Strength Beyond the Mat: A Journey with Dustin Lebel

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 319. Today, Beverly is interviewing Dustin LaBelle as they talk about strength beyond the mat. 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 in 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. My name is Chris and I will be doing the intro to this awesome conversation that Beverly had with Dustin LaBelle. Dustin's years of experience in the fitness industry paired with his passion for the sport of Jiu Jitsu, made him an excellent guest as we dive into the benefits of structured strength training for jiu jitsu athletes. When we're thinking about combat sports, we often overlook the value that strength offers to not only performance, but longevity. If you enjoy this episode, be sure to tag Beverly and Dustin in a screenshot and leave us a review on Apple podcasts or rating on Spotify or. Let's dive into today's episode with Dustin LaBelle.

What's up, Dustin? Thanks so much for joining me on the show today. How are you?

I'm good. How are you?

I'm doing really well. It's been a while. It's been a minute since we've connected, so I'm super excited to dive into today's episode.

Yeah, me too. Probably at least a few years. So, yeah, it's good to connect. Again, apologies for the nasally voice. I live with two tiny human petri dishes and I'm a little under the weather, but we'll, we'll make it work.

Yeah, and same me too. Okay, so let's go ahead and dive in. So for those of you who are tuning in and are have never been introduced to the pleasure of your work, can you share with us a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there?

Yes. So, geez, I kind of have a topsy turvy road to where I am or to how I got to where I am right now. My name is Dustin LaBelle. I've been involved in the fitness industry in some form or fashion for about 18 years or almost 18 years now. I worked in a gym setting for about 13 of those years with every role ranging from your standard personal trainer to working with like, higher level athletes, to managing like A training facility to sales. So I've done a little bit of everything. When I left in 2018, it was to go online and do my own thing. That way things were going okay, I suppose. But around Covid, around the time of COVID I had a one year old or soon to be one year old, and kind of found myself unsure of the future, if you will. I think a lot of people at that time got a job completely outside of the fitness industry where I work remotely. I'm able to work from home still and make a good income and, you know, supply the necessary, the tools and freedom, if you will, to still be able to grow a fitness business in the meantime. So that was in 2020. And for those few years I did take some time off to, to a degree maintaining a small client base. But now in the last, I'd say six months or so, I have things on autopilot to a degree with that, with that other job and putting more of my efforts towards building my, my business online. I am a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu hobbyist. I really love doing Jiu jitsu. I injured myself in 2012, took about 10 years off and then started back up training again about two years ago. And I love it so much. And I see a lot of the holes, if you will, in the strength and conditioning that a lot of the participants, whether they're hobbyists or competitors alike, that they have in their kind of like off mat training. And I put a lot of my efforts online and now building up a client base of folks who participate in Jiu jitsu, whether again as a serious competitor hobbyist. And that's kind of the direction that I'm going. But I work with all kinds of folks. I primarily worked with general population up until recently, fairly recently, and that's the long and short of it. Hopefully that wasn't too.

No, it was great. No, it was great. So what's your, you know, what's the, what's your intention for the next, you know, few years? What is it that you are wanting to build and create?

Great question. It's something I think about all the time. And if I knew exactly what that looks like, I would probably, or if I could tell you exactly what that looks like, I would be lying. But having, having said that, I fully plan on maintaining my current employment with the, the company that I, I have and using that as a way to build a business in a stress free manner, a relatively stress free manner in a way that is perhaps a little bit more sustainable than what I previously had before. I took on that other job. So I really see myself continuing to build my platform online and connect with more folks in the community in the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu community specifically, which I found that when I tailor my message towards that and ever since I started probably almost two years ago, that has been the case. So I have more people reaching out now and, and asking, you know, inquiring about my services. I've been able to, you know, take on more clients. So that's, that's the goal is to kind of push in that direction and offer primarily one on one training. I've done some group things in the past, perhaps prematurely where I didn't quite have the online clout to really build that to where I wanted. So I'm pursuing online or one on one coaching for the time being and you know, really trying to make that the kind of the, what have you, I guess the sounding board that I use for, for you know, my Instagram or social media in general. And those are the people that I really enjoy working with and you know, being a participant myself, I kind of have a lens that I can see things through as well that are similar to them. Right. So hopefully, hopefully answers that I love that.

