great. And then it became a bit of a mushroom cloud of that stuff. Of course you get in with one or two publications and again I've studied writing aggressively over my shoulder. Here is a lot of my books on writing. I just don't. Most trainers aren't good writers. I think it's actually a really important skill. Even though there's not as many published writing opportunities anymore, I think most trainers will be better off writing for their own websites or a substack because it's a good way to publish things and you can grow audience there. I think it's wise to start your own podcast versus asking to appear on the other ones. I think it's wise to start your own YouTube channel if you're a bit more video based media savvy. And I think it's also very wise to translate those things into social media if it's not too much effort. Because I mean social media is treating me very well. Do I get a lot of client inquiries especially for my online stuff because of social media? Absolutely. I'm not going to pretend, pretend otherwise, but it started with having a firm foundation anyway. Right. It didn't. Social media wasn't the start of it. The social media was a byproduct of a ton of experience.

Yes, I started before there was social media. I remember when you had to like wait for certifications to come around like social media didn't even exist. Information is great, it's abundant, but it's also led to, to a lack of clarity. People are so confused because they're inundated with information and it's really about implementation. And something else you said too, I think is important is that you were talking about, you were talking about so many coaches are, are transitioning into like the business side of it. And I think for me in terms of what I've seen is that people have this misconception that, that business is somehow more lucrative than coaching. And that is absolutely absurd. I think you are called and meant to do the what is on your heart. So if you want to coach, you can, you are going to provide, you are going to make a ton of money. That's what this is about, doing what it is that you were meant to do. My opinion?

Absolutely, yeah. And there are a few very successful, smart business mentors, but in, in a lot of cases, they're still operators. So I mentioned Luca Hosvar earlier. You know, he owns a gym in Seattle and yeah, he does do some business mentorship, but he has a lot of both online and physical location programming. And he'll still coach, you know, often upwards of 20 hours a week in his gym. He never wants to lose it. And that's one of the reasons why he's ahead of the industry. And his social media has done extremely well. Not because he's, you know, all that savvy with it and he does it very well, but. And he's got resources to have some people do some filming for him, but it's a byproduct. He just, he's just a content creation machine. Long form is, YouTube is absolutely crushed and it's easy to translate it over and share through social media. It's grown via that pathway. But he's still a coach. First and foremost. You get Mark Fisher business for unicorns, him and Pete Dupuy, right? So now Mark did just after many years, sell Mark Fisher Fitness, so he's leaning harder into business for uniforms. But Pete Dupuy is still the, you know, the business partner at Cressy Sports Performance and still the operator, right. The business guy there. And, and they're, they're brilliant at this stuff. So there are plenty of people who are still coaching in some way or operating businesses and then they have a lot of authority. Now there are other people who've long left that behind and they are very good at the business mentorship side of stuff. Right. Some people have just stepped into pure education. Again, you look at a Molly Galbraith. Molly Galbraith is no longer personally training anybody. She's the, you know, the co founder, figurehead and basically running Girls Gone Strong is this massive educational platform. She's not doing it all alone. She's brought in industry experts, authorities to build these resources. But is there a market for education on pre and postnatal and menopause stuff? Absolutely. So she, she is a big, big player and, you know, almost owns that space especially, I think, within the, the core, reputable evidence based fitness community. So it can be done. But I think a lot of these coaches who are in a rush to get out and all of a sudden, you know, be business mentors because they've done six months of two years of online coaching. It's like, I don't think this is really what you think it is. And I think you bought into the lie in the first place because of some business mentor who kind of hustles like this and is loud. They, they pose in front of sports cars and their, their social media looks like a, a 1990s era rap video. And now all of a sudden I, I think, I think sometimes people self select because they see that they, they align with that they. And, and I love joking about this stuff, but I'm, I'm in Western Canada so there's a, there's a, there's a smaller city, a province over called Kelowna. And I have friends in colonial. I think there's wonderful people in Kelowna. My buddy Sam Spinelli is there, he's, he's brilliant. But it's also like the Jersey Shore of Canada. And, and again, I know there are coaches that I like and have friends with, but it's like the, the online coach men's physique stereotype and they, most of their social media is them on boats on the river in Kelowna. And it's like first of all, I don't understand how this is like great marketing to like potentially attract clients in the first place. But I can tell, to me it is emblematic of the people who, they want to make more money. Sure. And they want to work less, which I understand. But I think at a certain point the people who truly succeed in this industry are the ones who don't do balance very well. I'm sorry for the coaches, you know, the respect to the people who have families. You have to find something. I don't have a family. I have like a fluffy black caddy's over here in the chair next to me, Ozzy. And so I have the bandwidth to do the hustle side and I like that. I'm fulfilled by it. That's not for everybody. But even I think the family oriented people realize that, okay, like balance is hard, it doesn't really exist. You have the passion for it, you make it work. Right. But trying as a guiding star to minimize the amount of time and maximize the amount of money I don't think works very well. People see through it after a while and so this is going to come up in a presentation And I've been talking a bit about it. We also now, the last two, four or five years, I think you're spending a lot of worship at the altar of scale. You hear business mentors talk about you need to scale, you need to scale. And the smart ones have kind of realized that they got out of hand, right? Like I know a couple may even realize, okay, cool, we went too far down this rabbit hole. And then you get the mentees and if any coach you've ever heard someone around you quote, bragging about their seven figure business, like, I got a lot of friends. Many of the people I've mentioned have seven figure businesses, but they don't talk about their seven figure businesses. They don't use that language. So the person who's like, yeah, my seven figure business, you know what, they.

