The Uneducated PT Podcast - Phil Donnelly The Art Of Building A Successful 121 PT Business

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

In this episode we talk to 121 business owner Phil Donnelly about how to grow a successful business while still keeping the morals and values of a PT who has client care at the front.

First of all welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you for going. Great to be here. I want to start with something that always reminds me of what makes a good personal trainer. And when I think about it, I think about you during COVID, training people out their back gardens with resistance bands, a light dumbbell. Anything. And that's literally all you needed. And it reminds me of the quote as well, you don't need more resources, you need to be resourceful. and what I wanted to ask you basically was do you think all them little experiences and obviously everything else that you've done in your career has led you up to this point now where you have a thriving one-to-one personal training a business where you have a team around you and that it's seeing such huge success do you think it's all them little experiences and

a little bit of a grind that's got you to this point yeah I think I think small things compound you know and whatever those small things are I think they're different for every single person, but I think the small things matter and they matter a lot. And especially with if you're in a people, sort of orientated business, that's going to be everything. You know, it's just simply having the, having the ability to maybe, as you said, go through a tougher time or go through a time that a lot of people probably got out of the industry or thought there was no point or there was all the barriers stopping loads of coaches and in-person coaches like our industry was somewhat like dead.

Anything one-to-one. So absolutely, but I think it's just, it's just, you know, it's just. just having, I think it's one question that you said to me as well even before it came and it's like, it's like having a purpose, having your values and just knowing, knowing why you're doing what you're doing. And I think you will, as cheesy it is, or the cliché is like, if there's a will, it's a way. Like if you're going to, if you want to do something, you'll, you'll find a way, you know, that kind of, because that was before, that was actually pre-opening my own gym as well, so it would have a lot different if I had my own space. Yeah.

But I was sort of thing, like, what else am I going to do? There was, there was no, there was not really any other options, but like, I loved what it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't an incentive for me to get out of the industry or do other things. A lot of other people store different jobs, different career paths and things like that. But for me, I just sort of just kept the head down and just kept doing it. I don't know what kind of lifetime it seems. I don't know if that seems 10 years ago, four years ago, it seems to be a mad. I love it though because like I just remember you driving in your car,

going to house to house, having the resistance bands, having the dumbbell, putting on these really creative sessions for someone in their backyard. where as another PT who might not be as passionate about their job or you know doesn't look to upskill themselves enough like they would have just had the the mindset that oh you know COVID is here so nobody can go to the gym and nobody can train yeah I'm happy you saw it because like a lot of people don't see that side I like the things the things that I did like even when I think as well I don't think my health and my training was in a worse position at that point in time as well just because it was probably just the most unfavorable thing I was in the car or it was basically glorify taxi driver weights weights in the back yeah and right now I sometimes you know when you do something and it's only in hindsight you actually really think about oh god did I actually do that yeah did I actually go through that stage maybe it was just a chapter and that was definitely one of those times because it was just yeah it was just such a bizarre time but I just I just did it I don't I didn't I didn't give myself to

think about it but I was just driving I remember there was like I was driving from south side like Sandieford I was driving from Sandieford to drum conjure Yeah, huge, huge travels in the job. And then from, and then I was driving from Junkandra to, let's see, for example, another place in sort of closer to town, Rathmines, Rathgar. I bet you I'd charge a petrol. I was in town. I was looking at $500 quid a week, just going through petrol. But it was just those things, like I said, it was just...

It wasn't about the money done. Yeah, it wasn't about it. It was more to keep my own, like, I always have to, you probably know it's about me, like, I always have to be doing something. Like, I have to keep myself active, and that was just my form of doing something, you know? Yeah, but yeah. Tell me about your other experiences of the PT to kind of, before we bring this full circle to the, to the thriving business that you have, like, tell me about your time in Canada and Australia and the things you learned from being on the gym floor there.

