Embracing Failure: How Setbacks Pave the Way to Success with Chris Liddle

You're listening to the PT Prophet podcast, episode number 346. Today is a special solo episode where I myself will be talking to you about embracing failure and how setbacks can pave the way to your success. Are you ready? Let's get started.

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 Profit Podcast.

Welcome back to the PT Profit Podcast. We're keeping you on your toes today. I have recorded a spontaneous solo episode where I share some of my personal career stories in an effort to be more relatable. If you feel like someone like myself or even someone like Beverly, has never come across lessons in our career or times when maybe we felt discouraged or down, we've all been there. I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of my role models and mentors in the industry on my own podcast, and they've shared with me many of the moments when they have felt at their lowest and they kept going. The thing that I want you to take away from this the most is to look for the lessons. Regardless of whether you're late to my stories or not, or whether you're able to kind of pick up what I was throwing down. I want you to develop a lens in which you can find a way to grow every time that you come across an obstacle. But I won't talk too much because I've got an episode for you. Let's roll that episode. Welcome to a special solo episode of the PT Prophet Podcast. If we have not met before, my name is Chris Little. I help behind the scenes here at B. Simpson Fitness. I've known Beverly since about 2019 or 2020, and I have been part of B. Simpson Fitness for over two years. I often record some of the episode introductions, and today I wanted to take the microphone and talk about failure and talk about resiliency and talk about lessons. I was inspired to record this episode because of a multitude of conversations. I still work in the trenches with general population, helping them with their fitness and nutrition. And one of my clients actually moved me to realize how powerful sharing experiences can be for people who are struggling, for people who feel like they're in a rut. And something that is unique about my experiences that I have to offer you, which I Will in this episode is that I've taken a lot of Ls, I've taken a lot of losses. I'm going to add some more context to the recording of this episode. I'm currently wearing a weighted vest, walking on a treadmill because I got to get my steps up. I got to lead by example. So if you're watching the video footage and I'm sweating, it is currently either 33 degrees Celsius here in Canada or for the Americans, it is above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. So it's spicy, very spicy. But we're going to dive into these stories. Been in the industry, the fitness industry in some capacity since about 2017. I've dabbled in fitness related employment before that, but I really kind of got serious about it in 2017 when I first was applying for places. This is such a reoccurring story for me. But it was the fact that like a lot of people, if they were told by several different businesses, you're not the right fit, you're not qualified enough, they might quit, they might just be like, well, it's not for me, but for me, that was almost like fuel for the fire. It's almost like I got a rush from hearing no because I would just get this thought. I was like, I'm prove them wrong. I'm going to show them that they're wrong. And for me, this may be a toxic trait, but I was like, I'm going to show them that they're wrong and then I'm going to tell everybody that they're wrong. And that's not necessary. But what I want to highlight here is there is a lesson from every obstacle that you face. And we have a lot more control over our future than we think that we have. And it all comes down to attitude. So in this episode, I'm going to share five stories with you. First story, I call this the pants story. One of the first corporate box gyms that I applied to. I went for my first interview and I had a feeling they'd take me through a practical. So I thought, well, I mean, if they're having me squat, I should probably wear pants that can allow me to squat. Most of my jeans, I can't squat and I actually don't own any jeans anymore because it's such a problem. I've blown out at least one pair of dress pants and all of my dress pants now are Lululemon because they stretch. So I thought if they're going to get me to squat, I better wear pants. I can Squat with and went through the interview. I was obviously very nervous because there was a lot on the line and I didn't, it was unsuccessful because the quote was, I wasn't dressed too impressed, wasn't dressed to impress. And so I followed up with that to try and get in at a different location. I think this, this gym had about eight locations. And so then this time I was like, okay, I got it right or wrong, now I'm gonna dress to impress. So I got my dress pants, dress shoes, dress shirt, freshly shaved, my bald head, got myself ready to go, got into there and they conducted the interview and they're well, we were going to take you through a practical, but it looks like you're not dressed to go through a practical here on the gym floor. So why don't we schedule a follow up interview for that? Now at this point, I was already making moves with my former career like it was, it was time. I had been rejected from so many gyms and I was just going to make this happen no matter what. So when I was getting to that third interview, it was like, I get this job or I am unemployed or have to ask for my old job back. And I was probably the scaredest I've ever been. And we get through the interview, we get through the practical. It was rough, but I was dressed for the practical. I wore the right clothes that day. And they asked me questions about blood pressure, just the terminology, things like that. And I stumbled on my words. I got nervous and they said that they let me know what, what their decision was sooner rather than later. So I got home the next day or within the next week or so, was actually