Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2172: Five Commandments For Successful Personal Trainers

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover five "rules" that are essential for true success as a personal trainer. If you become healthier, EVERYTHING gets better. (1:45) The Five Commandments for Successful Personal Trainers #1 - I am responsible for my clients' successes and failures. (6:02) #2 - I will never make false promises. (16:46) #3 - I will prioritize my client's health over aesthetics. (23:48) #4 - I will always meet my clients where they are. (29:03) #5 - I will always aim for sustainability over speed with my client's progress. (37:36) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Sleep Breakthrough by biOptimizers for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP10 at checkout** September Promotion: MAPS Symmetry | RGB Bundle 50% off! **Code SEPTEMBER50 at checkout** Mind Pump #1717: Why Before & After Pictures Are Bullsh*T Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It – Book by Chris Voss Mind Pump #2147: Why The Fitness/Health Industry Is FAILING Mind Pump #1350: How To Stop Yo-Yo Dieting For Permanent Fat Loss Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, hop, mind, hop with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast in history. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we lay out the commandments for successful personal trainers. You are our favorite people in the fitness space. That's what we're talking to.

We know you're going to love this episode. Now, it's brought to you by one of our sponsors, Sleep Breakthrough. This is a supplement that has ingredients that have been shown to improve the quality of sleep. It's all data driven, so it's nothing magical about it. But it does work. The data shows it. So if you'd like to improve the quality of your sleep, try it out.

Go to sleepbreakthrough.com forward slash mine pump, then use the code mine pump 10 for a discount. Also, only three days left for our program sale this month. So map symmetry is half off, and the RGB bundle is half off. Both half off, you only have 72 hours to act. So if you're interested, go to mapsfitinistproducts.com and then use the code September 50 for that discount. All right, here comes a show. I am a personal trainer. I am responsible for my client's success and failures. I will never make false promises. I will prioritize my clients' health above aesthetics. I will always meet my clients

where they are, and I will always aim for sustainability over speed with my clients' progress. If you're a personal trainer, these should be your commandments. In doing so, it will make you successful, and it will make your clients successful. I like powerful. Yeah. Let's get into those. Well, look, it's not a secret that our favorite people in the space are personal trainers. We're all personal trainers. This is how we start in the industry.

No bias there whatsoever. Right. We still identify this way. But look, here's a deal of everybody that works in the health and fitness space. Personal trainers have the greatest capacity for meaningful impact. Okay, fact, that's a fact right there.

Like, gym owners don't have this capability. We don't have this capability as having the leading fitness and health podcasts of the world approaching close to a billion downloads, right? We cannot impact people the way a good personal trainer can. Like they are the lifeblood of the industry. We are the front, the true frontline of defense in the space because we have the opportunity to actually keep people from getting into doctor's offices. So not only can we help people that are already there

and are trying to solve the root cause, not Medicaid or Band-Aid, you know, whatever it is that they have going on, but actually address the root cause or cut it off before it gets there. And who else is able to do that other than trainers? Now what you listed off is definitely something we've learned over the years through each one of our own experiences and

Just that wisdom that you acquire from all of those hours that we train and spent time with people in terms of like what's What are those simple things that we should focus on from the very beginning? I wish I could go back in time and then apply these principles It would have made me much more fair. Well look here's why it's such a big deal and why we're saying this stuff is there isn't anything in your life, nothing in your life that won't improve if you don't improve or won't improve if you improve your health and fitness. If you become healthier, everything gets better, everything, everything from your consumption habits to your mental state,

of course your physical health, your mobility, your attitude, you become a better parent when you're healthier versus when you're less healthy, you become a better business owner or employee, you innovate better. Move, sex, libido, skin. I mean, it goes on and on and on. Profound, you know, health and fitness has profound impacts. So what's the challenge? The challenge is you're changing lifestyles.

You're going counter to what's considered a normal life. You know, I've said this before, but living a regular life, the default is poor health. You have to counter all that. So as a personal trainer, you're not just prescriptive. This is why trainers are so effective or can be so effective, right? You go to a doctor or you read a book or you listen to the podcast and you get lots of information and advice. But the person who's gonna walk with you along this journey who's gonna guide you

Along this journey is a good personal trainer. This is somebody that you would see One or two or three days a week. You're gonna meet with them on a regular basis. I mean, I used to see clients two days a week for a full hour uninterrupted. They would see me more than they would see most of their family members aside from their immediate family. So I had this unique opportunity

to have this incredible impact on people. And it is a journey, like somebody who starts on this, it's a journey that never ends, right? The journey of improving yourself through health and fitness never ends. There's always something you can learn about yourself and about how you feel, your life changes so now the information changes.