I'm going to keep this quick, as I said, I'm not going to go three years of chatting here. I was basically, got qualified here, I was in college as well, got qualified here and I had a few different jobs in sort of the health and fitness sector gyms, but nothing. too serious and it was nothing I really loved I loved the industry but it was like any personal training you get in maybe at the ground and the base level of something and just sort of find your feet with things it's never going to be the most glorious job and then when I finished college I knew I wanted to travel I definitely wanted to experience new things but I definitely knew I also wanted to

stay within the health and fitness industry so that's when moved to Vancouver first and that was really funny enough I just got off a call with who my boss was in Vancouver, Donnie just got off for like a mentoring call with him there, like just to ask him about a few things with business, things like that. And I really have, Vancouver, Groundwork Athletics was the place that I worked in. It was very similar to almost what we do.

It's a personal training studio. And I have honestly, absolutely every single thing to thank for that, for probably that part of the job, in that part of my career. Do you think that your experience there has had a big impact on the way that you run your business? Everything, absolutely everything. Everything from,

but it's also, I've learned not only so much about what I do now from the beneficial aspect of like, okay, I want this in my business and I want this and this is good. I've also learned what I absolutely don't want in businesses as well. And there's a certain, I don't want to any name because I don't think it's very favourable. There's a certain gym that I worked in and they just did everything wrong. Like, client care and coaching quality is like the integral part of my business. And it's how we, it's again, how we please clients. It's how we generate revenue. It's how we, our client retention is really good. Client care is like the number one thing. Like you care about the client who comes into you.

And this, this gym or this, this business more was just everything opposed to that. And I think it gave me such a good insight of exactly what I wasn't going to do. Yeah. When I had, because I always wanted to have my own gym. I always wanted to have sort of have an independence and do my own thing. And I just noticed like, this is definitely not, not what I wanted. And then when I moved to groundwork, so I sort of saw that was a place in Vancouver, this is how things should be done. Like this is what this is what the industry is and I just I just fell in love with it more and it was a lot more independent so it was like a subcontractor so yes I was working under the business name and but for the most part I was somewhat self-employed

I chose my own hours I chose my own schedule I took time off sort of where I wanted where I needed but that was a real that was a real push season for me and it was a point in my life where when I look back now the hours that I was doing the work then the hours that I put in it was just like it's always funny someone might look at my my job in my life now and think it's it's so calm and collected and well composed. If you just rewinded back to those stages of an early coach and it's just putting skin in the game. The stuff that I did it was just so one of my first clients was at half five in the morning. That was the start time of the session.

So I was usually there at about 10 past five, which meant getting up because I had to get a train in as well. So it wasn't really walking distance. I used to get up at around half four in the morning. And then I coached throughout the day. I would have training sessions and then sometimes my last session would finish out around half 9pm and then I would go home and be home by 10 and I would and I would do that. At that start of your career really does literally take up your whole life, doesn't it? Yeah, exactly.

Like the hours are unsouchable, you are working mornings, you are working evens and if you work far away from home, you're staying there throughout the day. That's yeah, it is, it is sort of your life and that's another thing when also I think expectations are really, really important when I'm in a position now when I have coaches coming on board into the business as well, I want to know what their expectations are. So if you're a new coach and I said, I like young coaches and I like new coaches to the industry, I have to know what they're expecting because if they're expecting a 6am till a 2pm, a workday life, yeah, you're smiling. I'm like, that's not going to happen. And that, so I think it's just really important to outline those expectations from a coaching perspective because I think the progress and the growth and the fulfillment that I've seen

is because I did those really, really tough days. and it gave me a lot of perspective. I also think it's practicing and homing in on your skills. You can't do that without putting just continuous work and effort in all the time. And that's what Vancouver really was for me. And then very similar. I wanted to still travel. I wanted to do things. I still wanted to see more. And then I did something very similar to that in Australia. So I worked in sort of a gym. It was sort of not as work intensive because we were only there for a year. We knew we're only going to be there for a year. But that's actually when I started PDPT. That's actually when I started. I started the business in Australia and I just rented very something similar to this.