like my last day is at my, at my job. And I was like, okay, should have this locked in. They often hire people right off the street with no certification. I've got a certification, this should go well. And they called me up right as I pulled home from my former job after I'd shaken the hands of my bosses. And they said, we're not hiring you because you are not experienced enough. You're welcome to shadow somebody for free, but we will not be moving forward with your application. And that's how my career started. Now, later on, through a lot of networking and connecting, I managed to get some of my colleagues to vouch for me so that I could get an opportunity to be first interviewed by a private gym and then offered a paid internship. Now, I'm definitely very grateful that it was a paid internship because a lot of people start off their careers on a free internship. But I was just not in a position to be able to do that. Like, I had a mortgage, I had brought, bought a brand new car. At that point, there was too much on the line. I wasn't living at home. I had a lot of expenses to keep up with. So I showed up to that job and there was a lot of insecurity that tied into that because I had been turned down so many times. I was like, well, am I even gonna make it? And I started promoting training sessions with me on social media. But in a lot of cases, people would reach out directly to that gym and then the gym would delegate those people with whoever they thought was a good fit. So then my friends were starting to reach out to me saying that they reached out for training and they got paired with one of the other coaches. And in normal circumstances that would be fine, but I still wasn't paying all of my bills in that role. Now I'll add in some context that I actually earned the role as an actual employee trainer. So I graduated from the paid internship into being offered a role, but I never got more than maybe seven one on one sessions a week. Like I might have had ten at the most. And I'd have them, like most trainers, you get them scheduled at 6 in the morning and 8pm and whatever you do in between that, that's your problem. But it was the fact that I was doing my own marketing and bringing in people. But because they reached out through the website, they'd often get set up on consultations with other people. So I learned that I had to get people to reach out directly through me. And I'd set up my own consultations or I'd need them to like put in bold letters. I'm reaching out to work with Chris Little because I know him and that's why I'm traveling this distance to, to come here. These stories are endless. And the kicker is that my schedule never got full. And eight months into my role there, they shut things down. They had me sign a contract that I was not going to be paid for any of the remaining sessions. But once I had delivered all the sessions that were owed to people on the contract, then I could make the full amount for training anybody who's left. And so there was about two weeks where anybody who would have booked with me could have paid me directly and I make more per session. But the downsides is, the downside is that when you tell people that you're closing the gym, not many people want to be at the gym anymore because they're like why would I commit to something here when it's not going to be here any longer? And as time went on, I kind of learned that a lot of the people that I worked with in group classes who could have very easily worked with me one on one or worked with me in a group capacity, they had been negotiated to go to another facility, and that was a facility that I wasn't working at. So doing a lot of the marketing for myself, having to put a lot on the line for this opportunity, feeling like I wasn't enough, and then they shut it down. So I went independent. I went to a facility across the city where I knew the owner and I could pay rent, and I started to look into putting on lunch and learns. Now, keep in mind, I was in the midst of my precision nutrition certification, and I had proposed the idea of putting on a lunch and learn partnered with like, a healthy food company, like a locally owned sandwich company or smoothie company, just to kind of add some fun to it. I put this out on Facebook that I was looking to collaborate with a nutritious food company and the owner of the gym that had me sign a contract that I was supposed to train the remaining sessions for free. After I had moved to a different gym, I was starting from the ground up, and I proposed this idea that I was going to partner with with a restaurant. She misinterpreted that, that I was not referring out my people who needed nutrition clients to one of my colleagues. And that was very frustrating for me because it's like, these are people who want to work with me. These are ideas that I've come up in my own time, who, with my own resources, with everything that I have learned to apply independently. I do not owe anybody anything. And these were some of the first things that I came across in my career. And the reason that I didn't quit in these moments is because I did not want to go back to my old job. And I felt an intense call to do something that gave me a sense of purpose. And I'm stubborn as hell. I was not going to give up. But while that was challenging, that's not the only challenge that I faced. That's not the only l that I've had. I, of course, everybody has encountered the pandemic. So I moved from that facility to another facility, started building up my client roster, started working with more people. For the first time ever, I was working with enough people that all my bills were paid. And that was a magical time for me where I could pay my mortgage, I could pay My car payment, I could pay my insurance. I didn't have to check the prices of the groceries before going to the grocery store. I could just fill my basket and I knew I would have enough. And then the pandemic rolled in. And within two weeks of them making the announcement that gyms would be closing, I would say 90% of my client base that I built up to that point dropped off within