The Fastest Way to Help You Get Your Clients Moving and Adhering to the Program

You're listening to the PT Proffitt podcast, episode number 236. Today I'm sitting down with Coach George and we're discussing the fastest way to help you get your clients moving and adhering to the program. 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 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.

What's up, coach?

Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson, and if this is the first time you're hanging out with me today, welcome. I'm super pumped that you're here. I have a very special guest. I have Coach George, who's been a personal trainer from Miami who has worked for himself since 2012. He was born and raised in New York and he has and he moved to Miami after doing an internship at Florida Atlantic University in 2011. And one of his many amazing super powers is how he has been able to really help other fitness professionals with their continuing education and really figure out a fast way to help coaches and other personal trainers continue their education. But not only that, how they can integrate what they learn into their programs to help their general population clients get moving and continue to adhere to the program so that they get fastest results and then their marketing essentially gets handled for them because their clients happily recommend them. So let's dive into how specifically he does that and how you can do it inside of your programs as well. So are you ready? Well, let's get started.

What's up, George? Thank you so much for joining me on the show today.

How are you doing? Good. Just having a nice little relaxing morning here in Miami.

I love that hopefully your weather is better than ours. It's pretty cold over here in New York. Let's let me just tell you that.

Yes, it's been a little bit lighter in the weather, so it's been nice and cool for the past week. We had a little bit of a spike last week, get into the 80s, but now it's kind of cooled back down for a little bit.

I love it. Okay, great. So without further ado, and for those of you who are tuning in and have not heard the pleasure of your work, we'd love for you to Share just a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there.

Sure. My name is George Pagan. I am a personal trainer down in Miami. I've been working for myself independently since 2012. I used to actually live in New York. Yeah, in the upstate, near West Point Military Academy area, if you're familiar with that area at all.

I am. So I'm actually living Croton, so I'm in Westchester. Our neighbor, their son went to that academy.

Oh, okay. Nice. Yeah, so I. That's where I grew up. I was a, you know, born bred New Yorker for a long time. Went to college in Massachusetts, studied in, studied for moving science and exercise sciences. And then after a short stint working in New York in a bunch of different clubs or physical therapy clinics and small personal training studios, my wife and I at the girlfriend at the time, decided to move down to Miami together and we've been here ever since.

Oh my gosh. Do you have family over here in New York?

Yeah, all my, all my family is still pretty much living in New York in the Hudson Valley area.

Oh my gosh. We're neighbors. So do you come out here a lot?

Not as often as I would like, but I make some more trips up there.

Yeah, totally. So what brought you to Miami?

I did an internship in 2011 at FAU. They were one of the only ones to give me a call back to do their strength conditioning internship. So I decided to pick up and go down there for like six months for a nice unpaid experience after college.

Interesting. Okay, so can you share with us a little bit about, you know, what got you, what brought you to sports and conditioning world? How did you get here?

I mean, growing up I was always involved in sports and as I got a little bit older towards high school ages, I started to get injured a lot more. And that's when I got introduced to some physical therapy care and post rehab as planning and workouts. So that was kind of like what drove me in that direction. And all through college, I wasn't really sure if I wanted to do physical therapy or if I wanted to do athletic training or just being strength coach or personal training. But I ended up going down the personal training route and working primarily with the general population. So I don't really stick around the sports world anymore.

I see. Okay, so how so. So right now you're con, you're working primarily with the general population. Are you seeing a specific problem? What are you seeing typically? Who are you typically working with?

I work with a lot of entrepreneurs themselves, so a lot of people who either work for themselves in smaller businesses or have the number of different businesses. And I find that. I think, I forget who said it once before, but you kind of work with the people you. You model yourself after. So, like, I'm a self starter in a lot of. A lot of ways. So I typically, I guess, attract a lot of self starters also. And a lot of those people need a lot of attention and planning done for them so they can concentrate on exactly the things they're concentrating on.

Yeah. So interesting, right? Like attracts like. So what I seem to find, and I noticed this in myself too, is this, this sense of, you know, oh, I have to have XYZ done before I can do xyz. And then we just keep bringing more people that feel and act and do the same things that we do. And it's just so interesting to see that because I've experienced that too. So it's cool. So now something I'm curious about in terms of building your, your facility and your gym inside of Miami, you know, how do you do it when your weather is nice all the time? Like, do you ever feel like people don't come inside, want to come inside?

