Barbell Shrugged - Creating Fitness Autonomy Through 1-on-1 Coaching with Daniel Hong - Active Life Radio #20

Starting point is 00:00:00 What's up everybody? Welcome back to Active Life Radio on the Shrugged Collective Network. I'm Dr. Sean Pastuch. I'm your host and today's guest is Daniel Hong. Daniel is the course facilitator for the Active Life ProPath. It's his job to make sure that all of the gyms who work with us to become the healthcare clinics of the future now are experiencing success, both helping their clients and helping their businesses. The reason why I thought it would

Starting point is 00:00:39 be really valuable to bring Daniel on this show and not the Active Life podcast is first of all, he's been on the Active Life podcast. And if you're interested in learning about what he's doing in the corporate wellness space before he came to us, go check out the Active Life podcast episode with Daniel Hong, where we talk about corporate wellness. On this episode, I thought it would be valuable for Daniel to speak as somebody who's been through the coursework that we teach to talk about the impact that it's been able to have on his ability to deliver high value solutions to his clients and how it makes him and his clients feel to be able to do and receive those solutions. It'll be a fun talk.

Starting point is 00:01:22 Essentially, what we're talking about is why people in a group class should buy one-on-one coaching, whether it ends up being with us or with a personal trainer in their gym. And by personal trainer, I mean the person who usually teaches you in a group. Before we get to the podcast, I want to thank Organifi, as always, for sticking by our side and being a phenomenal sponsor that's o-r-g-a-n-i-f-i.com you shrugged at checkout for 20 off green juice in the morning gold juice at night you want to feel good about making sure you're getting your micronutrients in. Get yourself some Organifi. It's like a multivitamin that works, but better. In my case, the nighttime is a ritual that helps me get to sleep. The morning, I'm not going to lie to you, it's a little bit harder for me to

Starting point is 00:02:17 get down because I just want a big old cup of water without any flavor. But fortunately, the green juice tastes good. So it does the trick and it gives me peace of mind. Head to Organifi.com. Use the code shrugged at checkout. Get yourself 20% off. That's it. Let's get you to Daniel. What's up, Hong? What's going on, Sean? How are you doing? Doing great, man. Thanks for having me. It's my pleasure. I'm happy to have you, man. I love talking to you. Great. I love talking to you. We always are talking about awesome things.

Starting point is 00:02:53 Usually we are. Yeah. Yeah. So, full disclosure for you guys, Daniel came to us at Active Life, what, two years ago? In the DM? Yeah, two years ago. So we at the time had recently put out a video that was how to increase personal training sales

Starting point is 00:03:11 in a CrossFit gym. And I'd made that video because I can't tell you how many coaches have come to us saying, hey, I can't get people to do one-on-one training with me in the gym. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to put a video out that is absolutely foolproof, that would allow anybody who watches it to improve their personal training business and

Starting point is 00:03:34 help their clients in their gym, no matter where their gym is, even if they've tried before and failed. And I put it up there because if I get a dozen messages a week with people asking me about it, it's just easier to say, check out this link, watch this video. And when the video is over, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me. Full disclosure, usually 95% or more never come back. They're looking for the, Hey, uh, I thought you would just tell me what to do. Daniel went and did it. And I believe made what? $10,000 in personal training in your first week after. Yeah. By the end of the week, um, my bank statement, I had 10,000 on the plus side. So it was, uh was life-changing for sure.

Starting point is 00:04:26 Awesome. So if you haven't and you're a coach, go check out our YouTube video, How to Sell More Personal Training Sessions. That being said, I want Daniel to talk not about the financial windfall that he got or how he was able to sell clients, but what it was like to be able to serve people in a way that maybe previously they weren't open to being served. So Daniel, I'll kind of, I'll throw that to you. I'm interested in learning what was it like for you when somebody finally said yes, was there, did you feel like

Starting point is 00:04:58 there was a burden to now deliver and what was it like to be able to deliver? Yeah, absolutely. So just to take a step back for a second. So when I say I made that amount of money and I had a financial reward at the end of that week, it wasn't because there was a secret to the video that you uploaded onto YouTube. It was extremely valuable, of course, but there wasn't any like, here's a tactic you can use. And by the end of the week, you're going to make X amount of dollars. It was because at that time, that was kind of this climactic point in my career where I knew something needed to change drastically. And I was setting up the pieces for something that happened. I just didn't have the platform or the systems in place to carry that

Starting point is 00:05:45 out. And I feel like at that point, it just all made sense. It all came together. And I was like, this is exactly what I'm looking for. And I feel like a lot of fitness professionals in the CrossFit space, they're kind of at that point, they know they should be doing a little bit more, or they understand that there are systems out there that they haven't yet learned that can position them better to offer a service to the members in front of them, a better service. So that's what I mean by that. Yeah, and I want to be clear also.