So it's like, I'm going on this journey and I have a guide that can go with me along the way and that guide has the most impact on me. They're the ones that can definitely make this happen for me in a way that lasts forever. Nobody else has this potential, no one else. So, personal trainers, you got, and look, this is why personal trainers do this

at a passion. Trainers don't become trainers because they wanna make a lot of money. That's a fact. They do it because they have a tremendous amount of passion, probably because they solve it, it did for them. It's transformative, but also because they want to help other people.

And so what I read off, and we'll go through each of them, are like the commandments of what makes you successful, both in your business, but also especially, you know, with your clients. And I don't know if you put much thought into the order of these, but I do agree that the know if you put much thought into the order of these, but I do agree that the first one you listed off should be the first one.

I mean, it's the first law of leadership. 100%. And also an area that I remember being challenged with with trainers. A lot of my trainers, when I would be questioning the results of the client, or when I would be questioning the results of the client or if I'd be questioning about their attendance, their consistency, their adherence to the program, or even the resigning with them for a sale because I had to do their goals and budget every month,

right? Always an excuse. Always, well, they don't care about this or like they always do with that. They would, yeah, they would default to what, why, what the client did to not, to not be successful, to not show up or to not resign with them.

And it used to just frustrate the shit out of me because they wouldn't lead with, you know, I could have been better with the diet plan. For some reason, I couldn't get them to one and you got to reframe the way you think about these challenges and it should always come from you failed. I failed. Okay. I failed the client.

Okay. I believe that everybody has the potential to reach their health and fitness goals. And if they're unsuccessful and they hired me, no matter the excuses that they gave me, it falls back on me as a leader because I'm leading them. Yes. And it's, you have, this is a point, this is a position of empowerment. You have to accept that you are responsible for their successes and their failures. Now, that doesn't mean you have the answers.

It could also, and often mean, that they're not doing this thing, and I don't know how to get them to do this thing. But I do know that there is a way somewhere, and I'm gonna keep trying. By the way, this doesn't mean you should beat yourself up, go home and cry because your client didn't lose 20 pounds. No, no, no, it just means that there is a way to get them

where they wanna go, to get them to move forward. And maybe you just haven't figured it out yet, or maybe you're doing it the wrong way. If you have this attitude, by the way, that you are responsible for the clients' successes and their failures, what it's going to do is it's always going to drive you to improve and get better. If you say to yourself, oh, well, they, you know, yeah, of course they didn't get results.

They don't want to do what I told them. Well, why? They want to do what you told them, right? Or they didn't want to show up to their workouts. Well, why? Well, they, you know, of course they didn't get in shape. They kept eating garbage. Okay.

Maybe there was something you could have done to help them move in the right way. Maybe you just haven't figured it out, but that doesn't matter. It's your responsibility. This is what good teachers and leaders adopt, and this is what makes them effective, and this is what drove me to continue to improve,

because I would always ask myself, what am I doing wrong? I just can't get this through. It's just not working. What's happening and little by little, I figured this out and I never became 100% successful, my clients. I don't even know if that's possible, but I always got better every single year. It's the only way you get closer to success. Otherwise, if you can't be honest and have those conversations of how could I have done things better, how could I have presented it in a different way? And you're just dismissive of the fact that like my client would do X. My client did this. And so, you know, that's out of your... Whatever is in your controls where we need to focus. And so that's what I'm presenting, what I'm bringing in. So now I have to reevaluate that whole system

of what I've created of how I can present information and how I can get more buy-in and adherence from the way that I'm delivering information. I had a client for seven of the nine years that I was a personal trainer at 24-of-fitness. I won't mention her name, because I'm not trying to put her on blast by any means, but to highlight the point that we're making with this, uh, this first point. And I trained her for that entire time, even when I became a, a manager,

and I really, you know, I only would only keep three or four clients. Most, uh, fitness managers, when you get to that role, you pick your three favorite. Train no one. Train no one. You pick your three favorite or the three easiest people you can really help. Because your focus now is on the club, right? And so you don't want to be distracted by really challenging clients, just being straight up.

And this lady that I train was the most difficult woman I ever trained my entire life. And I know Justin knows who she is. I know she's working already because I've let my trainers train and they all will be like, I don't ever want to don't you ever make me train. She's an absolute bitch. She's rude. She doesn't she doesn't listen to what I have to say. She argues, I just, and just choose a brilliant executive at the Mercury News. And I remember when I was younger, I was like, it would baffle me. She'd resign every time.