Don'T tell you their profit margin, their.

Profit margins, they're seven figure expenses or seven figure stress. And here I am as a six figure coach, absolutely crushing them, right? And, and it's not a, it's not a comparison game and that's, that could also be a narrative to say, well, oh, that's me, whatever, against the seven figure stuff. But I see right through it. And the people I know who have talked this way, I know that they're literally burned out. Some of them are really wonderful people. I think they just got pulled into the Kool Aid a little bit too much and they're kind of like sorting through it. But what I worry is that coaches are getting indoctrinated in scale at all costs. I think it's really important to have great systems. But, but then we're now seeing, of course last year, AI based stuff. And what I'm afraid of is coaches are going to try to systemize scale and use AI in some combination to where they're going to try to withdraw from actively interacting with clients as much, potential clients, social media, etc. You know, it's like many chats. I think DM automation can be a great, great way to share resources and get like, be efficient with low value added tasks. But where I, I struggle is when I see coaches trying to use DM automation to fool people into thinking they're interacting with them. I don't like that very much. I think that gets in a little bit of a gray zone to say the least. And people can and will see through it, right? So I think that some of the most high value, high leverage things you can do and it's scaling unscalable because it's hard to truly scale Massively is be a real human and lean hard into an incredible and personal coaching experience in an age where I think a lot of people are going to go the other way. And a key point to this is do you think you're going to use AI and systems of scale as a individual or having a small team and beat a renaissance periodization? Who have you've got Mike Isertel, one of the smartest humans we know in our world, talking a lot about AI. You don't think they're figuring out ways to incorporate AI? They have a big team, the bigger budget and they have their hypertrophy app, they have their diet coach app. These things are doing very well. Their YouTube is growing by over a hundred thousand subscribers per month. They're absolutely smashing that. And they used to have the RP templates. So they've actually been doing algorithmic and high quality algorithmic based systems for a really long time. For the type of person who self selects to low touch point, like low friction app based stuff, there's going to be a cohort that goes there. There's also going to be a massive cohort of people who go the other way and want real human connection. So if you were trying to systemize and scale to fool the people who want real human connection, you will fail. I think if you try to go too hard into the space and the algorithmic AI based stuff that and bang heads with a Dr. Mike Iotel and RP, they're going to crush you. The other companies are doing it. And also think about this, what is RP doing really well, they have an incredible personal brand through Mike primarily. I mean yes, Nick Shaw and Crystal Guevara and some of the others, they are wonderful. But Mike's fundamentally the face of it. And so you have this mostly parasocial relationship. It's kind of like Taylor Swift and her fans, right? She can't know each one on an individual level. Mike can no longer at this scale. But what do you see a lot of Mike, Mike's, Mike's sense of humor, Mike's personality, Mike's intellect and his expertise via the YouTube channel and other short form media. So you feel like you have a relationship with him, you see a lot of Mike. So there's a ton of time and effort going into that. Mike's very busy and a lot of it's now going that way. He's no longer like coaching anybody one on one. So you're probably not going to beat them at the brand side either. So I think that coaches need to Use your systems scale in a smart way. If you have a team of coaches under you, make sure they're really hard into the human side of things. But do not expect to thrive on doing as little work as possible, relying on systems, on automations without being visible and having a relationship with your audience. You're going to get crushed. And you have a hard decision to make pretty soon. And there will be smart business mentors or like charismatic storytelling business mentors. They're not always the same thing who will be telling you that you need to do all this stuff. And I think it is probably going to be a doom cycle for a lot of coaches. So I think you, you have to figure out what's truly important to you. And I honestly believe that the coaches who are doing this, the type of person who self selected this episode and listening podcasts, are going to be the caring ones who love their clients. They're going to crush on customer service anyway, right? And at the end of the day, you know, you want the little old lady who will still go into hang out with the bank teller for a social interaction who wants to come and train with you, who wants to, you know, have the, the video, like the check ins, like just go face to face with other human beings. That's the kind of customers and clientele you want because those people will always opt for that as opposed to, you know, a nine dollar a month app.