Starting point is 00:06:19 It's not a secret. It's on YouTube for free. Go watch it. And there's no guarantee that you're going to make ten thousand dollars in a week no definitely not the point is it's a way to look at finding problems that you previously couldn't see you know it's if you've ever seen the invisible gorilla video you know what i'm talking about no i haven't seen that so you guys should all if you haven't seen it youtube the invisible gorilla study it's it's essentially there's a bunch of

Starting point is 00:06:50 people in like white and black shirts passing a basketball around and well i don't want to give it away but just go watch the video the idea is if you're not looking for something, you're not going to find it, right? If you thought that Mercedes was a really high-end luxury car and nobody has them in white and you want to have a white Mercedes one day and then you start looking for white Mercedes, you're going to be like, shit, everyone's driving white Mercedes. They're everywhere. But previously, it wasn't important enough for you to notice. So the video just teaches you guys how to notice things and how to help your members notice that these same things are existing. What I'm more interested in, Daniel, is what were the problems that you were finding that needed to be solved? And why weren't they being solved before? Yeah, that's a good question. When you asked, was it a burden to help clients? You actually bring up a better point. I realized it was a burden that I could not help members solve bigger issues. I was getting tired of helping clients use the same scaling option

Starting point is 00:08:06 week after week, month after month. And I can just see their demeanor, just their physical demeanor. They look defeated. And I just didn't have the education or the experience of helping someone get out of a situation like that. So I just figured, you know, I've got to do my best every time they come to class or the two to three minutes I have at the end of class before I'm back-to-back coaching the next one where I can hopefully impart something helpful for them and motivate them in that short window so that they can improve their own situation.

Starting point is 00:08:41 And I found myself in this cycle of going through that over and over and over again. So that started to weigh on me. And at that point, I realized something needs to change. And I need to be proactive, take the initiative to look for an opportunity to better my coaching abilities from the point of getting these people to a better place where they can advance and enhance their experience at the gym. So let's bring some of that language down to exactly what people are used to saying and hearing, because we keep talking about solving big problems. Specifically, do you remember what those first $10,000 represented in terms of, I want to get better at X. I want to feel better

Starting point is 00:09:26 when Y. Do you remember what people were coming to you with at that time? Yeah, totally. So specific language around back pain when squatting, having irritated hamstrings when doing excessive pulling, touch and go sets of movements from the floor, difficulty hanging from a pull-up bar, especially when it had to do with dynamic kipping motion on the pull-up bars. And in general, just feeling fatigued when walking into the gym

Starting point is 00:10:04 because of their training protocol and routine was not balanced in a way that allowed them to actually recover so they can feel so that they can have that edginess going into their workouts. Yeah. And you hadn't yet taken the immersion course. So how did you solve for people those issues without the next level of education that we provide? Because I want coaches out there to do two things. One, I want them to stay within their scope and suggest to people that they work with them to solve problems that they're capable

Starting point is 00:10:38 of solving. And two, I want them to expand their scope. But when you first watched the video and acquired these clients who came to you saying, look, I need this help. You hadn't taken that course. Is that correct? So what did you do right away that other coaches out there can be like, oh, I can do this. And so the people in their gym listening to this can have the confidence to go to their coach and say, hey, I listened to a podcast on the shrug collective. And I heard this guy, Daniel Hong, I heard he's like no video of it, but I heard he's extremely handsome. And no, he's really smart. And Dr. Sean, um, well, voice for radio face. Um, but in all seriousness, you know, I heard Daniel saying he helped people with this and he hadn't even taken the immersion course yet. Is this something you think you could help me with?

