For those of you that don’t know us all that well, it might be news to you that Matt and I didn’t really know each other all that well when we set up RISE.
It was a bold move to throw in our life savings together to roll the dice when we’d only met a few months previously at DW Sports Fitness in Macclesfield.
Most people, when they heard about what we were doing, thought we were mad.
The first question was generally “Who is he again?” (of the other).
Matt and I weren’t concerned.
Because in the time we’d known each other we’d realised that we shared pretty much the same outlook on life and the same core beliefs and principles.
We knew that was the most important thing, and that would see us through.
We both said right from the start that we didn’t know anyone else we could’ve done this with.
The disagreements we’d had so far have been very minor.
Of the “I think that writing would look better in this colour” level.
And this is very much down to the fact that we share these common, core principles.
They are the principles by which we live our lives.
The principles on which we have built RISE.
And the principles we try and instill in our staff and members.
We’ve only recently sat down and really qualified what those principles are though.
Putting a succinct definition to what we believe.
So, here they are:
The Principles of RISE
1. Make a difference
2. Have fun
3. Improve every day
Pretty much everything that we are about are summed up in these 3 points.
There isn’t really anything that we do that doesn’t fit into at least one of these Principles.
1. Make a difference
12 years ago I qualified with a 2:1 degree in Manufacturing Engineering and Operations Management from Nottingham University, which, at the time had the best Engineering department in the country, beating even Cambridge who I had also considered – not entirely sure they wanted me though 😉
I chose not to follow this path and do something I loved – enter the fitness industry.
My friends who have continued down that path have earned at least 20 grand a year more then me since then.
So I’m about a quarter of a million pounds down from choosing this path.
I don’t regret it for a second though. I love what I do and enjoy every second of it.
This is my passion. And it is Matt’s too.
At the risk of sounding ‘American’, we want to make a difference.
To our members of course, But to everyone really. To the world eventually.
Those who came to the Buxton ’50 members party’ last summer will remember that we said we were ‘done tolerating’ the current situation.
- Where there is so much conflicting information on how to be healthy and happy.
- Where the government guidelines have made the problems the problems they were designed to help with, exponentially worse.
- Where clowns with limited (or non existent) knowledge and experience can be in position where they have such influence over people.
- Where whoever is willing to spend the most money can have ‘research’ show the way of living, eating, etc that they profit from is the best for you.
We want to change this.
We’re changing it now in Buxton and Macclefield.
But we want to change it everywhere.
Making the difference is what drives us to work such ridiculous hours for far less return then we’d get just working in a gym.
It also what drives me in my personal life – I want to make a difference in the lives of my children, my girlfriend, her daughter, my family, friends and so on.
And we want to encourage you guys to make a difference in others’ lives too.
If you find what we’re doing useful, please tell people. Get them to like our facebook page (www.facebook.com/myrise.co.uk), join the facebook group (www.facebook.com/groups/360761254014069) or subscribe to our blog updates (the box to the right of page at myrise.co.uk)
2. Have fun
Right from Day 1, Matt and I agreed that we had to enjoy what we were doing. If we weren’t we agreed we’d pack it in straight away.
Some parts of the our day and week are laugh out loud fun.
We make sure we have a good time in the sessions, in ‘The Brain Room’ (our office at Macc), when we’re working out and so on.
And we want to make sure our clients have fun and enjoy the experience too.
That’s where a lot of fitness options go wrong – they try to get people to do things just because it’s good for them.
If people aren’t enjoying what they’re doing, it won’t last.
We want to make our sessions as fun as possible whilst being effective.
We organize social events that people enjoy.
We’ve endeavored to find staff that are what is known as ‘Hybrid Instructors’ in the fitness industry.
They have the knowledge of Personal Trainers (who are normally boring as hell) and the personality of Group Exercise instructors (who rarely actually know anything about fitness and nutrition, but are enthusiastic and likable).
We just generally try and make what we do as enjoyable as possible for everyone involved.
Same in our personal lives – if we don’t enjoy it, we won’t do it.
Live is too short to spend time doing things you don’t like doing.
3. Improve every day
We strongly believe that any day you end where you are not, in some way, a little better then when you started it, is a wasted day.
We’ve spent a lot of time and money in the last year to improve what we offer at RISE.
We’ve been on lots of courses, read lots of books, worked with specialist mentors and so on.
Because we want to improve ourselves and what we do on a daily basis.
Every day I aim to read at least 30 minutes worth of a educational / self improvement type book.
Any day where I don’t become a slightly better father, boyfriend, friend, business operator, Group Session instructor, 1:1 Personal Trainer, etc is wasted opportunity.
Those of you that have been members of RISE for a while will have noticed the changes we’ve implemented.
We’ve got a lot more on the way too.
And we want you to get better daily as well.
Slightly leaner, happier, fitter, more flexible, more energetic, etc – every day!
And we want you to help improve the lots of everyone you know.
Until every single person we have the opportunity to impact on, is 100% happy with every aspect of their life, then we still have work to do.