I, I mean, oh, there's so much. There's so much. First of all, I want you to know I am a mom. So when I am a mom, I have kids and I am like, I still find time to do the stuff that matters to me as, as a mom, not, I mean as a, as Beverly, not as a mom. So like I'm still finding time to work out. I still have time to cook and eat and run my business and help my clients. Like I, there's been this huge wave of like, of, you know, balance in an effort to balance when really people are just like, let me how can I turn my computer into an ATM and work as little as possible? And it's like, well that's like your clients asking how do I get liposuction? Like you have to put effort in. It's efficient effort, but you have to work.

It's a perfect analogy because what do we encounter all the time? The client. And I mean a lot of our clients understand the reality, but there's a lot of people that seek, you know, you get coaches crying about diet culture and whatnot and that's A big ball of shit and a half on both sides of it. But ultimately, what do the end users want? Why do these. This marketing stuff exists? Because the end user wants the quick fix.

They do.

And so why then do coaches who bemoan the fact that the client wants a quick fix turn around and want and want the quick fix in the way that they build their business? Right. It doesn't work that way. And I'm not saying like, so there's another side to this too. Like I, I also hate this kind of rhetoric because it can appear to be gatekeeping language. And someone who's been doing this as long as I have, you have turn around and be like, well, you have to do it the way that we did it. No, no, no, no, no, none of that. I think there's, I think social media is very powerful. I've talked very positively on social media for a very long time. I try to be a model of how to do it well. I think even if you're not capable of or plugged into like growth and scale, I think staying top of mind and being very visible. I was doing this was Facebook long before Instagram was even a thing. And it served me very well. Like it's still serving your local audience being connected those people. That sounds good. Let me regain my train of thought. The gatekeeping. So I think there are tools. That's why I said like, don't ignore AI, don't forget scale. Don't like, not systemize. It's just, can you do this with the low value stuff that burns you out, chews up your time so it frees you up to interact with your clients more. Be the voice of your content creation. Do not outsource your actual content creation. Long form, short form. You know, I still write. I don't have the bandwidth to write as much as I would like. I want the, the things that I write to be legendary resources that are timeless and evergreen. I'm certainly not using chat GPT to write articles. I and I, you know what, for some coaches with limited bandwidth and you're trying to create like frequently asked questions resources on fairly basic things like you know, you know, to explain to people the benefits of creating. Guess what? Do it. I think go in and edit it and make sure it's. Double check the facts on it and you'll make sure that presentation is really good and make sure it's got your voice in it. But you can use it for this. I have people in my world, you know, moms that I coach who are also Coaches and we'll use the AI to generate guides and social media graphics and what have you. But the message is still from them and their heart and it's authentically them. There is a balance. So the gatekeeping shit, like I have no time for the mentors who also say you need a minimum of five years of coaching in person before you've earned the right to train online. That's also rubbish because guess what? Do you remember the last. Go back a couple of years for about like three years of what was going on. Did the new coach not have the right to serve their clients virtually or online because gyms were shut down right off with that rhetoric as well. Like actual gatekeeping. Dogmatic, bitter. The industry is passing me by. I'm getting older and irrelevant and I'm angry about it. And all these young coaches are stealing all my clients. It's, it's a safe. Here's another one of my hill to die on pet peeves. And this will trip some people up. When I, when I hear demands to for more regulation in the fitness industry, you know what that is? To me, that's a wine. And I see right through it. It's like because people think, well, I don't have big media and I'm struggling for clients. I've never seen a coach who is busy call for more regulation. Never, ever, ever. What they think is, oh, I'm gonna get going here. It's like if that this muffin influencer over in the UK is saying, whatever that I don't disagree with, I want them removed from the Internet. I want them legislated and regulated off the Internet and out of the industry. Well, guess what? Do you think that every country in the world and every organization, personal training organization, will get together, have a big forum and ban all this stuff? It's never going to happen. If one country does something cool, this person's literally going to go and hang up. Dubai or Thailand or someplace that's never going or Costa Rica is never going to care about the stuff. Do you want to know what? Most of the influencers and even like a lot of online coaches and like that's another thing too. They demonize everybody's influencers. No, sometimes they're really smart coaches who are online. Most of them don't hold active certifications anymore in anything. They don't need to. They don't coach in gyms. That's a complicated thing. Right? Okay, fine. Insurance. I think it's a really good idea. But a lot of them don't even have certification. So this is elitism. But at its heart, they want these people to go away because they feel entitled to the people that they think those influencers are getting. Here's the bad news. If you yourself don't do a good job of at least being visible, serving your audience, having good word of mouth locally, creating content to the point where people are finding their way to you, if all of the bad influencers and people you didn't like were legislated and regulated off the Internet and out of the industry, the people who are coaching with the performance still don't know who the fuck you are, still won't come to work with you because you haven't done anything to earn it, you're not entitled to it. And that's harsh. But if you internalize that and realize, no, I have to continue to work at this, build, grow my reputation and just understand the right form. And we've talked a lot about this. Sometimes it's not social media scale, sometimes it is getting into your community and doing a much better job there and pissing away time. Too much time on the Internet is probably not the right move for a lot of coaches who should just go and get out to local sporting events and local schools and local businesses so each of you will know what's the right venue for you.