Starting point is 00:11:29 Yeah, absolutely. Because what that video helped me to understand was you need to create the situation and environment that is conducive to allowing the member to explain to you in careful detail, the things that are bothering them, the things that are problems. And the platform of having a one-on-one conversation is very helpful for that. And I'm not talking about FaceTime during a class where you can only have these three-word conversations and giving the member a cue to fix their back during a deadlift.

Starting point is 00:12:04 These are deeper conversations that I was able to have just because I assigned time and kind of asked them to carve out some availability in their schedule where we can talk about these things. And they're more relaxed. They feel like this is an opportunity to build and strengthen the bonds of the coach client relationship and you're showing that you care and that goes a long way for the members where we we do bring that to the classes every time of course we're in that space because we care but that one on one face time and that whole video showing how to do the movement assessment. And of course, I didn't understand at that time exactly how to do it perfectly.

Starting point is 00:12:51 But I realized it's a matter of just getting in front of the person and having that personal time with them. That's opening up conversations to bigger problems that we can find space to help them in. So help people listening understand why can't these things be solved in class? I mean, they're already spending on the low end, a hundred bucks on the higher end, two 50 to have, to have a membership in let's call it a CrossFit gym. Mm-hmm. to have to have a membership in let's call it a crossfit gym shouldn't that be enough to cover it and on top of that why is personal training so damn expensive the group setting it's great for um building community being with your friends it's it should be the best hour of your day

Starting point is 00:13:43 because it's fun it's it's exciting. You're there to better your health, better yourself. And that's all great. But the way I look at group class is like that's where you get to play. But all the other things that happen to allow you to do that safely needs to happen on a one-on-one basis. Working closely with a coach that walks you through the process of learning the movement, understanding how to apply relative intensity when engaging in that kind of exercise, and how to maintenance and take care of yourself if you run into issues. Ultimately, we want our clients and members to have fitness autonomy, but that takes time. And the one-on-one setting is the best place for that.

Starting point is 00:14:30 In the group setting, if you're trying to give them that service, you only have so much time because it's not really appropriate to hone in on one individual that you want to help in that moment, in that class. Everybody is demanding your attention. And we do that in a way that facilitates the entire hour where you're getting people through that said workout of the day. Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, I want people to think about it this from this perspective. If you're working with a coach one-on-one, you might be with them for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, just full transparency. We tell coaches not to sell time. So there's no such thing as a half hour session. There's no such thing as an hour session. You're just working

Starting point is 00:15:18 with them for a session because I think if your coach could get you exactly what you want in 10 minutes, you'd be happy to pay more than if it took you seven hours to get the same thing. Now, that being said, we look at a class like this. Let's say there's 10 people in a class with one coach. The coach is going to spend at least five minutes at the whiteboard to start class. A good coach is going to spend another five minutes at the whiteboard to end class, to wrap things up and kind of discuss what's going on. That's 10 minutes. That means there's 50, five zero minutes left in class. Let's say another five minutes are taught or spent, excuse me, demonstrating how to perform movements that are going to be done in the first part of the workout.

Starting point is 00:16:15 The strength piece, the skill piece, the stamina, the gymnastics, whatever you're doing. Now we're 15 minutes into an hour class that are gone. Then another five minutes to demonstrate how to do the things that are going to happen during your WOD, the workout of the day. That's 20 minutes of a 60-minute class that's gone. There are 10 of you in that class. That means that there is an average of four minutes of attention that the coach can give to you if they're going to give everyone in the class the same amount of attention. Now, I say divide that number in half

Starting point is 00:16:53 because at best, a coach is giving you 50% of their attention while they provide the rest of the room with their peripheral attention, the other 50%. So now you're really looking at two, maybe three minutes of contact time with a coach in a class. Yeah. That's not enough. Right. Not to build skill.

Starting point is 00:17:19 So Daniel, people started coming to you for one-on-one and they say, hey, my back hurts, my hamstrings hurt, I feel fatigued when I come to class, all these different things. Were you at all concerned that these people had now paid you for something and now you had to deliver? Um, it was a sense of responsibility and duty at that point. And that's why we're in this space. If that's not what you're constantly looking for, and constantly looking to improve in, then you know, you have to go back to why you're in that space. And so I wanted those duties. And so I took the initiative and I was being proactive in targeting the people that I noticed could benefit from a service like this. And I wanted to make that available to them. And I wanted to create an opportunity for both of us to build a healthy relationship around health and wellness in the space of a CrossFit gym.