Sometimes I do, but I try to make sure that people take advantage of the niceness of the weather. And I actually try to prescribe people to get outside and do work outside of sessions. So, you know, make sure people have a step count goal to reach and go for some walks. There's a lot of parks and bridges and causeways to walk over in Miami to go from the beach side to the city side. So there's a lot of opportunity to get outside and be outside, which is, which is nice. Just people have to take advantage of it when they're not either working or any sessions.

Love it. I love it. And I also, you know, one of my girlfriends, she's like, it's so hot outside, we can't be outside for very long.

It's true there are people that have a hard time with that fact, But I mean, you're down here, you have to get used to sweating at least a little bit.

Oh my gosh. It's funny. Okay, so now, in addition to the clinic or in addition to the gym facility that you are building, you're also participating in or creating continuing education for other additional coaches, correct?

Yeah. Yeah. Since I moved down here, that was one of the things that I just did not have a lot of exposure to. I didn't really have a network down here. When I moved to Miami, we kind of just like On a win move down. So when I, when I had to refill some CEUs and renew my certification that that year I didn't know where to look for events or courses that were local to me because at the time I was pretty broke, didn't have any money to travel anywhere and I really needed to find something local. So I ended up just searching and saving bookmarks to look, look through every week, hoping to find some education near me. And that's when I decided to kind of compile that all into a directory that other coaches can use as like a one stop shop to find continuing education.

Amazing. And so what it. So now, so now you just created that for local coaches or have you split expanded that upon now like expanded that to worldwide coaches?

Yeah, it's available worldwide. So I, I collect around like 7 to 8,000 events per year that are in person worldwide. And they range, you know, you get to search for them on a map so you can zoom into the area like you would using Google Maps to find a restaurant and find an event in a specific time of year that you need.

Amazing. I better send my events to you then.

Yeah, you did. You guys just had one, right? With the Christmas.

Yeah, we did. It was amazing. It was amazing. Yes. I'll have to make sure I'm on that list.

Yeah.

Just kidding.

I.

Just kidding. Okay, amazing. So now that you're so now, are you also hosting events yourself for coaches?

No, I, I don't, I don't actually host any events right now since I work primarily out of a facility, so I don't actually have my own. But you know, eventually there's, there's an opportunity to do something like that down the road if, if I want to grow a little bit more in that direction.

Okay, I love that.

I love that. Lots of different things.

Yeah. I mean this is what I love about. And you're always connected to entrepreneurs, so it's just the innovative sense of, you know, creating something from nothing, which is just. I love it. I love it. It's my favorite it. My heart needs for it every time I'm like, oh, we could do this and we could do this. This is how my mind works.

Yeah, I felt like it actually helped me relate to a lot of my clients too because I had to learn. I learned how to code a little bit on the, on front end development for websites and web applications. So it helped me kind of relate to not knowing how to do certain things which a lot of the clients that I have, they're either beginners and don't know how to exercise at all or don't know the difference between barbells and kettlebells and dumbbells. So there's a big, like, big learning curve that I've had that help me kind of relate to the clients that I. That I work with.

I love that. I love that. Okay, great. So let's just dive into some of the science. Right. So if you're working with general population, what are some of the first things that you do and recommend that other coaches do to begin to take. Take the education and information that they learn and put it into a practical implementation process for their client?

I think the most important thing is just to listen to your clients, especially when they come into you for the first time. Most of them are going to be uncomfortable. They don't exactly know who you are right away, and it tends to kind of put them off a little bit when you go and tell them that they have all sorts of things wrong with them or they do things wrong. So it's like not to really approach it from a perspective of you. Correcting everything they're doing in the initial sessions is kind of just listening, creating a connection to the people you're going to be working with.

I see. So. So when they first come in, you don't even do an assessment. Are you just talking to them? What are some of the things that you're doing?

Yeah, I'll do my assessment while talking with them in an actual workout. So I don't actually have it separate. So I actually do everything all at once, where I'm just going to have some general conversation with them, tell them a little bit about myself, ask them some personal questions on the floor, and kind of give them a general workout plan to perform while we're talking. That kind of gives me the assessment that I'm looking for movement wise.

But now. So when you say movement wise, is there another assessment that you're looking at as well?

Not a. Not a formalized one. It's more or less just like a generalized program I have set up for new incoming clients.

Mm.