So true. I had someone in my DM the other day that was like, I'm brand new. What should I do? I was like, go get a job at a gym. Like, just go. And like, you know, people demonize, especially online coaches, they demonize jobs at the gym. And I'm like, wow. I, as a district fitness manager, like, I learned so much being in a gym. I loved being in the gym for a period of time.

And you get people like you and Kyle Dobbs, right?

I was.

Exactly right. I knew you guys work together, so you get, I mean, and Kyle and Matt, they're at compound performance. They're genuinely great mentors. They're really, really smart. But a lot of these people have a legacy of the experience working in these environments. I spent six years very full time in a gym. I was the year over year. I was a trainer who trained the most sessions for almost outside of the very beginning, like the entire run that I was at this commercial gym and then I went out and contracted another gym and I was there full time. And then during the COVID stuff, I set up a home gym and I'm still full time. I split my time between the two. And on top of that, then the other media stuff grew. I Got the opportunities to public speak, write for stuff, podcasts, et cetera. And again, being invited on a podcast like this is not. I can't imagine anybody. I mean, who knows if one of you guys wants to reach out and go, I actually like your attitude. I would like to be your online client. I will talk to you. I coach lots of coaches and we'll talk career stuff too. I like that. That shit's fun. That's not the point of this. I want to hang out with you for an hour. And it just got me to riff on some, that I some rants. Right? But this is a byproduct of my presence and foothold in in person coaching and all the things that came out of it for a very long time. And you know, getting on here is not going to make my career or drive, you know, hundreds of thousands of new social media followers. But I actually genuinely hope that some of the people listening here will come and follow me, Andrew at Andrew Coates Fitness, please. But message me. I will respond to everything. I respond to everything. I will always answer your questions. If you have questions about the public speaking or the writing or anything else, guess what? I will respond. You're going to get a voice message from me and I'm happy to jam on this stuff. So open invitation.

I love that I'm. And, and it's true. It's you. It's also you, not someone else.

It'll be me. And listen, there, there's going to come a point where literally people will use AI to like replicate their voice and pretend to be them. That's. That's coming. Okay. They'll do it with video. I still think people will be able to see right through it. But for now, guess what easy way to prove that you're not a fucking robot is to respond with a voice or video message to people.