Starting point is 00:18:21 And why does it have to be so expensive? You know what I mean? I think that one of the things that people who are interested in buying one-on-one or interested in getting bigger stuff fixed and know that one-on-one would do it, but they're like, damn, that's so much money. And by the way, most trainers I would say are not charging enough. Yeah. But so why is charging something substantial more valuable for the person who's going to be buying it? Because I think that that's a big block for both the buyer and a lot of the times the seller. Sure.

Starting point is 00:18:54 So you have to understand the context of why you feel that it is expensive. If you're comparing it to a monthly gym subscription, it's a completely different service. So you can't really compare the two. The actual service of coaching, yes, that's similar. But the time, the energy, the quality of that session, it's drastically different. And it should be different. You shouldn't think, well, I'm just going to do a one-on-one, which means I'm taking the workout of the day and I'm just going to watch this individual do it. Because then they're going to feel like, well,

Starting point is 00:19:33 I should just go to class. No, it should look, feel completely different. It should be a heightened version of your coaching. It should be a professional version of what it is you do as a fitness professional. And when you're set out to solve bigger problems for that specific individual, that is a priceless opportunity for both of you guys on the client side and the coach side that you're leading them towards the thing that matters most. Yeah, I agree with you. And I think the other thing to think about is if it's hard for you as someone listening to this to digest the idea that you should walk up to a coach in your gym and say, hey, I'm interested in fixing this problem. And I've

Starting point is 00:20:17 been frustrated that it hasn't happened in the last, I don't know, six years that I've been a member at this gym. Here's what you need to keep in mind. When you walk up to a coach and ask for help one-on-one or when that coach walks up to you and offers help one-on-one, when one-on-one is available as a solution to you, I don't want you to look at it as exercise. I want you to look at it as if I had the certainty that this would no longer be a problem

Starting point is 00:20:47 in my life, how much would I be willing to pay to get rid of it? So if you're a member of a gym and you've been trying to lose 20 pounds for the last two years and you're yo-yoing, you're up, you're down, you're up, you're down, and you're frustrated, how much would you be willing to pay for the certainty that that's going to be gone, let's say, six months from now? If you have knee pain that physical therapy, chiropractic, and orthopedics have failed to help, how much would you be willing to pay a coach in your gym for the absolute certainty that that would be gone? Forget a coach in your gym. If someone just said, look, there's an envelope over there. There's a number in it. You have to make a bid. If your bid is above that number, your pain is gone forever. If your bid is below that number,

Starting point is 00:21:34 you keep the pain and the money. What would your bid be? Right? So that's, that's the kind of stuff that one-on-one coaching needs to be able to do. There are bigger problems because – look, weight loss. Let's just take weight loss as an example. I think everybody knows how to eat healthier and they understand that if they go outside and go for a little bit of a run, do some burpees, some air squats, whatever, they're going to lose weight in time. So if you haven't, it's a bigger problem because there's something else in the way they also understand that um you know if they want to get stronger they can just go to the gym and get stronger they just lift weights it's going to happen if you're frustrated that the thing you want still hasn't happened it's a bigger problem and it needs some expertise. That's all. It's that simple.

Starting point is 00:22:27 Right. Totally agree. So did you, did you face any difficulty in, after that initial surge of people wanting to get the help, but being uncomfortable making the payment? That is a conversation that we have sometimes I had to have on the side. And it is uncomfortable in the beginning, right? Because it's so personal to you. They're saying, I don't think I can afford you. I don't think I can justify paying you X amount for what it is that you're delivering. Well, and Daniel, when that happens, I imagine that the first impetus for somebody who is not a seasoned coach like yourself is, oh, well, I got to bring my rates down then. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:19 Go on. That's shooting yourself in the foot because you will build resentment because they're getting a deal on you. And again, like I said, it's personal. So you feel like you're getting undervalued, which is the reason why you're in this situation in the first place, right? You're trying to get yourself out of that kind of thinking and mindset. And you're not going to deliver 100% of what is necessary to satisfy your client. And it is not a healthy way of closing a deal or whatever you want to call it or signing a client up for 12 sessions or whatever it is. You need to have a mature, business-minded approach to having that conversation when it comes around,