So there's two directions I want, I definitely want to go into. Number one is I feel like having employment while you're trying to build business. Ten seem to seems to be this like big boogeyman that entrepreneurs don't want to be associated with. There's this huge drive to, you know, leave your nine to five, get the freedom. But after working with so many entrepreneurs and specifically in the fit health and wellness space, I can tell you that at least to start you can make more money as a Starbucks manager than sometimes people will let on to believe the work, the amount of work that goes into building a business. So it's really not for the faint of hearts. And so for me I think that, and this is my opinion, so you know, I'll share it freely, is that I think that there's a lot of really amazing things about having a 9 to 5 job or having a job that can support the early stages of business growth that no one seems to be talking about. Like it's, you know, there are plenty of jobs out there that give you provide you enough freedom to use the hours that you need to build a business in like you said, a stress free environment because you can't create in stress. So I feel like there's a lot of misconceptions around having a job while you build your business. So I'm curious for you, like what were some of the things that you were looking for when you went and found this job? What are the things that you love about it and how specifically has it given you the freedom to build the business of your dreams?

Yeah, that's, that's a great question. So first and foremost at that time I had a one year old who was not enrolled in daycare just yet. Like there was a waiting list. That wait list was going to be several months longer than when I had started kind of searching online a little bit. My first priority was so number one was being able to work from home. So I had been doing that now at that point for two years. Really enjoyed it, didn't want to give that up. But also we needed childcare. My wife has a job where she goes into the office, although works primarily from home now, but at that time didn't. And I was taking care of my soon to be one year old. So that's priority number one. Priority number two was making at that time I didn't, I didn't know what I didn't know, but I was just. When I had my initial interview, I kind of set a number that I wanted to make per year and the owner at the time who was interviewing me kind of laughed and was like, oh well, we expect that to kind of be the minimum. And actually since then I. So as a sales job, so I do kind of go backwards a little bit. I am a moving consultant or as I'm a sales consultant for a moving company. So this company is not based anywhere. So I live in Connecticut. This company is based out of the D.C. area. So Virginia, Washington, D.C. maryland, that area. And you know, having a sales background. So I sold training and training packages. I sold gym memberships. I had that experience early on. I had a great general manager at the gym that I worked at previously. You kind of built a sales culture and allowed me to really progress in that and kind of find my, my voice. So it was a natural fit. And I ended up actually excelling like relatively early on and have been so, you know, for the last three years. So it was kind of this boost in confidence that okay, I'm, I'm actually pretty, pretty darn good at sales. Specifically this type of sale where it's like a one off transaction. Yeah, you build a customer base and customers will repeat business with you over time, but for the most part you are trying to close that individual on the phone that particular day because chances are they are reaching out to, you know, half a dozen Other companies usually, or at least three, typically, before they make a decision. So, you know, it kind of allowed me to continue to build on that skill set of, you know, lead management, you know, obviously the, you know, understanding how to build rapport over the phone and those kinds of things. All my sales are done via over the phone. I don't do video calls. I obviously can't do anything in person. So I've really built a skill set that is kind of unique in that I don't need to leave my house, you never need to see my face. And I've been able to make a pretty good living doing so and working. I don't want my boss to hear this, but probably about 25 hours a week if we're being. For being realistic. So for the first several years, I have a hard time kind of separating two things. So I kind of was like putting. Put in my head, like I'm too. Not too busy, but like, I didn't want to. I didn't know where. Where I wanted to go with my training business. So I kind of maintain a very minimal client base just to kind of hang on and keep the people that have been with me for a long time and, you know, still allow me to do what I enjoy doing. And that's coaching and that's helping people. It's programming, it's problem solving, all the things that kind of go into that. And I needed that space, that time to really figure out, okay, here's the direction I want to go in. Here's how I can actually manage that throughout the course of my day and my week and make this work so that I can continue to be a top earner at the company that I work for while building something that I'm proud of that is, you know, will stand the test of time in terms of, like, my principles. I'm not going against what I believe in just to make a quick buck. I can really take my time with this. So those are a few of the things and really it's something where I can. I see myself again working for that company for hopefully a long time while continuing to build. Build something that I'm. That I'm proud of at the end of the day.

