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Come February, I’ll have been in the Fitness Industry 17 years.
I can’t actually believe that when I type it out.
Over 10 times the average FitPro career and counting 🙂
The other weekend I was abseiling off a cathedral in Derby with my 12 year old nephew Sam.
Like you do.
He’d agreed to do it to raise money for a great cause and needed a wingman.
Any way, we were stood on top of the bell tower enjoying a view of Derby we’d never had before.
I pointed a few things out to him.
Including the Fitness First where where 22 year old me turned up all those years ago for my first day in my new career (I’d decided not to use my 2:1 in Manufacturing Engineering and Operations Management).
A quick google shows that club no longer exists, which makes me a little sad.
It appears to have been a ‘Stripes Fitness Health Club’ for a little while but I can’t find what’s in there now.
Anyway, back to the point of this story.
There is a point, promise.
There’s always a point.
On my first day as an instructor, there was also a new starter in sales called Stew.
A good guy who I became good friends with.
Stew informed me he’d been offered my job first but had turned it down as sales was the same basic but also had commission.
Which was fair enough.
Several months later, Fitness First started talking about their change to the PT model.
It was due to roll out across all the clubs in mid 2003.
Replacing the employed instructors with self-employed PTs.
I was well up for this.
All my graduate mates were starting on nice salaries and I had no intention of being on minimum wage for the rest of my life.
It was always a foot in the door to something else.
Something to work with my semi-pro sporting aspirations.
I ended up transferring to a new club opening up in Sheffield in February 2003 which opened under this new model.
Becoming one of the very first people in the country to be operating under this new model which, within a handful of years, would become the standard
I’d kept in contact with Stew and a few others.
Seeing as he was a qualified PT, I asked if he was going to move over to this new role as the earning potential was higher than the sales role.
He told me he wasn’t going to.
As he didn’t think it was realistic that he would make more money in that position.
I remember him saying “I can’t see why anyone would need more than 6 sessions. I could teach them everything I know in that”
Which to me, was telling.
And it’s where most FitPros go wrong.
Firstly I’d question how much someone knew if they could teach it all in six hours.
But that’s not actually the point.
Where most FitPros (and, therefore, their clients) go wrong is in thinking that this process is just about learning what to do.
About been shown some exercises and told what to eat.
And whilst education is part of it…………
That’s only a small part of what we do.
And it’s only a small part of what you need.
You don’t need to be told more of the ‘what’.
———— Although that may have it’s place —————-
It’s the ‘How’ we struggle with.
How to actually implement all that into our already busy and challenging lives.
How to make it happen when so much of life seems to get in the way.
How to work around all the stuff that makes it harder (the flabotagers, the little voice in our head, the other commitments and so on).
We need a supportive environment of like minded people on a similar journey.
An atmosphere we feel safe and welcome in.
If you do have things you’re unsure of, then ask away.
We are partly here to help with the ‘what’.
But realising that’s not what often holds us back.
And that six sessions to learn everything we need to know isn’t the answer.
Means that we can start to look where the answer is (cough **** myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting ***** cough).
Much love,
Jon ‘Sixer when in the Cubs’ Hall and Matt ‘666’ Nicholson
RISE Macclesfield – myrise.co.uk
High fives and changing lives
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