She'd resign for more. You thought she hated me. Yeah, I thought she hated me, but yet she kept buying training for me, buying and always this way, right? And so trainers would be like, I don't understand, why do you keep her? It's like you need the money. You can get a client to refer. I don't understand why to keep her. I said, you know why? Because I haven't figured it all out.

Like it drives me to know that like I haven't, I haven't made this woman happy. I haven't got her all the results that she wants. And so it was this constant reminder of for me to always be getting better and always taking responsibility for the lack of results that the client is getting and I wouldn't give up, I wouldn't give up and she was my ultimate challenge and so I kept her forever. I'm a similar story to that, I don't know if you remember this but I was out on the floor training of client

and I saw you were presenting personal training to a potential new client that was coming in and she was, you could just tell the signs of a difficult personality right away, just like, okay, what about this and what about that? And first of all, we were doing a close-out so there's balloons everywhere. And she had an allergy to latex. So that was the start of this like cold debacle. And so Adams kind of like trying to calm her down and present, you know, all the potential benefits the personal training and what the club has off

for all this kind of stuff. And I see him looking around and he, you know, grabs me. And so that was like, I'm like, oh God, here we go. But that was, I was always up for that kind of a challenge. It was a very challenging client who already started off the process on the wrong foot. And was very like angry about, you know, so I had to defuse that energy and then shuttle it

in a more positive direction. But I learned so much from those opportunities to improve my ability to communicate better, but also to be able to deal with people and their behaviors and their own quirks. Yeah, look, this is its chess and it's not checkers. You have to play the long game. So people might hear what we're saying and they're like, okay, it's my responsibility always. I'm going to hammer my client until they listen.

No, neither are they going to leave, never come back. You'll lost the game, right? So I had clients for years, years, and they didn't change a single thing about the nutrition. I had to play the long game, because every time I bring it up, I could tell, uh oh, they're turning off, uh oh, I'm gonna risk losing this opportunity, so let me focus on what they're open to, and I'm gonna find ways to sprinkle these in conversations

or open the door at the very least. And then, you know, I had one guy lose 35 pounds in three years. You know when he lost that weight, the last four months of that three year period, up until he lost, you know, lose a single pound because you want to touch anything. But it was this process of me being patient and doing what I could. And sometimes it was literally just me giving them a good experience. That's all. We're not going to talk anything about health and fitness. You're just going to come in and work out and we're going to joke around and talk

about your family. And I'm going to create this amazing experience for you. So you always have this great relationship with exercise. Well, I'll never forget, you know, when the light switch went off and he came in and he goes, oh, you know what, it's time, I think it's time we start looking at nutrition and I said, okay, let's start with this one step and it was this snowball effect. But you're also gonna get situations that you can't figure out, that's not the point.

The point is if they're in front of you, like Adam's client, this woman you thought hated you, right? But she's still in front of you. That means the door is open. If you really want to help people, then you got to help them. That doesn't mean you piss them off. It doesn't mean you kick them out the door. It doesn't mean you try to preach to them when they're not open.

It means you have to be effective. That's what it means. You have to be effective. But know that the answer is out there and you're responsible for it. That attitude will drive you to becoming the most effective trainer that you could possibly be. You know the biggest lesson that I got from her was that some clients are testing you and what they want to see is if you're going to give up on them. Well, a lot of people probably have given up on them.

That's right. There's a bit of a self-selection bias with people that have struggled with weight their whole entire life. And a lot of other people have dismissed them, given up on them, and many times they've given up on themselves. And this person is hurt and broken inside. And there's a lot more going on that's causing all these other things. And they are going so hard, the opposite direction,

or making your job so difficult, because they just wanna see are you gonna be like everybody else? I had this one's surgeon that I trained. He'll probably hear this, but it's all right, he knows. And he, I was warned by my other clients who worked with him, and they said, oh, you're training, you're gonna train so and so, good luck.

You're gonna have a tough time, like whatever. And his wife even wore me. If he doesn't show up, you let me know, and I'll make him come. She was a nurse. So I was like, okay, well anyway, I trained him and little by little, the shell started to come off to the point where this is true story now.