It's kind of just looking at general movement, how I put it, see where their deficiencies are without actually exploiting them to the client themselves. Like having them do some general things they might have seen before, familiar exercises, and, you know, just now saying, I want to see how you move.

Okay, so how do you do that? How do you expose the gap to show them that they are, you know, here is the area of opportunity for you without. Without crushing their spirit?

That's that's where I think the listening part comes into it. Because then you can get a little bit, a little bit of sense where the client is in relation to what their goals are. So you can, if I give them a movement, say as like a, like a forward high knee march, I can see if they have a balance issue or if they have one leg that's rising a lot higher than the other leg, or if they're experiencing a pain or clicking in a hip, you can, you can kind of get all that. But while they're doing the exercise and, and then maybe make a small correction while they're doing the movement and show them one small change can make a little bit of a difference in a feeling of an exercise.

Okay, that's amazing. So, you know, I'm also curious, right. I feel like there is sometimes a difference between a client coming in and they're going to articulate to you what it is that they want based on the skill set that they have. Right. And so people don't know what it is that they don't know. So how do you start to both listen to them as well as, as expose some, some or shift their perspective? In, in a way.

I think that just goes through some of the exercises I pick in the plan. Like, I'll go through some very general, general stuff in the beginning. They're going to be really successful with. It doesn't really matter what their goals are. And then as they get a little bit more warmed up, then I can kind of tailor some of the movement choices that I have to a specific goal. If they have an interest in having bigger biceps but their elbows hurt, I can show them a variation of a bicep curl or a lat pull down variation that's going to be a little bit less painful through the elbow, but still allow them to get the work done to the back that they need or the bicep that they want.

Do you work with a lot of people in pain?

I think most of the people in general population that I've seen do have some aches and pains that they're aware of, whether they've been passed past injuries from sports or that they're like, hey, I wake up every day and my arm hurts and they just kind of really general.

Yeah.

Okay, so just, yeah, just listen. Just listening to them explain what it feels like or how it feels after I give them an exercise will help me prescribe more exercises or, or more movements that we can work through in the session to give them something to take when they leave the Session. So like, oh, like if you're, your elbow is hurting, here's something you can do at home while you're at your desk to help alleviate some of that pain if you feel it.

Okay, great. Can we dive into that? Like, how do you navigate, how do you navigate that line between what is in your scope of practice or a coach's scope of practice when it comes to managing pain? And what are some of the things that you're looking for? And, and you know, what are the exercise selections that you actually pick when your client comes to you in pain?

More or less looking to see what they're trying to do and making a slight assessment of their movement. So if they're, if we're in my first session, it's going to be, it's going to be really general and see if any motions hurt it, especially if they're not able to describe. That's one of the things I found a lot, a lot with general population. They'll say something hurts, kind of point to an area and then just to leave it out in the open, like, I don't know what hurts it. So I was doing a little bit of exploration to see what actually hurts, what movements are a little bit more painful and show them that they can do a lot more than they think. A lot of people with shoulder pains, they don't really know what will cause it, a push or a pull or supporting motion or any kind of thing like that.

Okay, so the first step really is you try to, to find what causes the actual discomfort.

Yeah, yeah. And then show them. And then show them some, some areas where they can still be successful so they don't feel like they're broken.

Okay, great. So can you, can you walk us through an example? Say you started to talk about, you know, elbow pain. So what is an example of something you would do when someone says, okay, I'm sitting at my desk all day and I'm hurting my elbow?

Well, for example, with the elbow, when I'm in session, I'll do things like, we'll try like an inform position to see if there's any pain. Bending while it's loaded in a really stabilized position for arms or you're braced against the floor or against the wall to see if there's any pain with that or if there's any other pains as you make the movement more open pain, like a bicep curl or pull down variation. So it adds some complexity or add some time under load to see when the pain will present itself.

Okay, so do you ever Feel nervous or what do you do when you're trying to find that threshold of pain without agitating it so much that they think you caused it? How do you navigate that?

When I'm, when I'm going with somebody new especially that's just from where my communication comes in is just let them know what we're going to be doing specifically and say like, hey, like we're going to try to figure out what hurts this a little bit and I want you to let me know like how it feels when you feel it and constantly keep asking them some questions while you're doing the exercise so you can be engaged with them and they can kind of be engaged with what they're feeling.

Yeah, the communication that is definitely.

So I'm not just, I'm not just sitting there giving them an exercise and then just waiting quietly next to them like, oh, just let me know how this feels and just being silent.