I love that. So now, you know, just to transition or switch gears a little bit. You're talking about specifically Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, correct?

Yes. Yeah.

Okay, great. I just want to make sure I say that right. That's a tricky word, let me tell you.

Say that. Yeah, 10 times.

Yeah. So anyway, so I. I'm curious you know, now that you're working with this, this particular athletic group, what are some of the programming differences that you make for that population than say you did for the general. The gen. For gen pop? What's the process that you go through?

Yeah, so in some ways it's very similar, and in some ways it's different. Of course, you know, in terms of where it's similar. Most jiu jitsu athletes, whether they're high level or not, they tend to be relatively inexperienced in the gym sometimes, I would say most of the time. So, you know, they need a lot of the things that general population folks need. They need structure and organization. They need to train the, you know, the big movement patterns in a progressive fashion. They need someone to kind of, you know, give them feedback on, on what needs to be improved and, you know, what needs to stay put and, you know, and having just that kind of this overall grand plan to what they're doing, which is all very similar to if you worked with someone who just has a 9 to 5 and they just want to be healthy. Right? Very, very similar. The differences primarily lie in, like, the mindset where a lot of athletes in particular, especially in jiu jitsu, where it's get a lot of, like, hard chargers, right? They want to train as much as possible. They want to bury themselves with fatigue. And in some ways you have to kind of talk them out of that or at least present them a solution that maybe they haven't seen before because, like, social media, Instagram is so prevalent with like, nonsense in terms of, of training, you know, for all the good stuff that comes across. My feed, because I kind of have this echo chamber, right, of like, you know, people I follow, people follow me back. And, you know, the algorithm kind of feeds into, like, what I want to see, but there's so much bad information out there that I forget that that's what a lot of people still come across. So it's a little bit of fighting that battle, but, you know, for the most part, it's just getting an understanding of what their training schedule looks like. Like, how many days are you actually training jiu jitsu? What do those sessions consist of in terms of like, like a rate of perceived exertion, like, how hard are they? Do you have any rec days in your program? And what are you currently doing, right, in terms of strength and conditioning, you know, so that way I can perhaps find specific gaps, fill those gaps, and, you know, create like, a framework that we can operate from over a long period of time, you know, and, you Know, part of it is just educating people and showing them that, you know, we're not going to make swift or often change, you know, changes very often. We're going to kind of stay the course, we're going to adapt to your needs. And as things arise, whether it's, you know, a specific competition or injuries or aches and pains, things like that, you know, we have to be adaptable, but at the same time progress is made by just being very consistent. Right. Over a long period of time.

Yeah. Okay, great. So can you carry us through a little bit of, you know, more about how you like, what are some of the assessments that you use to really build out programming for this particular client?