The other doctors I trained would come in and go, what are you doing with so-and-so? And I'm like, why? He's telling jokes in the OR, like he's smiling, people like him now. What was happening was his health was improving and he was changing as a person. Anyway, he ended up becoming one of my most long term clients

and actually became somebody who referred to me, most of my so many clients, more clients than almost anybody else. Really cool. All right, the next one, this one's a big one because it's so tempting to do the opposite. But if you do the opposite of what I'm about to say, you're 100% going to set yourself up for failure, okay? The second one is I will never make false promises. Okay, why is this one so hard? Because you're trying to get someone to hire you,

you're trying to get someone excited. You wanna sell the dream. And you wanna sell them the dream. I wanna lose 30 pounds. We could totally do that. It's gonna take us 15 weeks, two pounds a week, 15 weeks you could lose 30 pounds. Or man, I just wanna, man, I really wanna feel a lot,

but oh yeah, you hire me, you do what I tell you. Yeah, look at this person that looked just like you and looked at this, like this. You're gonna look like this. Do not make, one of the best things you could ever do as a personal trainer is under promise. That's right, and over deliver. Under promise, I remember when this first snap,

this was like my first year personal training when I figured this out, because when I, my first year I'm just trying to get people to hire me and I thought, well, that's how you got people to hire. You sell the ultimate drain. And then I'd run into problems with people who, you know, it wasn't meeting their expectations. Now, definitely was the fact that they weren't doing

what I said and a lot of stuff and I could have made excuses, right? I could have been like, well, they did what I said, they would have got what I told them. But I remember thinking like, most people aren't gonna do everything I say. Like, what am I doing here? I gotta start being super realistic with my recommendations.

And so I used to say stuff like this after that. People would say, I wanna hire you because I wanna lose 30 pounds. Ooh, that's really tough. You know what? You might not lose 30 pounds. But here's what you're gonna experience and here's what it's gonna be like.

Now, can you? You definitely can, but it's really tough. The statistics show that most people don't and then when they do, they gain it back. But, you know, one thing that I specialize in is helping people get to the right way and helping them keep it off. And not only did it not lose me sales,

I got more sales as it was, because people were like, oh, he's honest. And then when I told them, don't expect to lose a single pound for the first 60 days because we're trying build strength and muscle and I'm gonna try and boost your metabolism. And then they would lose four or five pounds on the scale. It was just incredible surprise. You know what is a classic example of this

that our audience has to be very familiar with from us? Is how we under sell personal training. We tell people how difficult and hard it is to be a trainer. To be a trainer, to be successful, to scale, to make any sort of money doing it. Yet every day, we have somebody message us saying that I quit my job to become a personal trainer because of you guys.

So you absolutely can, and really what that is is people will appreciate the honesty. Hey, it's hard, it's hard to do that. And you know, it's even harder is keeping it off. You know, there's a lot of people that might be able to lose 30 pounds. I mean, let's be honest, that's actually, that is a little simple. Just stop eating, get on a treadmill, run every single day, and eventually that'll come off. You know, you might die along the way. But hey, there's a lot of people that push the needle in these extremes just to get to that number, but you know what, they all put it back on.

They all put it back on and they put more of it back on. What you're really hiring me for is to make sure that not only we get there, we get there the right way so that you keep it for the rest of your life. That's the part that's really challenging. And there's a lot of missteps that the average person makes on the way there. Yeah, well, I mean, I think that's a lot of the temptation is because of what the clients

coming in with their expectation and a lot of them have been through the process before and will divulge into that and tell you like how they apply it all this, it didn't really work out that great. What are you going to do that's any different and how am I gonna get to this very specific goal and lose all this body fat, lose all this weight in a quick amount of time? And so to be able to have that conversation in an honest fashion and tell them what is exactly sustainable

and what's not sustainable is a hard conversation. I used to love statements like this. Do you want me to sell you or do you want me to be honest? Yeah, there you go. And everybody almost know, and what is it? Everybody almost say honest. Yeah, be honest. Okay. Because I could sell you and I could break down the math on how, you know, you can lose healthy anywhere from a pound to two pounds a week. And so, and this many weeks with this. But what I know from my experience is it takes longer on that. Why? Because it's not just simply exes and knows. There's behavioral stuff that's going on.

We don't know where you're at metabolic yet. There's a lot of, there's a learning curve to getting good at movements. There's a consistency aspect to it. There's the undoubtedly what's going to happen is we're gonna take five steps forward, take one step back eventually. But really this is, it's not about that.

It's about once we get there, that I'm gonna help you maintain this fear. So don't be afraid to be upfront about those things. It makes you more effective. For sure. For sure. It doesn't make you, that's the, I think the challenge is that people think

that it makes them more effective to paint this crazy dream. But the reality is honesty is far more effective and it sets you up for success. False promises set you up for failure. If you did, in fact, convince that client that they're going to get these crazy results in 30 days or 60 days, now you're on the hook to deliver. And either A, you're going to do things that are not ideal for your client

and they're going to just copy and follow exactly what you say in which case they'll gain it back later anyway, or what usually happens, this doesn't happen. And then you're gonna have this conversation, well, Mrs. Johnson, the reason why you didn't get those crazy results that I promised you didn't do XYZ to a vacation and then you ate all that, whatever. And that's like, why am I even here, why am I doing this?