Starting point is 00:24:18 when it has to deal with the rate and the challenges that come with that. But you have to overemphasize the value that they're going to get. You have to think about where they are at currently. Think about their entire fitness journey and why they are at this place that they're not happy with and letting them know you're going to be working together as a partnership to get you out of that situation. Yeah. And that's the coach's side. I think that as the person who's potentially going to be buying these sessions from somebody,

Starting point is 00:24:53 you're also shooting yourself in the foot because you want the person who you're buying it from to a feel the pressure to perform for you. Absolutely. To B, feel fulfilled by the service that you're affording them the opportunity to provide you. If you go in for – like you're not buying a barbell. I just placed a stupid order from Rogue. When I say stupid, I just mean like expensive for the HQ that we're setting up. Yes. Awesome. Yes. Awesome. Yes, you'll see it in January.

Starting point is 00:25:28 But the point I'm making by that is like you're not buying a commodity. It's not, hey, I can get Kerrygold butter at the other grocery store for 60 cents less. No, you're buying somebody's intellect. You're buying somebody's attention and intention and emotion, all of it. Right. You don't want a discount on that stuff. No, absolutely not. If you ask them when it comes to quality, service, and the dollar amount, what is it you're willing to sacrifice?

Starting point is 00:26:01 No one's going to say, oh, what do you want? I don't have a pen. I got to write that down. Remember that please. Quality, service, or a dollar amount. Which one are you willing to sacrifice? Yeah. You know, and we're just being real here. You know, no one's going to say, you know, if you can, don't give me a hundred percent, but what does 70% look like of helping me get my knee out of pain? So I don't have of pain so I don't have to air bike every time Helen is the workout of the day? Those are problems. You want to feel accomplished.

Starting point is 00:26:35 You want to feel like you're able to do the workout as it's prescribed because that intention of the workout is ultimately, and your performance is ultimately what's going to benefit you. And you would never sacrifice a service. You want to go above and beyond for the clients. You expect that from a professional. But, you know, the rate. You don't go to the steakhouse and be like, how much is that steak? What if, hear me out, what if you used the smaller oven to cook it like do you have a less expensive oven in the back that won't give it the crispy outside because i would be totally down to

Starting point is 00:27:15 pay 80 for that but 100 i don't know no you want that you went to the steakhouse to get the steak get the steak absolutely you know case fucking steak. Get the fucking steak. Absolutely. You know, case in point too, last week I got some blood work from my oncologist for our 10-year anniversary from when I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. And when you walk in there, I'm looking for the best oncologist. I'm not asking what his rate is. That conversation doesn't even happen in that setting.

Starting point is 00:27:48 You're like, I want the best test, the most accurate test. It doesn't matter what you're asking me to do. And I want the best professional in this building to take care of me. So I feel like you just dropped a suitcase in my room underneath my feet that we now need to unpack. So you 10 years ago first got your all clear remission for Hodgkin's lymphoma, yes? Yes. And now 10 years later, you are statistically cured is what they say. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:23 Okay. And still, you didn't go to somebody who was like, look, I can do that same test for half the price. Absolutely not. Why not? It's so much more than that. I knew that I'm healthy. I eat well, or I try to. I work out regularly, consistently. I help other people live that kind of lifestyle so that they can avoid a situation like I had 10 years ago to ever even be a speck on their radar. confidence and just mental wellbeing that comes from having the most

Starting point is 00:29:05 professional person tell you, you are cured is priceless. Didn't matter what the price was. I'm with that. So here's something I'd like to point out because I think that every person can relate to this. When you're living less than your full self, I believe part of you is dead. At least momentarily, right? It can be revived.

Starting point is 00:29:32 But it needs like those, you know, clear to be right back. What are those called again? EKG. Thank you. No, that's not an EKG. That's a readout. Oh, fuck. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, somebody.

Starting point is 00:29:48 Well, anyway, you should have one in your gym. Defibrillator. Defibrillator, yeah. There you go. AED. AED. Oh, man. What's up?