Yeah, so I, I used to run folks through a plethora of assessments, you know, and it would be a week long process of looking at movement, looking at different capacities, you know, testing different maxes and, you know, to kind of gather this information and create this individualized training program for this particular person based on their individual, you know, weaknesses and needs, etc. Etc. I no longer, I no longer do that. What I do is I have a conversation with the person. I, you know, by the time they've contacted me, they have looked at my social media, they probably have been following me for a while. So they kind of get the gist of kind of what I'm about, what my principles are. So they kind of have that understanding. Right. But I'm going to talk to them, I'm going to find out what their training currently looks like, what do they kind of like to do, what do they not like to do. And we're going to create a general template that I kind of have, I use for a lot of folks at least to get started. So that way I need something to work off of. Right. So I can't just. I used to create a different training program with like, I'm talking A to Z being different for every single new person. And sometimes you do have to do that if there's a unique situation. But for the most part, I'm going to plug them into a template that I know is going to at least get us in the ballpark of where I want to see you kind of progressing. And we're going to go from there. So those first four weeks more or less are kind of my assessment period where we're going to do some basic lifting. I'm going to do some conditioning based upon what I feel like most people need at least to get started. I'm going to get your feedback and then we're going to make adjustments based off of that. So I use kind of client feedback initially along with like their actual training results. Most people don't want to go through an assessment is what I've learned. They hate it. Outside of like the people that are like, really geeked out on training, specifically most regular people and most like athletes because remember, athletes aren't always in love with the weight room. They hate assessments. So we don't, I don't call an assessment. I just say we're gonna, we're gonna do an initial, like four week block. Typically, we're gonna have an idea of where you end at these four weeks in terms of like, how are you adapting to the training load? How are you perceiving the training? Is it easy? Is it hard? Are you, are we just right? And in what direction do you want to take things? Cause I'll listen to the cl, you know, I'll often take what they want to actually do and kind of mix what I want them to do, you know, together. Right. So we kind of meet in the middle. And you know, typically, again, most folks, when they reach out to me, they're pretty receptive. So they're kind of like, whatever you say. But I do kind of want to get like, you know, what do you feel? You know, like, for example, it could be a simple question like, oh, I want to work more on my conditioning. Right. That'll just be a general, you know, everybody will say, right, so we'll, we'll take what they. We've currently been doing. Let's say we're doing two conditioning sessions a week, one moderate intensity, one kind of lower intensity. And I might either progress from where they currently are at or we might go through like a, more of like a, for lack of a better term, like a metabolic block of training where they're doing like the things they're doing in the weight room. Give them the perception of like sweating and breathing hard and, you know, working really hard and those kinds of things. Because the kind of how they're feeling obviously is super important. Right. Because I, I want them to have that, like, that dopamine hit of like, hey, what I'm doing matches with my goals. I feel better on the mats. Even though we know that four weeks or eight weeks really isn't that long of a time to kind of feel that much of difference. But what the person feels matters. Right. And I want that, I want those things to kind of correlate as much as possible and ride that out for as long as we can.

Yeah. So One of the things that you said actually struck a chord with me. You said that athletes don't like the weight room. So can you expand on that? Because that actually surprised me. Why is that? Why do they not like the weight room?

Because. All right, so I think this. So with Jiu Jitsu specifically, but I think it could be with any sport. Especially like sports where the sometimes strength, although strength conditioning is getting more, gaining more popularity with, with Jiu Jitsu and grappling specifically. Like think like basketball, soccer, like really skill based sports. Jiu Jitsu being one of those, those sports are so fun to participate in. Like Jiu Jitsu is so fun to participate in that it's so easy to get swept away by just doing the sport that you really, you kind of can get lost in like not caring about anything else. And I think anybody who's worked with basketball players has experienced this. Not always, but it's just kind of a general rule. Soccer players, for examp, baseball. And again, everybody has their stories of like such and such, you know, loves the weight room and they were able to see these profound results from it. But for the most part a lot of athletes just see it as a way to get better at their sport. It's not the thing. Whereas like in the fitness industry, you know, a lot of coaches especially we love strength and conditioning. Like that's our sport. Like I do Jiu Jitsu, but like as a hobbyist where it's like I love you know, getting on an echo bike and testing my, whatever time trial, two max, whatever. Yeah. And a lot of athletes don't always have that same like relationship with, with the strength conditioning side of things.

Interesting. Interesting because it's funny because I think, you know, we toss that word around athlete and people, you know, for me, I've just always had the experience that if someone identifies as, as an athlete, they're always trying to like they, you know, the house or can they get before they literally have to, you know, sit in a, sit in a nice bath. Just kidding.