Don't make false promise. By the way, this is why we do not use before and after or do 30 day challenges. Yeah. Both those things are proven to be very successful in marketing and selling. There's nothing more effective at selling. We sell workout programs. Okay. The most effective way to sell a workout program is to show before and after. By the way, we have thousands of before and after that people have sent us. We've used zero of them to sell programs because yes, it's effective,

but what it's really doing, whether we say it or not, because we can even say on the bottom, this is not the average. Results may vary. Yeah, don't expect to get results like this, but the picture tells you something different. And it's false promises. And we just don't wanna,

we don't wanna promote that. We don't wanna show people that this is how you build, a business in the fitness space. If you do it, that's fine. You wanna be honest about it, and you wanna tell people this is not normal results, but, and there's nothing we don't do. And there is nothing,

it's not that it's not possible that somebody can make radical change in 30 days or 72 days hard. You can make all kinds of changes in that time. We just think it's the opposite message of what we're trying to present to people. So we choose not to use that, even though it's extremely effective when it comes to marketing and making money. But let us be an example if you're a coach and trainer of someone that can do this and

be wildly successful and never have to use either one of those two things. That's right. All right, the next one is that I will pry, as a trainer, will prioritize my client's health above aesthetics. Okay, here's why this one's so important because your client will not prioritize

their health above aesthetics. They're gonna prioritize prioritize aesthetics over health. Fine. That's okay. That's where you're going to go. No problem. I just have to find effective ways of communicating to get you to focus on health. And sometimes that means I trick you. Sometimes I mean, I say, oh, yeah, you really want that. No problem. We're going to move in that direction, but I'm going to do it in a healthy

way. It's my job to do this and to help you do this the right way. Now why? Because it's the only way. Okay, there is no You know chase aesthetics and you'll get healthy and you'll get aesthetic It doesn't work that way if you chase aesthetics you lose your health and then aesthetics fall over and they're gone anyway The truth is the health leads to the aesthetics by the way That's how I used to sell it. Reflection of it. That's how I used to sell it to people.

But you as a trainer, if my client comes in and says, I know you said, Sal, I gotta work out, but I just wanna burn as many cows as possible. I wanna be super-sourge. I've had clients actually tell me this, look, I'm paying you, do what I tell you because I'm paying you. I don't think you understand how our relationship works. It doesn't work that way. I'm not gonna just do what you tell you because I'm paying you. I don't think you understand how our relationship works.

It doesn't work that way. I'm not gonna just do what you tell me because you pay me if I know that it's wrong. And you may think it's right, unfortunately I'm the expert here. Well, we have to explain why this doesn't work. It doesn't work because when you come in and you're chasing aesthetics

and that's your main priority while you hire your trainer, That that most often the not and when I say most of not 99% of the time is rooted in insecurity and or vanity and both of those are fleeting. And both of those will eventually lead to poor unhealthy decisions, even if temporarily it gets you to a short-term goal. It will not be a long-term solution to the problem that you have. So we know that even if, in a short term, it could work to sell that idea or be okay with that, we know that we're not really addressing the root cause of why this person got to being unhealthy.

And if we truly want to help them, like we say we want to, we will focus on health. And of course, aesthetics follow. Yeah, also, I mean, it's very subjective. And so what's the problem with that? If we're not, if we're basing how we're looking as we're going through the process, that opinion of that person's self

is going to change along the way. And it might not be good enough even when results are happening. So the goal post just is gonna keep moving and moving and moving. And to the point where we get into the unhealthy range where we're pursuing that that looks at such a degree that all that's left is to really intensify everything that we have in front of us.

Look, if health was good and aesthetics was evil, chasing aesthetics is literally going down the evil path. What do I mean by that? Well, let me use a great example. Data is very clear on this. The age at which people are the most satisfied and accepting of their bodies. Okay, the age at which people look in the mirror and say, I accept this and I'm happy with this, okay? It's not 20 years old. It's in their 60s. Huh?

Huh? 60s? Like objectively 20 year olds have more beauty in youth, obviously, than some of the 60s. How is it that body acceptance reaches its peak when you're probably in your worst shape? Or you're sitting in your sixties? Yeah.