I just rented out of space and I just wanted to get the brand and find myself. You know, I just wanted to actually find what I was doing in a gym setting. And then when I came back to Ireland, that's going to really sort of kicked it off. And let me talk to me a little bit about the business now. So growing up to a four person team, seemed to be a five person team. Staying in a four person team. Staying in a four person. Staying in a four person.

Yeah. Now, what are the challenges and difficulties of transitioning from fail the PT to fill the gym owner who has to look after their team now? Is it a big difference? It is. It is. And I think... Do you feel that you have to...

Do you step away a little bit from a little bit more in terms of responsibilities of the one-to-one sessions? And... Yeah. Round about way of saying this. Yes and no. delegation is really hard for me. It's something I've had to learn.

You want to do it all? I want to do it all. And I've always thought, like, my way is because I've seen maybe the success of what I've done, like this is the way you do it. And delegation has been a really hard part of something that I've had to learn. But in order to grow and improve, you have to be delegating. You can't be doing everything yourself. And that's something that definitely has helped me transition that over a lot easier,

being able to delegate different parts, different people. and of course just coaching hours. We're a one-to-one personal training business, and there's only so many hours that I actually have in a day. So that's, of course, you have to delegate. If you have more leverage with certain things, like if it's online or you can start refining systems, and it's a lot easier for you to sort of buy back your time.

But people are paying us literally for a one-hour session or a 50-minute session. So you have to delegate to more people. And then with that, I think the second thing that has really helped me is the big difference is as soon as my first, First coach, Paul, came on, my right-hand man, he's literally sort of, I'd say we're always just like the same person. And he's just, the business would not be where it is without him as well.

And for that, as soon as he came on board, I detached myself almost emotionally from the business because it's not me anymore now. I am somewhat an employee of the business. We have that business and then under the business name, I am here to help manage and have that focus and that's something that's really helped as well well that's a thing with business owners as well isn't it is that their ego of being the center of the business can take front and it can affect their decisions about the business yeah and i've i've tried to actually do the complete opposite and i've actually really tried to detach myself because i knew as soon as i

where i wanted to be from a business perspective and where i needed to grow and to be i knew that i needed coaches and if i need coaches i need us all sharing that same vision that the same values our core values in order to adhere to all the things that we want to be doing. What are them core values of the gym? I have sort of my four P's of like my sort of core values. One of the most important ones I'm going to leave to last because I think that word can get diluted quite a lot. I have personable, I have progressive, I have maybe the last one, I mentioned it's professionalism.

that one can get diverted a little bit, I'll touch back on that one, and then purposeful as well. Yes. So when I'm looking sort of the first three, purposeful is that's really important to me with any client that comes in as well. We have to know what the purpose is behind why that client is with us. And that seems like such a generic and simple thing to say in it people like, oh yeah, they want to lose that. They want to exercise. The purpose can often, we all know this, like it comes back down to why someone is doing. Something is going to be really the dictating fact of why they commit to it long term.

or try it out and say fitness isn't for me. So we always want to know one of our big sort of core values is we have to know exactly where a client is and why they're with us. That's really, really important. And for any coaches, probably watching this, that's a very sort of, it's a hard question to ask like, can you say that every single client on your team right now,

they know exactly where they are in their coaching journey, what they're trying to achieve? Are they confident they're achieving those things and are they getting those, the things that they need from their coach? And I think a lot of us could be like, I'm probably lacking in a few of those things. So purposeful is really important and there has to be purpose behind why a client is with us.

And that's a really core and important thing for us. Because otherwise they'll get lost if they don't kind of understand the journey of where they are on the journey. Precisely, yeah. And then you start running into the things of not having time and all these sort of maybe, if you want to use excuses, but it's just having purpose is really important. If you have better purpose, you understand why you're doing things. And I think there's far greater acceptance to why you have to do these things. When I look at Personable, it's sort of in the name, but I don't care how,

someone is and how technical technically good someone is a coach if they can communicate that in a way to a person and it's pretty useless especially us social media is amazing because you can somewhat hide behind a laptop a little bit with online coaching we think the best thing with coaching is like you have to be able to communicate it's like we deal with emotions we deal with people every single day and it's just it's not just communication but even just like reading how you communicate tone that's exactly as you said it's reading when someone walks in and that that's something that no matter what