Starting point is 00:29:58 Good times. I'm sure that all my professors in chiropractic school are proud as hell right now. So anyway, it's like if you have knee pain or if you have back pain or if you just feel like you're less than you're supposed to be, like you feel less confident because you can't climb the rope or you feel like you're not making progress fast enough because you can't do pull-ups or you feel like you're not beautiful because you're 20 pounds overweight or whatever. Every day that you decide to save some money and not feel better about that thing is a day that you are living less of a life than you are capable of living. And I know people who hear me talk about this stuff,

Starting point is 00:30:49 the responses I often get are, easy for you to say, you have plenty of money. I'm like, yeah, now. But when I didn't, I was making less than $30,000 a year, working 17-hour days, five days a week, and a 14-hour day on Saturdays or 12-hour day on Saturdays. And I took off, quote, air quotes, off on Sunday to just think about work all day long and write about it and brainstorm about it. And I paid a coach $1,000 a month. I couldn't afford that but i had

Starting point is 00:31:26 no choice right so um what are your thoughts on that because i i think that it's important for people to understand the real value of their money yeah i don't know if you remember, but when we went back and forth for the first time in the DM, you know, you asked me, am I living out the life that I see in my mind when I think about the perfect day? And that had such a profound effect on me because and not from the standpoint of just financially, but fulfillment-wise. And I found that to be such a, you know, heart-stirring thing to think about. Because when I look at the future and all the things that I want in it from, again, not from a materialistic standpoint, but the things that will give me peace and make me feel fulfilled and purposeful, those things were not aligned. And I knew it was a much deeper thing for me to start having these conversations with myself on how do I start organizing myself and getting

Starting point is 00:32:39 me on a trajectory so that I can see that as the end goal. And so it took me that moment to understand I need to professionalize everything that I do, my relationship with my clients, with members, with the people that I love, everything needed to be heightened. And so that conversation really made me understand like, look, the way that I'm going to find fulfillment before that even starts to happen. I need to have the things in place to you to service me as tools so I can make that a reality. So I do remember that. I remember it very, very clearly. And there's two things about it that I want to get into a little bit. Number one is, and we'll get to this one second, actually. So I'll just get to that one

Starting point is 00:33:31 next. But the second one is that I used to ask people that all the time, and I go back and forth on whether I should keep doing it or not from a professional perspective. And I say that because when I ask people what their perfect day looks like, and they tell me what their perfect day looks like, it's become abundantly clear to me that they're making that decision from the perspective of what they believe to be possible for their day. You know, when they tell you what their perfect day would look like, if I said, that sounds great, would you rather that day or whatever Tony Robbins is doing the same day? Usually they're like, oh no, of course I would want that. But like unrealistic, right? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe, maybe. But if you're, if you're thinking about that, then this just becomes a step on the way to it.

Starting point is 00:34:29 Does that make sense? Yeah. So I still ask it, but then I put less emphasis on how that affects my ability to kind of guide them, if that makes sense. The next thing I wanted to say about that is you just described that from the perspective of you're a coach and your life wasn't fulfilled. So you needed to make the following change. What about from a person in a gym? What is the change that they might need to make, that they might be looking for, that they would opt into this for. And I'm not even talking about working with us. I'm talking about working up to somebody in your gym who you already know, like, and trust

Starting point is 00:35:11 to be able to help you with more. Like, what are they feeling like right now? I think if you can pinpoint how they feel now as they listen to this, they're going to be like, fuck. All right. And coaches are going to get new business and clients are going to get new service and everybody is going to have big problems solved for them. Yeah. Go back to the reason why you started in helping people in the first place. No, no, no, no. I want you to take it from the person in the, because for you to be

Starting point is 00:35:43 able to communicate to someone that you can help them more, because for you to be able to communicate to someone that you can help them more, that means you have to understand where they're at and why they need more help. So I want you to talk to the person who's in the gym right now, who should be walking over to a coach and asking for more help.

Starting point is 00:35:59 How do they feel right now to know, okay, I am definitely feeling that way. That sounds like Daniel's listening to my conversations. I know you work at Facebook on some corporate wellness stuff, but are you like, you have a listening machine in my pocket? So pinpoint how they're feeling so that they can understand that you empathize and it's time for them to take action. Yeah, they're frustrated and they're not being the complete version of themselves. You know, I like the example that you use too of, you know, Johnny Road Climbs.