Yeah. How do people find you?

Typically through referral and through Google Business Page, Oddly enough, I find I found a lot of success having built that out a little bit more and being a little bit more present on that specifically to getting some people that are just kind of old introductions who have never met me before. But most of the, most of the time I'm through returnable.

Okay, amazing. And so do you bring them in to your, to your facility or do you have like a zoom call? What do you do first?

Yeah, have them, have them book a consultation session and it's kind of split up into, you know, more or less half and half where we'll do a little bit of a sit down in the beginning to explain what the consultation session will be. Bring them out into the floor really quickly because that's where I feel like I can, I can sell without really needing to sell them on something like in a, in a room setting or like in a, in a sales setting. I'm doing it on the floor actively and showing them what we'll be doing together and then close it out by asking them a little bit more questions and understanding some of the pricing points and that are offered at the end of the session.

Amazing, Amazing. Okay, great. So now what are some of the goals that you primarily work with? Like what, what do you find yourself always working on all the time?

A lot of times it's, people want to feel like they're a little bit more athletic and capable which is I guess kind of a, I don't know how to say exactly, but not always what you would think for general population to have as Goals where people usually associate them with like, oh, I just want to build muscle or I just want to lose fat. For a lot of people I work with, like, I want to feel like I can move a little bit and I want to feel like I can move a lot more than I do now.

Amazing. So do you find that they're, you know, potentially ex athletes or do you feel like they've never were athletes and they just want to become more active?

It's about, it's about half and half. Like some of, some were athletes, you know, through, through middle school and high school. And then I have, have clients that have been, you know, completely inactive for years or have not been able to participate in sports while they were growing up. Like I have one client right now, she's awesome, doing incredible, just got her first two pull ups recently and like hasn't used to, used to not be able to do anything cardio wise because she had some asthma growing up and now she's like a really accomplished violinist. So she's really skilled and you know, understands dedication and work and work ethic, but just had not applied those skills to sport related stuff and exercise related stuff. But she has seen incredible progress on her own like that just by having some of those skills built from violin practice.

Yeah, it's interesting. People don't realize that the skill acquisition levels can translate across different genres of their life.

Yeah, it's incredible when you get that kind of moment that it clicks like, oh, all this stuff I've been doing outside of the facilities or outside of a gym or sport is like, they're really applicable here too.

Yeah, I mean that's amazing and exciting.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Now, you know, Chris was telling me too that you have been doing some really incredible exciting things inside of like, you know, the continuing education space, mainly because you were filling this hole. So I'm curious, you know, as you've been compiling events for people to come and attend to, what are some of the continuing education gaps that people tend to miss that need to be filled?

A lot of times it's stuff that they don't necessarily think about. So people will often leave college thinking they're heading in a very specific direction. Like let's say they like, oh, I want to work exclusively with sports and I want to work exclusively with athletes. And then they miss entire groups of populations like pre and post pregnancy aspects, which is going to be a large amount of the population you'll probably see outside of sports or even within sports. And again, people who are coming out of injuries and have finished their physical therapy where there needs to be a little bit of a bridge between that program. Like you're not going to jump right into some sport related activities or heavy lifting again, you know, after leaving the physical therapy plan that just got them to, you know, get through their ADL's pretty good.

You know, I'm, I'm always curious in your opinion and maybe you can, you know, speak to from experience is why, you know, what causes people to want to work in the sports performance world. Why is that like the hot. Why is that considered like the holy grail of, you know, I've made it. If I've worked with athletes, I think.

It'S because of two reasons. One, there's like a little bit of a prestige you feel that it might come with even though it, even though it really doesn't have that much any anymore. And then I think the other one is that there is some inlaid structure into your days where you're not doing a whole lot of sales work when you're working a lot in a teen setting. So there's not as much variation between like seasons and income and a lot of the variables that are unknown when you're doing, you know, private general population client work or in a bigger box gym setting. Like that can be a little bit scary if you look at it like kind of objectively. Like there's a lot of, a lot of unknowns on one side in the general population sectors and then a lot of really known things that you don't have to think about in the sports world.

I mean the sports and conditioning coaches though that I have interviewed, they, they're, you know, it's just a lot of polarity, right? They have, they have, you cannot have good without the, without the bad in the sense that, you know there's going to be pros and cons to everything. Like they have to travel all over, which sounds amazing. But then, you know, it's not amazing if you have kids or want kids or want a family. Like there are just some downsides to do everything really.