that. Maybe about 50% kind of came back for little times for maybe a couple weeks at a time or a couple of sessions. But eventually all of the clients that I started my career with stopped working with me after the pandemic because there's just too much going on. There's people having to relocate. There was things that they wish could be different. Not with regards to me, but let's say like one of my clients really likes Arnold Schwarzenegger. Our gym had a poster of Arnold Schwarzenegger and my client asked for it to be put back up when it got taken down during renovations. And they didn't take me take him seriously. And I that client was the source of four different referrals for me. He was the source of about six to eight sessions per week, which was substantial for me. And just because we didn't put up the Arnold Schwarzenegger poster and that was out of my control, that agitated him. And then the gym double billed him for things and when he asked to pause his membership, they didn't put him into effect. So there was a lot of things with him in the facility that put me in a crappy situation and I had to bounce back. And so then it came to a point where I was looking for additional work because gyms were closed. We were having to be conscious of are we training with too high of intensity. We had. If I as a trainer wanted to work out, I needed to have the supervision of another trainer for me to be allowed to work out. Like, the rules here in Alberta were very weird. And I'm sure there's many people in different states and provinces that felt things were weird too. This is just to illustrate an obstacle that you'd think would discourage a lot of people. And it, it did discourage me. I was looking for jobs in any industry. What I did during 2020-2021 was I would do labor jobs during the week anywhere that I could. I would start being very frugal with my spending. I would sell stuff on kijiji, things that I owned that I didn't need so much to make it through the pandemic. As best as I could until a place would hire me. And eventually I got hired for a remote job where I was working for a corporate and an apparel company. So I was in customer service and they had me on for about four months. The contract was six months and they laid me off two months before the contract was done. It was right before my birthday. So then I had to go back to the job market to find additional employment. During this, I was still working with clients. I had maybe like five clients in my roster. And I was starting to build up my online training. And there was a lot of times during that moment that I wanted to quit. I. I think I credit how much I loved working with my clients for keeping me from quitting. It's. It's the passion that always keeps me going. It's obviously not wanting to go back. Sometimes we think, like, what would I do if I wasn't in fitness? And the default is often whatever you used to do. Now, granted, as time has gone on, I've diversified more and more. I do some stuff with Beverly, I do some stuff with different marketing, videography, video editing, etc. But I still work with people in person and online with their fitness and nutrition. I've diversified because I've learned a lot of lessons from all these failures. And this has allowed me to create a career in which I feel a sense of purpose, I feel a sense of confidence, I feel a sense of security, I feel a sense of stability. I feel like I can control my future because everything that's at play, I am good at. I no longer have any feelings of, am I good enough? Because I've had these failures where I've had to truly prove that I was good enough. It's very rare that I've been just, like, handed an opportunity. And in the times when people think that that was the case, the ironic thing is how much I had to grind just to get that recognition. I gotta give credit where credit is due. Beverly is one of the people who has hired me because I'm me and I really appreciate that. So if she's listening to this one, shout out to Beverly. But the thing is that when you're looking at someone that you think is winning all the time, they are losing. So often. This is true in competitive sports, Like, I'm an Edmonton Oilers fan. And when you think of that playoff run, I'm going to paint a picture because not everybody is going to be following NHL hockey. Not everybody's going to be following Edmonton. So essentially, Edmonton started off their season terribly and they were at the bottom of the league around November. And then they started to turn things around. They fired their coach, they brought in a new coach, and they managed to set up a trajectory as such that they became one of, if not the best performing team in the league. They would come back from, from like, series deficits, where, like, the series is best of seven at most. If the other team sweeps you in four games, they win all four, then the series is over. It's best of four in that case. But there was several times, more than one time, where they would have been completely out of the playoffs and they bounced back. Now, they wouldn't have known how to bounce back if not for all those times where they lost, where they realized how much they hate losing, how much they didn't want to be a losing team, how much they had to work together, how self aware they had to be. They worked with a. It's like a sports psychologist, his name is George Mumford, to help them be a little bit more self aware about perhaps how far they've come, how much they enjoy the game, how to think of things one day at a time. He helped them reframe a lot of things. And I think we as business owners and fitness professionals can take a lot of lessons from that. So I got one more story here. This is just like pulling it out of the air. Not a lot of people know that my initial trigger to start in fitness was because of how much I was impacted by going to spin classes. And this is going to sound ridiculous because now I'm doing jiu jitsu. I don't go to spin classes. I haven't been to one in since 2019. But what called me to go into that was I started to realize, like, I was holding myself