Because it's subjective. This is based off of something you will never, ever accomplish. If you always chase aesthetics, you will always lose your health. Eventually you ignore all the signs your body's telling you. I'm tired, ignore it. My body hurts, ignore it. My digestion's off. Ignore it. Just keep chasing this unattainable goal where you look in the mirror. It's like a fun mirror. What you see is not really what is happening. So you have to always focus on health. Now here's the beauty of it. Healthy looks good. focus on health. Now, here's the beauty of it. Healthy looks good. Healthy looks good. So if you do this for your clients and you do this right and you convince them through

intelligent, effective, slow, sometimes communication, then they will be pleasantly surprised with the aesthetic results. I used to love that. I used to love, you know, I'd get a female client and we'd have these battles back and forth over the scale and we'd have these conversations. And every time they'd leave, I think I got to them and they'd come back and we'd have these struggles. And I understand because I had my own body image issues. And so I get it. And I'll never forget, I used to love this. They'd come see me and they'd be so happy. And I'd be like, what happened? They're like, well, I know the scale hasn't moved, but I just saw four people I hadn't run into in a long time.

So I hadn't seen these people for like six months. Every single one of them asked me how much weight I lost. Yeah. But I haven't lost any weight on the scale. I'm like, you think maybe your view of yourself is a little distorted. Right. Like, yeah.

All right, let's not trust that anymore. Let's just keep moving this direction because we're moving in the right direction. All right, here's the next one. This one's a big one because as trainers, we get so excited, we have all the information, we have all the answers. This one can be really hard and this one is this.

I will always meet my clients where they are. Okay, that means that they're gonna take small steps sometimes when they could take bigger steps and you know They could take bigger steps, but that's okay. I'm going to take every single little win that I can't I'm going to meet them where they're at They took me a long time to get this one. Ooh, this one took me a long time. Yes. Yes I You know, I use this example a time because this is just kind of a clear one, but I have probably a million examples But it was like, you know, ladies sits down with me and says,

you know, look, I can only work out once a week. I mean, I, you know, I was very convincing and motivating and I can talk really well. And sometimes I convince the person, no, no, you get a coming three days a week and, here's why. Here's why and it's gonna make you a better mom. And I know you don't have time,

but you actually get more energy, so you can create more time. And I paint this whole picture and sometimes I convince them, sometimes I would it and then when I would convince them of course It was too much of a commitment for them at first like they had told me and they ended up falling off or I blow them out of the Water because they're looking at me and they're like what is this guy know? There's just no my life or you landed the anomaly and you confirmed your bias Yeah, and now you keep saying that same bullshit. No reality would what I used to do What after you know when I really figured this out,

I was just saying I can only work out once a week, no problem. Yeah, we're gonna start once a week. Sal, don't touch my nutrition, no problem, we won't talk about your diet. Sal, I don't wanna do that exercise. It's a good exercise, it's got benefits, but if you don't wanna do it, that's fine, let's try some alternatives.

And then my job was to find a way to get them to move somewhere else so I can meet them there. That was my job, but I always met them where they were. If you're here, well, that's the only way I'm gonna be effective, so I'm gonna meet you exactly where you're at. Well, and this is especially difficult if you're a new trainer and you're basing most of

how you think everything's gonna go off of like how you've been able to tackle some of these issues and like how you've been able to tackle some of these issues. And like how you've been able to figure out how to exercise properly or be able to adjust your diet and you know create these types of disciplines. For me, this was very difficult because just seeing how the general population can even see me move as a trainer and try to then mirror what I just did. It was a complete opposite sort of a version of what I was doing. And for me to kind of step back and have to really reassess, okay, well, what do I present and how can I take smaller steps to get them to get to the desired outcome?

It's that like across the board. If you're asking them to change behavioral things, lifestyle things, this is a lot of times it's gonna take very, very small. Well, there's rules to negotiating. That's one of the rules. Like the worst thing you could do is to argue or debate somebody when they say something.

There's a really good book. I know Doug and I both have read it. It comes to mind right now and the title's subbing me. So maybe Doug, it was a negotiator who wrote the book. I know you read it this last. Never split the difference. Thank you. Never split the difference. Great read for this topic. And that's like one of the first things that even when somebody says something that I disagree with or I know is wrong, I, yeah, I nod my head. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And then I explain to them, well, you know, there's what has happened.

Sometimes people see that like the worst thing you could do is to go, no, or that's wrong or argue, because even if you're right in that situation, that automatically puts a wall up. And if your desired outcome is to convince this person that there's a better way to approach their health and fitness, and maybe that's two days or three days a week, or maybe that means doing that exercise that they don't like doing,

or maybe that means eating a certain way that they said they wouldn't do. You arguing with them or telling them how they're wrong is never going to get you there. So the first step of that is acknowledging and agreeing with their thought on it. Yeah, oh yeah, I know I see, I get where you're coming from. I have had clients before that, refuse to do squatting and stuff like that, no matter how beneficial it could be to them.