Oh, 100%. For me, when I thought about doing a little bit more in the sports world, I got that internship and I was like, oh, this is a free unpaid internship that I'm getting a ton of experience at. But I also, at that same time that I was leaving for it, got the notice from Navient that my loans are going to be kicking in at the end of the month for college tuition. So I was like, oh great. I have this huge expense coming up and then also a huge amount of time going to be spent on this unpaid internship. So it does, it does have its negatives.

Yeah, for sure. And then, you know, these athletic coaches that are teaching the 1% of the 1% you think that it's going to be, you'll get prestige, but it's not always compensated in the same way.

No, no, not at all. And you just, you don't get exposure to a lot of that in school.

Oh, don't get me started. I know school does not teach you how to, you know, run a business.

No, not at all.

And the moment you start taking on clients, you're a business.

100%. And I think a lot of people need to take that a little bit more seriously when they start in personal training is, is understanding the business side of it. And it's not like you, like you're saying, it's not a sleazy sales side. Like there's some ethical and some, you know, some really good work that you can do for people who need, you know, improvement in their life.

I mean, now we're going to, I mean, then we can just start talking about this all day long. I mean, and it's not their fault, right? The school doesn't teach you how to do it. You get put into these gyms that, that and I know because I was a district fitness manager that they end up prioritizing sales and over the education of what it actually takes to be a coach. And I think that their inn. I think it's, it's not either or it has to be intertwined. And then what ends up happening, in my opinion, is that people then go, no, no, no, I'm not a salesperson, I'm a coach. I just need to be a coach. And which is fine. And then either they don't have a business because they can't communicate their, their skills. Right. Because it really comes down to communication, or they throw money at the problem and be like, oh, I'm just going to delegate it. But then they hire all these really expensive freelancers that can't communicate your message to your people in the way that you can. And I just think that it's a disservice, which is why we're here, essentially.

Yeah. 100. And like you were saying, with the, with the in person events, like when we, when I moved down here, I didn't know anybody, so I didn't, I didn't have any, any connection to a specific group of people I could bounce ideas off of or even, you know, in the Gym. There's a lot of times people would see the other trainer, the new guy coming in as more competition than colleague because they're going to be pulling from the same client pool. So that's another one of the reasons why I liked the live events because there's a lot of people with like minded mindsets there and you can actually air some ideas without feeling like you're, you know, in a bubble of competition altogether. You're there for the reason everyone wants to succeed and grow.

Oh yeah, that's so true. I mean, and that's hard, right? That's hard. It's a mindset thing when you're, when you're really looking. Where we have to look at the world is like there's an abundant of clients. Like it's not, we're not in competition with each other. And that can be hard.

Right? Especially, especially if you think that the, the people around you consider you as competition and you, you might not see yourself as that.

Right.

Like there's been a lot of, there's been a lot of times here in Miami when I first started to try to like branch out and meet people outside of the, the gym was I would meet trainers, but then they would also, during a lunch or a coffee date would try to pitch me into a multi level marketing scheme or something like that that they were a part of at the time because those things were pretty big back in the, you know, mid-2000s.

They're still big. Listen, they're still big. I meet with them all the time, so they're still big.

Yeah, I think, I think the first, I think it was like the first like six, six people that was like, oh, I found this, you know, person at the, the gym that I was traveling to. We went for to grab some coffee and I would tell my wife like, oh yeah, no, like 30 minutes in he just, just tried to pitch me on this, you know, glutathione thing that he was part of.

Yeah, it's Made in the Basement. It's totally works reviews.

It's like I came out of nowhere. I was like, oh man, I can't be friended this guy now. Damn Shame.

Shame. So what are some of the favorite events that you have gone to yourself that you feel like, wow. And what were part of it that made you feel like, I'm so glad I went to this.

The two that I really like are the NSCA's Personal Training Conference that they host and then also a brand new one it's in its second year is Raise the Bar. Conference.

Oh, did you just go just now?

Yeah, yeah, I went, I went the past two years and it's been an incredible experience for the relationship building on the coaches side. So the content's great. Like I'm not, I can't say anything negative about the content, it was always good. But the relationship that I've built at these conferences with like minded coaches that were just literally sitting around me is just off the charts.

Yeah, I, one of my good girlfriends, she spoke there, she came and spoke at our event in, just in, in NYC just, just recently.