you do, you could be, I think, do online coaching all you wanted. If you haven't been, because I know you've been on the floor, you've been an in-person PT as well, you have to know how to read people. And that often dictates how you're going to coach you. Communication, people think words when like words is only a small bit of communication. Yeah, it's like they say 90% of communication is it's your body language. And you can see it when people come in and if I say, how are you? Yeah. But you can almost tell from their first answer. I'm fine. Exactly where their body goes, you know. And I think that's really important. So it, have to be personable, like one of our core values is like you have to, I think you have

to have that personal aspect and that person ability, that sort of be personable to each client and making sure you're dealing like, we get lots of different characters, lots of different personalities and you have to be a bit of a comedian, you have to be able to adapt to these different people. There's a great, there's a great quote or saying I was reading the other day and it was like 90% of any job is how you deal with people or being able to deal with people. Yeah, exactly. We get, and our job, we get so many different people of different, like, just different personalities. I think that's, are really like but that comes again with time skin in the game the more people the more

faces that meet you the more you the better you're gonna get with that yeah and the third one is progressive and what I mean by this is I think it's very important you probably see me and a lot of the coaches as well and it's very hard to I think it's very hard to sort of instill empower and also set an example for a client to someone who comes to you and if you do not have these set of standards or a progressive nature yourself as a person whether that's being a better coach and upskilling your coaching, your services, your content, even your own personal health and fitness things as well, as much as you want to say, oh, listen, a good coach doesn't have

to be in great shape. I fully agree with that. But I also think you also need to be showing that you can walk the talk. And I'm a firm believer with that. I absolutely don't want to make a preface with that. I think coaches who think that they need to eat 500 calories every single day and have shredded abs and look gaunt and look sick. hop on stage is inspirational and like that's progressive. I just don't agree

about it. I just don't think that's going to be, I just don't think that's the coolest thing to do sometimes. If that's what progressive means as a person, great. But I think a coach should always have their own vision, their own, their own markers of success and where they want to be. Yeah, you should embody your business. Absolutely. I think that's really important. And I really mean this. If you are actually asking and somewhat expecting people to do things, especially in health and fitness, I definitely think you should be able to, you should be able to do it yourself. And That's why I'm such a firm believer of the message that I have the donut and have the drink. Yeah, yeah.

Because I have the donut and have the drink. Exactly. Exactly. And at the end of day, words are quite cheap and if you say things and... Well, if I was to say that like, oh yeah, it's okay to have the donut, but I never like go near junk food or anything like that. Well, then that's me being a fraud in terms of my messaging. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.

And at the end of day, you'll get caught out with that sooner or later in action. Actions talk, you know? So I think, of course, I could stand there to all of my clients and tell you them what to do and why this is good but at the end of days well simple things if I want to demo a bench presser and I can't yeah that's and that's the simplest form of progression I don't mean is again you have to be a certain body fat or lift 200 it's not that you have to bet you could you have to be able to bench 180 kilos it's so you know how to bench precisely that's exactly so I can so I think

that's from a progressive nature you need to be having these things and upskilling and being progressive yourself that that's one thing that's really really important to us is a core value and and the last one is um professionalism and this is this is one word that gets quite diluted quite quickly and to touch on this and to digress a little bit with this, I think it is so important with business, but also when we talk about health and fitness and if they mold, I would think business and health and fitness mold really nicely into one. I think there's a lot of aspects that are congruent to both. I think it's so important to define your terms.

You have to define the terms you use. You have to know what you're actually saying when you use a word. And I think a lot of people don't and that's why I avoid the word healthy quite a lot because we all have such different terminologies and definitions. Healthy could be eating the pizza or not eating the pizza. Could be anything. Eating, having a glass of wine

could actually be incredibly healthy and we always go through this. The context matters and the definition matters. And I think when I use this word professionalism, there's such a wide variety of why people and when people use this word

and tell you a little story. Went up to a coaching seminar in Belfast. I remember saying it there. Yeah, the PFCA. I follow a lot. And further education and South Development is really important to me. So any opportunity we can get to go to these kind of courses, we always do. Went up to Belfast.