So don't worry, we'll do something else. And then over time, while we're in this relationship where I'm seeing them for hours, I'm subtly dropping hints to the benefits of seeing it from a different perspective. And you've got to pull them into thinking the same way that you do. So that's probably Sal, one of the biggest mistakes, especially highly intelligent, well-read,

educated trainers do is they're so hung up on being right or having the answers and being smart that they're so quick to point out anything that someone says wrong and that yet they have no understanding of what that does psychologically to the person across from you that you just did that too. And if the desired outcome is get them to follow you, that is the worst thing that you could possibly do. I had a client that one of my doctor clients referred to me

and she warned me. She said, I'm sending someone over and she's really reluctant, doesn't want to work out in a gym, doesn't want to work out with a trainer, but I've been talking to her and she needs to see someone. So I said, okay, so in she walks this woman, and literally the first thing's ever mouth, okay? I shake her hand, she's got this look on her face like,

you know, angry. And she said, all right, before we get going, before we tell me about what this is all about, I'm not gonna touch my diet. I'm only gonna come here once a week and I'm not doing any exercise on my own. List of demands, right? Okay, that's the first thing that I'm out.

And I said, no problem. Here's what we'll do with the one day a week that you're here and here's what we can affect positively with the one day a week. And then she said, literally, right after I said that she goes, wait a minute. Why aren't you gonna try and convince me to talk about nutrition?

I said, well, no, it's all beneficial. I said, but I wanna work with whatever you wanna give me and you give me once a week. And there's a lot we could do with once a week. We don't need to do all those other things to see some positive improvements. And she said, okay. And she hired me and I trained her once a week.

And the reason why I like using her as an example is because over time, she went from once a week to twice a week to, hey, what exercises can I do my own? To, you know what, I think I ate too much sugar. What do you think? You think I should cut sugar down in my diet? To, wow, this is really cool. Are there any books on this kind of stuff I can read to?

I'd like to become certified just for my own information. Here's what's awesome and sad about that story. Had that, this was towards the back half of my career. I'd already been a trainer for probably 12 or 13 years when this happened. Had she come to me, year two, three, four, or five? Blown around. Gone, blown.

And she would have got no help and she would have got no help. Yeah. She would have gotten no help and maybe turned off forever forever. But I know it because now would have labeled you as the fitness space. I tried trainers in general for sure. I would have blown around. She would never come up. You know, I shared on the show recently that this has been one of the biggest epiphanies

or changes in my career as I've gotten older, like looking at the overall health journey for somebody, it's so much bigger than macros and lifting weights. Like there's so many things that are encompassed in the health sphere, like everything from sleep to relationships with family to how you view yourself to walking to water to you I mean the list goes on and on and if I'm leading this person to having a healthier life and I can't get them to follow my macros I can't get them to do the exercises as many times or as many days we it doesn't mean that I can't impact them in 15 other ways that's going to make them a healthier version than what they were when they met me. And so I'm far better off accepting that they're not willing to do X, Y, and Z yet and helping

them where they are and starting to show them improvements because that's how you're going to get buy in. And that story that you share, that lady came to you for day two, came to you for day three, not you going, okay, are you ready for day two or like, okay, it's now it's time, no, you didn't have to because you proved through what she gave you that you could impact her life significantly. And so now she was open to hearing what other ideas you might have and then that leads you to getting them where you really ultimately want to have that.

And I have a lot of stories like that that I would have never, ever positively impacted, had I not figured that out. Literally, I would have failed so many people, had I not figured that one part out. All right, lastly, this one's also important. I will always aim for sustainability over speed with my clients progress. Look, here's how you define over speed with my clients' progress.

Look, here's how you define your success with your clients. It's not the results they get, it's the results they keep. Period and a story. The data is clear on this. Every year, millions of Americans lose weight and every year, almost all of them gain it back. Fail, fail, fail, fail. When you have a client come up to you and say,

ooh, I did this diet that really worked well for me before, or I did this workout program that worked really well for me, it actually didn't work for you. Because here you are again, we got to figure out a way to make this work. Now why is sustainability what we need to focus on? Because all they're gonna want is speed. Your job as a leader and a guide in this relationship

is to help them do this in a way that's sustainable. And that means a lot. What it means is there's gonna be conversations, there's gonna be battles, there's gonna be, where you're gonna have to give a little bit of, you're gonna have to give up upon so you can capture the queen later. Remember I said this is chess.