Oh, okay. She was there. She was there also.

She was there. Yeah, she was there. She came and spoke at us.

She met her, met her at, at the, one of the, at the social that they had at the, at the event afterwards and she's incredible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what I, I love that like people think that when you can shift your, your, your perception colleague people forget that like a mastermind when you have multiple minds that are all like minded and brilliant working together, you collaborate, you co create and it just is expansive and can, you know, triple your business instead of take away.

Yeah, it's incredible just to be around people with the same energies that you guys are, you're putting out. Like you don't feel like you have to hide some things you're doing or not talk about how you structure your business or build clients or you know, strategies you're using to get really nice results to, for a client that somebody might have similar to you.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So I love, you know, and then I also think that, you know, for me personally, no one learns how to, you know, learn how to swim by reading a book on how to learn how to swim. Right. You have to get in the water. Right. Like how many times have we had that experience of like okay, so my textbook said this and then when I put it on my client, that's not what happened.

Right, right, exactly. It's like you gotta, you gotta be able to try some things out and learn in the trenches as they say.

Yes, exactly. So and then, and it doesn't go work. If it doesn't work and if it goes sideways then you just go get the support that you need.

Yeah.

You know, I just, that's one of.

Those things I like with the conferences also is you're going to learn especially from the presenters, you're going to learn some things that they're doing, you know, in real time with them and you can kind of pick some pieces you think might work for clients you don't have to take their entire system or strategies that they use, but you may, you can pick and choose as you go that might fit with the people you're working with.

You know, and it's interesting for me what I have found just in my experience and working with hundreds of people and being around hundreds of people, the ones that tend to be the most successful are often the ones that are most generous with their time, their skill, and their, Their true desire to want to raise the bar, in my opinion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, around people who want to give you something, when you talk to them is always, always feels good. Like you don't feel like you're, you're, you're taking time away from them by speaking with them always.

Right. And they're so. To me, I can, for me, I can just sense and feel that sense of, you know, falseness if there's that level of like, oh, I'm just going to. No show you for your podcast, because whatever, Whatever. Right. It's just like, there is a sense of, you know, the people who are, like, really want to help others, they show up and they tend to be the most successful.

Yeah, yeah, I felt that right away when I, when I talked to. Actually at the first time I spoke with her was the nsca. I think it was personal training or national conference, but it was with Molly Galbraith.

Oh, I love her. Yes.

You know, she, like, all the, like, all the presenters do ask me, you know, I'll step off stage, you can ask them some questions. But she was one of the first ones that actually felt like she was listening to me talk and not just like, waiting to answer questions. And when you meet people like you look up to a little bit in the field and they give you that sense of like, oh, I'm here to help. As much as it's taking up time, I'm here to actually help you. And listen. It feels good from the other side.

Yes, yes, it does, for sure. And I think that people underestimate my opinion, but I think people underestimate the skill of listening and what it actually takes to actively, to actively say something that was hard for me when I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm listening, I'm listening. But the truth is my brain goes like this, right?

Listen, but I'm all over the place.

All over the place. I'm listening, but I'm also, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Wait, what did you say? Right, so. And I think that people and, and that's Why I have empathy for the people who, who, who struggle because I did. I know what that's like. They think, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm listening. But no, you're not really. Like, get present, get quiet, engage, repeat back.

Exactly. Like, let's, like, like we're talking, let's talk a little bit.

Yeah, exactly. People miss that. They think, yeah, I'm doing that. And then the other thing too that I have that I notice. I noticed this in myself and then I own. I also noticed it's in other successful coaches is that they've done so many of the same. And I'm putting this in quotes, types of conversations that they, their brain specifically is designed to automate it. Like, oh, you know what they're going to say, you know what's going to happen, you know what the problem is? And it's just, you don't. Like, this is beginners luck explained. Beginners are so present they have no context for what's going to happen. That they are right there with that person. And that's why.

Yeah. And I've been in those, those situations where like, you're, you're talking to somebody and clearly they've answered this question, you know, full of times before. Maybe even the first, the last three people they spoke with in front of you, maybe it might have asked the same question and they feel like it's like they're just waiting for the person to stop talking to then spew this answer out that you're like, look, okay, like, he just wanted to finish that and push me along.