I review a lot of messaging, a lot of messaging, and I always know. I always know when it's chatgpt. Like, I know it, right? And people know it. So even if they can't be like, oh, that's Jack GPT. They feel it because your energy is not in, in the messaging. Like, if you are, people be like, well, I try. I use GPT. ChatGPT. And I'm like, well, that's a great tool. But you haven't backed up any of your claims or even checked any of these claims. You know it's coming. But adaptability, it's nuanced.

I think the people who lean into authenticity and real relationships will continue to do really well, in this space, I just, I think it's, it's not sexy, it doesn't necessarily accelerate rapidly. And I think the other things can be very alluring. I think it's wise to know the tactics. But I think if you root it in just being that real human, it cares about other people. And if you're in the industry for that reason, I think it's very hard to try to go the other way anyway. And like I said, I'm always one of the reasons why I do build the resources that I do. A lot of the free stuff, the podcast again, the written stuff that's geared towards career based and again and hanging out at a fitness conference and speaking at these events, the lessons are quite literally meant to help you with your career. So hopefully we'll connect over that.

So true, so true. And you know, automation has been around. Remember when, you know when bait, like nobody wants to get on the call the bank and like excited to press. 1, 2, 3. People want human connection and that gets to be your superpower. Especially if you're just starting out compete. Humans connect with humans and that's a principle that's not going away regardless of what happens with the AI. So you mentioned at Andrew Coates is the best place to connect with you on Instagram. Are there any other places for people to go?

Yep. At Andrew Coates Fitness on Instagram, I, I push in the podcast really hard. So lift free and diet hard podcast. Okay. It's a play on words from the. One of the Die hard movies which was just too perfect and that I just think it's, I love how it's going. It's growing rapidly. The downloads are killing it. So please check in with me there. Well, my website has, you know, articles or links to where I've been published elsewhere. That's www.AndrewCoats Fitness.com depending on when this is aired. So I will be in Dallas February 21st and 22nd to speak at Raise the Bar. Unfortunately, if this is aired after the fact, no big deal. I will be attending and hanging out at Aram Gregorian's Real Coaches Summit. Aram's a great friend. He has a wonderful event, so I can't stress that enough. And that is in early April. The dates are not off the top of my mind. It's at Caesar's Palace. And I will also be speaking at Swiss Montreal, which is an offshoot of the classic Swiss Rap Conditioning symposium. And that is May 3rd, if I'm not mistaken. You guys can message me for details on any of These events. And I also should be at finalizing details. Ken Fit Pros Global conference in August, and that is, I think right around the mid, middle of August. I don't exactly have the dates right off top of my head, but I'll be there as well. I am probably not planning my own conference this year. I've got the last couple years. I haven't finalized that yet, but I do not believe I'll be doing mine. I'm just juggling too much and I. Last year's burnt me out a little bit. It is fun. We'll see. Yeah. But I will be at a lot of stuff and it'll be all over my social media where I will be. So.

Okay, great.

I appreciate you having me on.

Yeah. Honestly, thank you so much. Aram's been on the show a couple of times. He's a great resource and I just raised the bar, like, definitely, if you're on the fence about going to an event, you definitely want to go to one of those two events because it's always what happens in the in between clean. That is the magic too.

I'll leave it. I'll leave it. One final thought. If you're finding this episode through my media, then guys, please check out some of the other episodes. Go listen via Ramona. Rom's a great friend, so go check out more what Beverly's doing that helps her. And if you're a longtime listener and you found me here, but have you given Beverly a review? Have you shared this with someone in your world? Are you just kind of like selfishly, like soaking this up yourself, you know, on your drive? It's like pick one way to do some little thing to give back support. Beverly, because she's a mom, she's busy. She still puts the time and effort to do these interviews that bring guests like the industry authorities and then people like me on here. So thanks, Beverly. I appreciate you.

Thank you, Andrew. I really appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the PT Profit podcast. If you like this episode, chances are your friends will too. So it would be a huge service to us if you would please leave us a review and share with your friends on your social media channels. When you leave us a review, be sure to take a screenshot of it and email that screenshot to my team@info simpsonfitness.com and we'll send you a very special Instagram podcast that will show you how to create compelling content hit so that your ideal clients come to you. And you go from wanting clients to a waitlist of clients ready for your services. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you on the next episode.