You're gonna have to play the long game with this but your responsibility all the way back to the first one It's your responsibility and you know this as a trainer you know when you're watching your client This isn't gonna this is not sustainable like she just cut all carbs out of her diet and she went from not working out to now She's running every single day This isn't gonna. There's there's no, it gets great. Losing weight, you feel better, but this is not sustainable. I need to work with this person to help them do this in a sustainable way. This is the most important thing you can focus on as a personal trainer, because if you don't do this, you fail. It seems clear, but for people that achieve success in terms of their idea of reaching and achieving their goal, but there's no way they can stay there. You didn't succeed.

You failed. And that's a hard pill to swallow because there's a lot of methods to get into that direction where you're going to achieve a certain body fat percentage or you're going to achieve a certain physique. And you can get there, you know, a multitude of ways. There's only one right way to do it. The only way we can measure that is whether or not it was sustainable, what you got there. This commandment or rule is what radically changed the way I recommended diet and nutrition to a client. Totally.

You know, that has to be one of the most challenging things, right? Of all the things that we teach and help people with getting consistency, adherence around making good food choices has to be the Achilles heel or the greatest hurdle that we ever had to do. If you were with me for an hour, I'm controlling your workout. And so that's easy, but I'm not with you for the other 23 hours of what you put in your mouth. And so that is really, really difficult. And when most people are struggling with weight, they've gone through the diets already. They've yo-yoed up and down. And so how am I any different if I assess and then go right into the game of,

okay, this is what you're eating. Here's, you know, 1,300 calories. And we're gonna lose weight and just come and show up. And like, that was such a losing battle. And that was when I began to look at it differently and go, what if I, when I assess their diet, instead of going, oh, there's no me told calories, they are, let's cut and restrict. What if I focused on

adding things to their diet? What if I focused on giving them what they need versus taking away from them? What would that do to adherence? What would that do to building muscle, building their metabolism and how how much more likely would they be to be able to sustain that and keep that weight off of their rest of life? It completely changed my success rate. It was like mind blowing for clients. Let me just to communicate how important this is. This is how I modeled my business towards the end of my career.

Okay. What will end up happening as a trainer when you have clients that really like you, is they're going to sometimes find ways to train with you more often. I know we work out twice a week, so I want to hire you for four days a week. I want to work out five days a week.

And usually I would say no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Actually, there's a lot we can do in the two days a week that we train, and I want to focus on that before you add extra days. Now, I could have had them buy more sessions and seen me more often, but I knew that that was an unsustainable approach to them. In fact, the way that it typically looked for me

with new clients was they would start with me two or three days a week. Eventually, I would have the conversation with them, right, move them down to two or three days a week. Eventually, I would have the conversation with them, right, move them down to two or one day a week, then I'd move them down to once every other week, then I'd move them down to once a month. And I had a number of clients like this. What was my goal?

Sustainability, what is sustainability? At some point, you're not gonna be with me. At some point, you have to do this on your own. And I did this and you know what's funny? People listening to that, it's dumb, you have to do this on your own. And I did this, and you know it's funny, people listening to that, it's dumb, you're making less money. No, my business exploded because of this approach. I hate the false, strange idea that if I get my clients results, and then they can do it for the rest of the lives on their own, somehow I'm losing clients, I'm going to lose my business. This is a terrible, stupid mentality.

If you really want to help people, then help them. By the way, that's what's going to make you successful. So clients would tell me, I want to train with you more often. And I would say, no, it's not necessary. In fact, we're going to train less often. And I'll give you some workouts you can do on your own. And I moved a lot of clients in this direction to where they were training less often with me, but then able to maintain on their own by the way. This is now I don't know having trained people for

A long eight years maybe I still am friends with some of these people They all continue to work out on their own. Yeah, they all continue to work on their own. That's real success That's right there. That's real success and look if you're a trainer and you're listening to this Share this with your clients share it with your clients because it's gonna give them some insight in your peers. Definitely with your peers, that's obvious, but share it with your clients and be like, man, this is why I became a trainer

and I really enjoy working with you. And thank you for the opportunity for allowing me to potentially make a positive impact in your life. I want you to know, by the way, you've made a positive impact in my life. I want you to know by the way you made a positive impact in my life. Look, if you love the show, head over to MindPumpFree.com. Check out all of our free fitness guides. We have a lot and they're free.

You can also find all of us on Instagram. Justin is at MindPump Justin. I'm at MindPump to Stefano. And Adam, is that MindPump Adam? Thank you for listening to MindPump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump Media.

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