Yeah. Or, oh, I know what you're gonna say. Oh, so you probably felt overwhelmed, tired, blah, blah, blah. I see this in people's content too, is they're like, I know what you think. Oh, no, I'm internally referenced. You do not know what I think.

Yeah. Like, I guarantee I barely know what I think when I'm about to say it. So you definitely don't know.

It's totally true. It's definitely an underrated skill that people think is a boring skill. Like, no, I just want you to show me. How do I do a bicep curl? How do I do the flat pull down? How do I get my client to do a split squat lunge?

Yeah. Then having the in for me in session when having the recall to tell a client, like, oh, you do remember the last time we did this and you told me this and we were going through it and I told you how to do this. Like, let's try something a little bit different now. Or let's try to do that again. And they're like, holy crap. How do you remember that?

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Like, oh, like that's why.

Exactly. And the other thing too that I'm curious about for you, right? Because this is something also I see happen to a lot of seasoned coaches, myself included. So I can't. It's not, I'm not throwing shade. I've done this too, is how do you stay energized when it feels like you're doing the same thing over and over again with, with the same clients or different clients. Right. Because business is simple. It's just the repetition of the same thing over and over. Right. A squat is a squad. A deadlift is a deadlift. Like sometimes, sometimes I miss the beginner energy of like, this is so exciting. You know. How do you maintain that throughout your career?

I, I do it a lot by having some, some hobbies where I need to learn new skills because then it keeps me literally directly related to what my clients are experiencing. I'm working with or listening to other people who, let's say, are explaining something with front end web development that they might have explained to people before because I need it for my business. And it might be a very remedial question because I'm not that experienced and being able to understand that they need to ask questions back from me and they need to engage. Like, I feel the difference in the session with them. So I can relate that to my clients and just kind of keeping that present, like, oh, like they need this stuff. It's brand new to them. Like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how it makes me feel in the moment. Like this is very important, especially when, you know, if the client's going to see the result immediately in the next set or when they, when they get that aha moment of the rep. Like, oh, I felt it here. Like, then you get that, that sense of like gratifying feedback. Like, yes, I made a huge impact now because that's, that's where that be. That's where that beginner excitement feeling comes back again when that client's like, oh man, I felt that and it was amazing.

Yes. Yes.

Because I still remember, I still remember that when I first started as a personal trainer like that and that first person I was like, wow, I can do this now and it doesn't hurt. Or I feel it exactly where I'm supposed to feel it. Like, that was a huge, like, oh, I'm pretty good at this coaching thing.

Oh my gosh. For me, I Remember that first moment of like, I actually helped someone. I shared some insight and I helped someone. That was just so. I couldn't. That was so rewarding. I couldn't ever. I want that all the time.

Yeah. Like, I left, like, just before I hopped on with you, I left a session with somebody who has been. I've been, you know, he's been struggling to push himself a little bit in his running speeds. And we. So we took a couple of weeks off in terms of like, pushing paces, and we hopped back on the treadmill for, like, this last, like, week. And he's been self, like, increasing his speed up to levels that we have. We have never attempted before in previous sessions and absolutely killing it. Popping off the treadmill, going like, oh, that feels good. I'm like, I'm like, dude, like, I don't like, where'd this come from? He's like, oh, I just feel good now, like, being able to push myself. And it's like I left that session fired up, like, this guy's ready to go.

Yeah. So good. So good. And so it's the best feeling.

Yeah. Yeah. So I. I start. I search for those moments when I'm in sessions with people too, so just so I could. For myself, so I can kind of feel that sensation again. Like, oh, this, we're doing this and we're killing it right now.

Right, right, right, right, right. Okay. So this has been amazing and I definitely want to be very mindful of your time. So for those of you who are interested in connecting with you, working with you, what are some of the best places that I could send them?

I'm on Instagram, probably more than I should be, but I'm pretty active in messages there. And then I really do, like. I really do like email. So you can email me whenever you want. I'll respond pretty frequently. And I can do that from a lot of different things when I put my phone away and kind of some social media stuff under control. So email and Instagram. Now you can find Instagram at Fitlead Nation. And then email is fitleat.nationmail.com okay, amazing.

And I will definitely make sure that we link all of this up and put it all in the show notes so that people can connect with you. So thank you so much for pouring into me and into the community today. I really appreciate it.

I really appreciate you having me on. I don't do a whole lot of podcasts, but this is awesome for me. I'm really fired up just talking with you, so this is great.

I love it. I love it. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

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