And there was loads of gym owners, loads of coaches all sitting around in the seminar. One of the guys said, Jen's, he said, to people who was running the workshop. He was like, tell me sort of like what some of your core values are. Like, what does your business do really well? And every single person, every single coach and business owner goes, I'm professional. We're very professional. Person on the right hand side said, we're very professional. the person on the left-hand sides were very professional

and the other persons that were very professional and it was just this word that was used and I'm not saying the word was wrong however I knew a lot of these gym owners and I knew a lot of these coaches and again it's not saying that their professions were wrong or they weren't being professional but my term of professional

and their term of professional what they do is completely different and you can see that from simply the things that they do and if you have a term you have to know within that term like what are the tasks what are the commitments and what are the actions that are going to align with that term you use. And let's say, for example, if I say, oh, we're, like, it's in sort of our headboard

on the front of our studio, it's providing professional personal training to all. I need to know what that term is. I need to know what facilitates my business to be professional. And if I don't know those things, I'm like, why is that word there? So with one of our core values, it's constantly having all of these things and these tasks and these commitments that essentially align with that word. it's being punctual, it's being, it's being prepared, it's being well-poised, holding yourself. We see a lot of coaches putting their hands in their pockets in the middle of coaching sessions,

on their phones, holding coffees while they coach. Yeah, sure, have a coffee, have a monster, we do as well, but it's like, where's your attention if you're holding a cup of coffee? Like, would you say if you had a doctor, if you had a solicitor or a lawyer in these high-end professionals, would they be in a court case holding a cup? And it's easy the kind of things that we will, yeah, you can say the word, but it's like, what are the, what are you actually, what are you actually, what are What is the meaning? Like, what are the actual tasks and commitments that you're adhering to that align with that?

Because professional to someone could be not professional to someone else. Yeah, precisely. And it's just making sure, and that's okay, but it's making sure for your business aligning what it means to you. So those three things. Progressive, purpose, purposeful, personal and then professional. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I want to go into training concepts because I know you enjoy talking about this. Oh, I love it. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to quote a few of things that you have said. and then I just wanted you to dive into them. And this is probably the one that I enjoy the most. Hopefully I still agree with them.

I haven't changed my mind. No, you definitely agree with this one and I loved it. It was that if you haven't planned, prepared and assessed for the week ahead, you're not trying your best. Explain that for me. Okay. In a client context. I'm actually going to expand on that from a from actually a post that I made more recently with this.

And this is something like all of my, again, my methodology to my, my concepts, my thoughts, they always evolve. They always get better. And I could have been completely wrong about something. This still stands, which is great. Thank God. I can expand on this. But I think when we're looking at outcomes,

when we're looking at wants and desires, we can fall victim to always say, like, oh, I'm trying my best. Like, oh, but I'm doing my best. It's like, all you can do is your best. And there's going to be a certain point where we actually have to be much more objective and less subjective with this and say, sometimes your best actually just isn't good enough for what you want here.

And I think when people will be like, oh, I'm training my best, I'm preparing or if I'm, I'm doing my best. And if we actually look at things way more objectively or like, and less subjectively and thinking like, okay, well, what is your planning? What is you're preparing? What is your assessment methods? And then if you're sort of like all these things are quite loose and you say, but I'm, like, I'm just trying my best.