But it does depend on the, it does depend on the athlete. It depends on the person, you know, but for the most part you're fighting this battle of like how do we fit this thing in with all of the other work that you are, that you're already doing. You know, one of my clients recently, actually I just started working with this week, like his training schedule is insane. He's a, he's a full time coach, He's a full time competitor, really high level and he trains like not counting strength Conditioning like nine or to ten or more times per week, you know, between all his different skill sessions. So finding the holes in his week to be able to fit training in is. Can be like a tall order. Right. And managing, he's young still, but managing his levels of fatigue and making sure that he goes into his key training sessions, you know, his key skill development training sessions is like, you know, that's a top priority. And making sure. We're making sure he's going into those feeling good. I should say.

So now, are you primarily working online? Are you working in person?

All. All online? I just don't have the capacity to work with people in person between job, work, family, you know, or job, family, etc. Yeah, so all. All online.

Okay. Love it. So now, in your opinion, what have been in some of the biggest differences as you. That you have experienced as you've transitioned from being in person to being online?

Yeah, so my transition online was kind of unique and I would have done a lot of things differently in hindsight. But I'll just tell you my experience.

Break it down, tell us.

Yeah. So at the time when I kind of made this switch from, okay, I'm gonna leave the gym that I was working at and I'm gonna go online, I had already started working with folks in kind of this hybrid fashion where I was present in the gym. But they would, they were getting their own training program and doing it on their own, right. And so they were paying me a monthly fee to provide that. That service. So they were already. And a lot of these people were already used to what I was, you know, that, that model, like, they understood how to be a good online client. Right? Whereas like, a lot of, like, people who try to transition their one on one clients into online, which I think a lot of people experience during COVID it's very difficult because a lot of times the people that work in one on one or they work in groups, they love working one on one. They love working in groups. They don't want to get a workout on an app and have to do it on their own. But I found, I found a bunch of people that wanted to get a workout on their phone and do it on their own because they had whatever schedule limitations or they just like to do their own thing or they have very specific goals outside of what a group or one on one train or a group could provide, but they didn't want to necessarily pay one on one pricing. You know what I mean? So a lot of my challenges came when I, so I, when I Transitioned and I left the gym. I took a lot of those people with me and that was great. The, the hardest thing when, when you're building an online platform is just getting people to actually inquire on what you're doing. Right. They have to know who you are. They have to. Which takes time. Right. To develop that, that relationship. They have to know the type of service you provide. And I found it very difficult to kind of navigate that. Right. Because, you know, content doesn't always mean followers or rather followers doesn't always mean people landing in your, in your DMs, inquiring about training. So it's been a very long road. I mean, I, I put out a lot of content online, writing especially. I used to write a lot more and I'm doing more recently, you know, building out a newsletter and that kind of thing, which I, yeah, we'll talk about that at some point. But you know, and so I made a lot of mistakes, right. In those kind of five, six years since that point where I, then that's why I eventually reached out to, you know, I, I started, you know, looking for, for other avenues of streams of income. Right. Or revenues, of revenues coming in. So that way I could build something and not have to worry about, you know, the content reaching, you know, all people, but of a specific type of person. Yeah. And I'm still figuring that out. I'm still navigating those, those waters. They're murky.

Yeah, sure. I mean, we all go through those processes. Right. So one of the things that you said earlier that I, I do want to touch upon because I'm, I'm curious if you wouldn't mind expanding is you said that, you said that you started a potentially too early. So what specifically do you mean by that and how do you know that?