back. It was my own self. Talk about what I was capable of, of who I could be, of how much power failure had over me. I was thinking, like, I was identifying with everything that had ever gone wrong in my life. And I thought it was like, the consequences of me being me. Like, I thought if somebody said no to me, that that's just the way it had to be. And I had to just own that and find a way to survive carrying this no with me. And by going to this spin class and hearing these inspirational words and the cold play and the flashing lights and the adrenaline and the perspiration and the woos and spinning the towels like it. It feels. It sounds lame. And I don't mean that as a dig to anybody who likes spin, because I love y', all, but it kind of Opened my eyes to the power of perspective and the importance of taking care of yourself and being consistent with a positive attitude with a healthy physical and mental lifestyle. And then I was like, this is awesome. I want to give this to other people. And in my journey to be that guy. I'll try to make a long story short, but, like, the first studio I was at, they would hold these auditions and I was like, super excited about this stuff. That was the only thing I would talk about. I would go to like seven to eight classes a week. I was like, I'm gonna get so good. I'm riding on this bike that goes nowhere and I'm gonna say woo. And I'm gonna just pay attention. I'm gonna just get my beat good and my pumps and my dips are just gonna be the best. And they were like, yeah, so we're holding additions. You will not be moving forward. We won't have you come in to see how you ride on the bike. But we're going to open up auditions to more people. That just kind of like rubbed me the wrong way. And I was. I made a point to talk about that, but it was just wrong place for me. Fortunately, I was given an opportunity to instruct at another place. The short version is that the place didn't necessarily, like, have that same marketing or the same support. Like, I would often show up to instruct and like, the place where I was instructing in was locked and nobody had the key. And so, like, I'd have to use a set of bolt cutters to get into the room to instruct the class because otherwise nobody, nobody really cared about my success. And if it wasn't for me showing up, they would have basically just assumed there was no class, if that makes sense. So then I was. I set my sights on this fancy studio and I was like, this is it. And I have never been more dialed in with my physical fitness in my life. Like, I was a lean £176. I put out the highest wattage of anybody in the room. I. People would tell me that my beat was super tight. And the people that I was learning from are people that I look up to, admire. They're very important to me in my life. And so when I would go for the audition and hear from them that my beat was off. And for that reason, despite the physical fitness, despite the motivation, despite the music selection, I had sort of a dry personality and my beat was off. And there was just nothing that I could do about. There's no way that I could ever change. And so that was a goal that is just like, that's it. You can't carry out that goal. Doesn't matter how hard you work, doesn't matter how bad you want it. That facility, that chain of locations doesn't want you. But I think it was an okay lesson to have because it taught me where my skills lie. Because where my strengths are is that one on one connection where there's not all this noise and distractions, where you can kind of recenter a person and get them to reframe things, where you can almost help them understand where their obstacle is and help them understand what has to be done, keep moving forward and keep progressing. Because one thing I can say with utmost confidence, as I'm good at progressing, I'm good at progressing in multiple industries, in whatever I set my mind to. And so it is a privilege to have the opportunity to help other people do the same. I would not be good at progressing if I didn't have all these challenges thrown at me. If I didn't have to pivot from one pre Covid gym closure and then several gym closures amidst the pandemic and then having to just navigate things that are out of my control, like they took down the Arnold poster or they overcharged my client, they've overcharged me too. Not going to name businesses or anything because like all businesses are capable of making these mistakes or having these misunderstandings. It is my belief that, in my experience that says that if you are able to handle these things with grace, it's going to do you a lot more favors than kicking up a big stink. So if you're listening to this, don't go doing your research trying to figure out which places I'm talking about or which people I'm talking about. Because that's not the mission of this. The mission of this episode is to openly and honestly share with you that you might know me on Instagram, you might know me through B. Simpson Fitness, you might be an accelerator, you might have bought one of the resources from Beverly's website or connected with her on social and somehow came across me. Maybe you're someone who's in my world and you stumbled across this podcast. I don't publish all of the things that don't go well, and even if I did, you wouldn't remember them all. And the same is true for anybody you may aspire to be. And we can feel very discouraged. Often everybody goes through ups and downs. And what I find to be helpful, especially when I feel the most challenged, is by Setting myself up for success. Now I'm on a walking treadmill. I know Beverly has a walking treadmill. I've dialed it up with the weighted vest. It's 20 pounds. This is how I increase my energy expenditure to give myself just a little bit more health benefit from being at this very slow walking pace by being able to see the positive in the situation. So the positive and a loss is that a loss comes with a lesson. And a lesson is a very big asset to your skill. If you've accumulated a thousand lessons in the matter of five, six, seven years, that's more than a person that