Starting point is 00:36:36 You know, it's not about getting the road climb. It's not about being able to link together 10 double unders in a row, but it's the effect that it has on yourself and the, how it negatively affects, um, your own view on your ability to accomplish things when you are continually missing the mark, when you're doing a group class and you have to change the workout due to pain or due to an injury or fear of further injuring yourself. And that spills over and it cascades into other important areas of your life where exercise should actually be serving the needs of those things. It should be enhancing those opportunities to become a better version of yourself. So let's make it really tangible, right? I mean, somebody who, for example, you're, I don't, I want to make something

Starting point is 00:37:38 that's really relatable for people. Let's say for example, your knee hurts when you work out. And then after you work out, your knee hurts for like two or three more days. Well, you have dogs to walk. If going to the gym is supposed to make it easier for you to walk your dogs, if going to the gym is making it more difficult for you to walk your dogs, then the purpose of going to the gym is no longer in a, it's no longer an effect. Yeah. If you wake up the next morning and you're like, Oh, getting out of bed sucks. My knee just hurts until I'm like four hours into the day. And then when you come home from work, you're like, I would love to walk the dogs, but my knees are tired. And now you start to feel guilty about not taking care of your dog the way that you're supposed to. You start questioning, am I working out the way I'm supposed to be working out? Should I be waking up to ask somebody in the gym if they can design workouts and help you through them in a way that will serve you so that you can get back to doing the thing that you came to the gym for in the first place.

Starting point is 00:38:53 Yeah. And on top of that, I want to make clear, group class is great. The reason why you like group class is because there's camaraderie. There's fun. There's novelty every time. It's not linear, at least it shouldn't be. So you're like, all right, I like the group. I don't want to do one-on-one.

Starting point is 00:39:12 It's inexpensive as compared to the group. I don't want to do one-on-one. But it's not serving you right now, at least not fully. Yeah, and not the deeper things, not the things that are truly important to you. Because let's be real, like the people that are designing your workout, they're not thinking about you specifically when they write it up on the board or they plan it out two weeks in advance or whatever it is. And that's not a knock on them either. No, no, absolutely not.

Starting point is 00:39:41 No, I love the group class setting. But we all have to do things that are specifically for our unique needs and wants so i i had a post one time that went up that got a lot of backlash that i love and that you tend to do that yeah yeah but but you know what i find that when i get the backlash on posts especially especially like this one, it means I probably struck a truth nerve. Because it wasn't like, hey, squatting is bad for you. I don't write that. No.

Starting point is 00:40:14 I write that squatting is overrated because it is. But there's no absolutes in the world. So, well, I guess absolutely no one can fly. But still. The post was, nobody cares about being fit. People want to be able to do things that they think fit people can do. And what I meant by that post was, you don't really care if you have a six pack if all of a sudden society said six packs are useless. And people who you want to have sex with were like, oh, you have a six pack?

Starting point is 00:40:54 That's gross. You would start slugging beers all day, right? You would start trying to get fat so you could have sex again. If, you know, if working out didn't make you more capable of moving through the world, you would stop working out. If it didn't help you live longer or at least perceive that you're going to, you would stop doing it. That's what I mean by that. And that's what I think you're talking about here. You're nodding,

Starting point is 00:41:24 you're nodding, but they can't hear your nod. Yeah, I agree. I agree. So let's kind of cap this thing off. I want people who are out there listening to this to ultimately make a decision. And I'd like them to make that decision today because the longer they think about it, the reality is the less likely they are to do it. So if you could, and I didn't give you a heads up on this, so do your best. Here we go. Yeah. I want you to pitch them on discovering if they have a problem that requires working with a coach one-on-one, whether it's us or someone in their gym,

Starting point is 00:42:07 so that they can take action on that the next time they have the opportunity. If that opportunity is working with us, then they can just reach out. They can shoot us a DM. If the opportunity is working with somebody in their gym, then they can just go ask their coach next time they're in class.