Yeah, so I started. Why I've done two kind of renditions of this, but so I used an app that I think is pretty popular with, you know, kind of like a low tier or low priced group option. You know, I went through Train Heroic, which I think a lot of people are familiar with. I built out the training, but I, I didn't quite have the reach to get enough people on board at the price that I was charging to where that made sense. Because what, so what ended up happening is I had people who really love the programming, really love the training. It was very inexpensive, but it wasn't enough people. I wasn't charging enough. And so I was in this place where it's like, okay, this, this person clear, like they're getting a lot of value for what they're, you know, or I'm delivering a lot of value for compared to what they're paying, which is fine. That's always the goal of any training, whether it's one on one or, you know, they're a small monthly, you know, subscription. Right. But now when you're trying to sell one on one, that becomes a very, very difficult proposition. Not always. I'm sure there's ways to, around it, but I found it difficult in that regard, so I had to, I eventually dropped it all together because it just, it was kind of confusing. Right. In terms of messaging, I had, you know, all these different options, which might be something down the road. I, I may reconsider. But for the time being, I think offering just strictly one on one is the best road for me. And that's just based off of lift. You know, listening to folks like yourself and others who have kind of gone down this similar path or have made similar mistakes and found that, okay, it's better to put your eggs in one basket for now. Build the base that you want and then, you know, once you have a little bit of room, wiggle room, you can, you can try other things. I don't know. Those are my thoughts. So.

Yeah, no, that's fair. And it's a fair thing, right? I, I feel like, you know, one of the things that I'll, I share all the time is that it's, it's really, you know, there are lots of paths to Rome, but the principles don't change. You could take a boat, you could take a plane, you could walk, you could do a car. So in business or in training terms, that looks like, you know, you could do, you know, low ticket, you could do call, you could do one to many, you could do many to many. Like there's so many different options, but the, in terms of like the actual numbers, those don't change. You want 10 clients, you're going to need to do at least 20 presentations. Doesn't matter if you're doing it with your hat, you know, in a handstand. I was trying, I was trying to think of like a, you know, green eggs and ham metaphor there going for. But I'm just no doctor, sis. Let's, you know, so. And, and the other thing that you said that I think is just so important that I think people forget, and this is, myself included, is that, you know, we, we tend to get dogmatic about approaches and think that there's only one way, the best way, the right way. When the truth of the matter is that it's the aligned way and they're going to be things that you have to do and as long as they're in alignment, they're going to work.

Right?

Like, that's at the end of the day what, what we're trying to do, you know. So do you miss in person? Like, do you think you'll ever go back to like, building in person?

Oh, man, part of me does at certain times. You know, I, I work from home. My only kind of like outlet getting outside of my house is actually going to jiu jitsu. Right. So I do kind of miss that, that aspect, right? The like the human interaction and being able to be on the floor and really, like, there's a lot of nuances that you can, you know, correct specifically one on one that you just can't do online, which is obviously a challenge. Another challenge of one of online is not everybody super coachable online. Like, that's a really, you know, it's a, it's a skill in and of itself, right? Is to be able to, you know, work with somebody who maybe doesn't have as much weight room experience. Like, how do you give that person what they need online versus, like in person? That's a breeze. Especially you've done a couple hundred, a couple thousand sessions. Like, you can do that, you know, with your eyes closed, but online it's a completely different story. So, you know, that's, that's one aspect that I, I do miss. I'm not sure if I'll ever go back. I really do. I enjoy my freedom of kind of not having a strict schedule. I mean, I do obviously with, with my work and, But I, I, I do like what I do from home and I kind of probably see myself doing that for almost, you know, at least indefinitely. I, I don't, you know, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Yeah. So what are some of the, I'd love for you to expand a little bit on, like, what were some of the challenge or are some of the challenges that you face in terms of, of transitioning someone who is used to being in person onto the online space. Like, I'll give you a tangible example. For my husband, he was thrilled when online was the only option because he hated being touched. And despite the fact telling his trainers, I don't like being touched. They, they just couldn't help themselves. They were just so, and it makes sense, right? I mean, we're tangible, we're kinesthetic. Like, it's a hang of a Lot easier to just touch someone and say do this than it is to try and communicate it audioly or visually. So you know, what were some of the things that you found and, and what were some of the hardest challenges and how'd you overcome them?