just stops after the first obstacle. That's more than the person who feels discouraged and then doesn't try anymore. It's more than the person who can't see how far that they've come. I have an exercise for you that I highly encourage you to do. And this comes to me from my time working with Lululemon, either in my times when I've done collaborations with them, when I've done events with them, or when I've worked within their company. And you're going to go to the website called futureme.com just going to double check that that takes you where I want it to take you. So it's actually futureme.org you're going to go to futureme.org and what I want you to do is write a letter to you, let's say six months from now. I want you to be honest and tell yourself who you want to be based on if you're working with Beverly based on the goals that you've set, if you haven't started your journey as an accelerator yet, just based on your own goals. I'll even say I used to. I've listened to the PT Profit podcast since before I worked with Beverly. So I used to listen to these episodes and take notes just independently for what I was going to work on. So if you are just coming across this episode, finding it now to write a letter to your future self, regardless of what else is going on, regardless of what you know of creating a business, what you know of marketing, just wanted to put you. I want you to put something out into the world that articulates who you want to be. I tell people all the time that I'm going to have this epic barn gym because to have something tangible helps me to understand the importance of staying positive. Because if I'm not positive, it's going to distance me from that goal of the barn gym. Because no matter what happens in my life, or what happens in my career. I'm always going to have to figure out a solution. If the economy is tough, if I get ill, if I get injured, I do jiu jitsu. I get injured all the time. There's been times I could barely walk and I had to figure something out. So no matter what, I've got that barn gym on the horizon, and it helps to keep me motivated. So if I was writing this letter, I would talk about that next step I'd be making. I'd be talking about, I'm gonna sell my condo in six months or less. So my future letter to me would be like, it's a beautiful day. I've sold my condo, the home that I've owned for 10 years. I've started working with five more people in my online business. I've started enrolling more people in my video editing course. Side note, I have a course on how to edit video on Capcut. If you're interested in, go to Christian Little.com but you're going to write a future letter to yourself that empowers you to be who you said you're going to be. No matter how many obstacles that you come across. And you might forget about that letter, but as long as you properly press send, you're going to get that puppy six months from now. I've done this exercise many times, and sometimes I have exceeded my expectations, sometimes I fall short. Most of the times I'm closer to my goal than further away because through the act of writing it out and what I want to do, and this is very similar to a lot of the planning and things that are within the modules and exercises that Beverly will offer to all of her accelerators. But by writing out your goal to yourself and really thinking about it, putting it to words, it gets in your head. You're like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. It doesn't matter what it takes. It's going to take what it takes until it takes. It doesn't matter how tough it is. It doesn't matter how many people say no to me on a sales call. Doesn't matter how many people have to move on. Doesn't matter what happens to the tech. It doesn't matter if it rains or snows or it gets too hot. I'm going to make it happen. That's the power of putting thoughts to words and writing a letter to yourself. All of this said, if you're interested in learning more about setting goals or about crushing your goals with your fitness business, What I would say to you is just like I alluded to earlier, I listened to every episode of this podcast at least once, more than once, when I started working with bsems and Fitness, because I've helped with the production and the editing of many, many, many episodes. And there's a lot of power of reflection. There's a lot of power of hearing a story again, a lot of power of hearing one of Beverly's solo episodes a second time, a third time, a fourth time. Because two months from now, we're all going to be a different version of ourselves, a better version, because we probably encountered some things that did not go our way that we had to learn from. So we've collected all these lessons and we're better for it. And that's a pretty special thing. Imagine a life where you did not get these lessons, where you didn't get to level up two months at a time, one week at a time. Like, the more you fail, the more lessons you get and the more you progress because you're not going to fail the same way twice. So that's going to close out this episode. My feet are getting a little bit spicy because as it is very warm in here, the treadmill is also warm. But I hope that you enjoy this episode. It's a little different than the typical one. Very much conversational. If you like this one, it would mean a lot to me and to Beverly. If you tag us, you can tag Beverly simpsonfitness. Tag me hristianlittle L I D D L E with a screenshot of the episode just to let us know that you listened. Or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or give us five stars on Spotify because that goes a long way to help us reach new audiences to help more people. Thanks for listening and we will catch you on the next one.

Thank you for listening to the PT Proffit 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 at Info and we'll send you a very special Instagram podcast that will show you how to create compelling content so that your ideal clients come to you and you go from wanting clients to a wait list of clients ready for your services. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.