Starting point is 00:42:24 But what is the threshold that needs to be met for them to be able to say, yeah, okay, I got to go do this? Think about what you want to get out of the time, energy, and resources that you're putting into your health and wellness efforts. If you've, and you know this, everybody knows, and only you can be the judge of it, of whether those metrics that are important to you are being quantified or not. And it doesn't have to be necessarily like quantitative stuff but even the qualitative stuff like mentally how do you feel are you frustrated are there things that are nagging you that tends to affect your mood and the quality of who you are in other areas of life and if you can trace those steps back, if you can kind of think about

Starting point is 00:43:26 what are things in your life that are controllable, that can put you in a better position to do all the things that you need to be doing at a very high rate to be a high performer in those important areas of your life, address it. Find somebody that can help you through those things. It may be an exercise or I'm sorry, it may be the way you exercise. It might be the gym you're at, the coach that's in front of you. Have the conversation with those individuals that can have an effect on how you feel today because it's controllable and what if their response is okay yeah i need to do this um but i i can't afford it what's next

Starting point is 00:44:16 that's that happens often and you have to expect that it's gonna it's going to come up from yourself it's gonna come up for yourself yeah so and and it might be perceptively true but go on i cut you off i shouldn't have bad host bad host no that's okay just how important is it to you because you're not going to act on the things that aren't that important and it you have to get down to the core reasons of why it is important to you and you can't lie to yourself you're not you're not gonna um try to sell yourself on something that's not true you know if it's real or not. And just go back to why.

Starting point is 00:45:08 Go back to the purpose. I'm with that, man. And I will just add one little thing to it. If money is your obstacle, then that means you need to find a way to either, A, find the money somewhere else in your budget, and or, B, spend some time and effort doing the research and getting the education to be able to help yourself. That's okay also. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:45:44 If you're like, look, I can't afford this. Okay. Start doing research. Trust, and here's my advice to you, trust a single source. Instead of going to articles that come from seven different sources and some of the stuff that they say contradicts each other

Starting point is 00:46:02 and now you're more confused. Choose a source. Just go down this rabbit hole. Yep. Choose a single source and assume they're right and trust them all the way because they wouldn't be able to continue putting out content if they hadn't helped somebody. Do I believe that we're the best and you should come to us? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:46:22 You bet your ass. Yeah. best and you should come to us yeah you bet your ass yeah but do i think that um companies like i don't know move you are helping people yeah do i think my man kelly stirret is helping people yeah do i think ramwad's helping people yeah right go get help from somebody. Everyone's got free content. Daniel, where can people who listen to this podcast find your handsome ass on Instagram? I'm on Instagram at dhfitnessinc. And if you guys do have the opportunity to work with Active Life, I'm also going to be the person helping you along the entire way on the ProFath course. And that's where I find a lot of fulfillment right now,

Starting point is 00:47:13 is being able to have these personal relationships with coaches across country, around the world, helping them to develop better systems and educating their staff on delivering quality service to their members and benefiting from it, not only from a fulfillment standpoint, but also, of course, financially. And the truth is, guys, the reason why Daniel has that role in our company is because he understands the needs of the client better than anybody else, in my opinion, in our company now. And that's because he's been a coach in a CrossFit gym for what? Like seven years, six years, 10 years, 20 years? 10 years. 10 years. He worked in a CrossFit gym for 10 years, a successful CrossFit gym.

Starting point is 00:48:01 And as a coach there, he also understands the gaps between ownership coach member and in the gym he was at ownership management coach member so there there isn't somebody in our company better fit to facilitate your growth if you're looking to have it with us than daniel So, DH Fitness Inc. on Instagram. Yes. Follow him. And that's it, man. I appreciate you coming on.

Starting point is 00:48:32 Thanks so much for having me. And I hope the people that listen to this conversation, it gives them an opportunity for themselves to have deeper conversations with the people that they're able to help every day.

Starting point is 00:48:46 That's what it's about, right? Absolutely. Turn pro. All right, Shrug Nation. I hope you enjoyed that episode of Active Life Radio on the Shrug Collective Network. If you did, it would be a huge help for us to get the word out there. If you would head to iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us an honest rating. If you want to go bonus mode, please feel free to leave us a review as well. Anything that you listened to that you're interested in doing yourself. If you want to work with an active life coach one-on-one yourself, head to active life, rx.com slash shrugged, fill out the application,

Starting point is 00:49:28 and we'll be talking to you soon. Till then, turn pro.

Barbell Shrugged - Creating Fitness Autonomy Through 1-on-1 Coaching with Daniel Hong - Active Life Radio #20

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