Yeah, I think you just need to be or if what I've discovered and when I didn't do this correctly, it's kind of, it's kind of what it bit me in the rear end. You know, it's being, being very clear with your communication in terms of the type of service you provide, what that entails, what you can expect from it and kind of what my expectations are as well. So when those things are matched up and you have a person who kind of understands what all that, all that and you know, all that looks like, what that looks like, including the boundaries necessary for one on one training or for online training, then it, it can work. If not then it just, quite frankly I just think it doesn't work. Like there's just some people that aren't going to be a good fit which is another lesson. I think I tried to cram too many like square pegs and round holes when some people are just not great for online training. That's just so, that's just a fact. I, I, people might not like that but I, that's just, that's the truth. And you know, because online training is primarily, that's like a mod, you know, fairly advanced, you know, somebody who kind of knows their way around or at least they're willing to learn. Like they're very coachable. Like if you don't already know what you're doing, you're coachable and you're willing to like take a few steps back to move forward. But that's not everybody and that's, that's cool. Which is also part of the learning process is I'm not for everybody and that's cool. Like, and life is much better when you stop trying to be everything for everybody and you're, you know, catering towards someone a little bit more specific.

Yeah, that's, you know, I, I, I think that that is my opinion. It's a, it's a mark of a, of, of an experienced coach. I noticed that as, you know, the longer I've been in the game, the more we get into this, it depends, I don't know. That's not for me and more and, and less like it has to be this way other because it's the only way that works. And I love that idea of, of let of it's like letting go to let in. It's that concept of, like, I need to drain the bathtub water to put fresh bathtub water.

Yeah.

That means saying no to, like, hey, you're not the right fit, as opposed to taking money from every single person that's willing to give it to you because you just operate knowing that it's. It's not worth the peace of mind. And that takes experience, in my opinion. It takes experience and, and reps of doing it.

Yeah. It's also the great part about having another job. Like, I don't need. I don't need. You know, it's not. I don't need the money. You know what I mean? In that regard. Right. It's not, it's not a cash grab. I am trying to, you know, build something that will be sustainable for a long period of time. And I know that if I'm taking on clients that maybe don't fit my model and the type of service I provide, that's not a sustainable route, you know, and it's. That's only going to lead to burnout, frustration, you know, all the things that lead to people eventually leaving the industry, which is what I almost did. But, you know, I'm glad I hung up, you know.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, it's funny, one of my girlfriends and I, we were. We were chatting, and I have tried to leave fitness a million times. Not fitness completely, but, you know, she was laughing. She was like, all paths lead to fitness. All roads go back to fitness. It doesn't matter what. And I. And I thought to myself, you know, it kind of reminds me of this advice I got from a Broadway actress when. Back in the day when I was, you know, working on being an actress. And she said to me, if you like, if you love something else, do something else. Because. And I literally live my life by that now because it's like, you're gonna spend so much more time in the process than you are with the outcomes that you. The arbitrary outcomes you're chasing. So you better just love the process.

Yep.

You know, and. And for me, I just, I. I found that I. You always go back to what you love. And I, I love performing and, you know, side note, I kind of do it every day, but just not in the same way as I do fitness, you know?

Yeah, yeah, no, I, I agree with that. 100. And when I really sat down and thought about, I mean, like, this is the thing that I eat, sleep and breathe and in a lot of ways, and I always have have loved it. I've always seen myself doing this in some form or fashion since I was, like, a teenager. So, yeah, I'm sticking it out, but I'm just doing it on my terms. And. And it's been super, like, liberating. Like, I don't. I don't have the stress. I'm not worried. I'm not comparing myself. Like, I. It's all just in the name of getting better and proving myself as a coach, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. Okay, so I want to be very mindful of your time, so thank you for pouring into me, into the community. Those of you who want to go deeper and potentially work with you, connect with you, what are some of the best places I can send them that?

Yeah, so my Instagram is by far and away the best place to go. And that's at my first and last name. So. Dustin D U S T I N L E B E L. That's on Instagram. I have threads, I have Twitter. I primarily do the Twitter to Instagram thing, you know, so I'm not really on there. I have a bunch of unread messages on Facebook. So don't, don't, don't message me on Facebook. Instagram is the place to find me. So I try to be pretty active on there with posting and stories and all that stuff.

But yeah, cool. I love it. And we'll be sure to link all of that up inside of the show notes.

Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

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