you have to start being more objective with these things and the moment you do become more objective with these things you'll start to find out you'll progress you'll start I think cutting maybe I don't like to use the word excuses but you start being a lot more real with yourself it won't be as emotional about it which a lot of people are yeah it becomes much more factual and I think

that becomes a lot easier for you to start making progress when you say hey this is working this isn't and I think when you become a lot more real with yourself those things you can really start seeing the progress with that so but I think that there are three things for me it's if you're not doing those things even to a small degree they don't have to be big they don't have to be I'm not a massive advocate of calorie counting I make everyone do it at the start for simple education which is our clientele like we said like every clientele is going to be different I don't think it's going to be a really sustainable thing for a lot of our clientele

do I need them to do it to start to educate them about food yes but it's also like I don't expect hey you need to track all this track this track this track this but I'm also thinking like hey listen if we want to improve this we probably just need to be a bit more objective with this. And if someone goes, I'm trying my best, probably like, I'm a coach now. I've changed my coaching tone a lot because I would have been like, okay, yeah, no problem. My younger coaching, you're like, you are trying your best. Now, now, now, now, now you're all rude. Now, now you're so right. Now I'm at a position of my career and I also as well, people are paying, paying me for my honest advice. I can, I will very confidently be like, you're not, you're not. And I just said, you're not, I said, we can do better.

You're not there, you're not their chairleader. Yeah. You are when, when they do what they need to do, but sometimes being a real good coach is just having a firm fit and being like, all right, this isn't. Exactly, yeah. And I always think of the saying data over drama, so, okay, you know, have you food prepped? Have you stuck to your structured meals? Are you, you know, tracking your step count,

all this kind of stuff? It's those simple things, and like you probably see me as well, I always preach as well by what we do. Some simple methods is our task tracker. And it's in the name. It's like you just track what those tasks. It can be different for everyone, whether it's steps, whether it's calories,

whether it's food, protein each meal, Handful carbohydrates here, a handful of protein. It's just simple objective measures. Can you track this? Can you track this? And have you done it? And I think the three sort of words that I really dislike, because I feel like it takes people quite far off where they need to be,

is kind-ish and maybe. So it's like, kind of did this, and good-ish, and then like, did you do this? I sort of did this. And yes, I agree there's a grey area in health and fitness, but I also feel like the more black and whites that we can actually identify in and say, yes, I've done this,

or green or reds or whatever. I do feel like that will help a lot of people because when we start to move into these good-ish kind as sorties, they get lost. They get lost quite quickly as well. A lot of it is organisation, planning and then executing from that. It's the boring stuff.

It really is the boring stuff. Trying to sell it in a sexy way, but there's no sexy about it. That's exactly it, yeah. And it was, it's those kind of things like its spectacular achievement comes from unspeccable. spectacular preparation, you know, and it's like these things that look really cool, for example, the 50,000 followers, like these things look really cool on paper, on Instagram, on socials. But then behind it is actually all of these just really boring things that are built up over time.

People ask me, how did you do it? Well, I did a video every day. And they're like, no, but how did you do it? No, but how did you look at all these things? And like, how did you're like, no, I did a video all day. And the same with coaching. It's like, how did you do this? It's like, I coached every day. You know, it's these simple things, you know, but like I said, simple isn't sexy, you know, and we like sexy nowadays. And this actually ties in really good to another one that you said. So people ask how many reps they should be doing for a workout that they're not going to miss. They're asked for a number of calories to eat when they don't even track their consumption. Compliance underpins, everything.

Yeah. Go in on that one. Yeah, I think this is something, again, where I have, I listen to, I'm not a big, book reader in actual physical terms like I love audiobooks love podcasts I just don't learn all that well with books they never have and this is where I like a lot of the things that I listen to and I dedicate my focus into and it's just like it's information information information um zero application zero application zero application yeah and this is like what we've fed into is we think that the more information we have the more information that we read the more

information that we like expose ourselves to this is going to be really favorable and it's actually just like it's paralysis by analysis we look at all these things you look at all the information that we don't do anything and this is also like I don't I don't care I don't care what you do if it's if it's if a client's starting off I don't care if it's two thousand steps I don't care if it's thousand calories or two thousand calories just do it and say you can do it and then we can again take it from there we can dial it up or we can bring it bring it back down if it's too hard or too easy And these are the kind of things that people will, it's another phrase like they're stepping over dollars to pick up dimes.

It's they will step over these huge things that will give them such great returns and great rewards for their investment. And they'll be focusing on these really, really insignificant things. And then sort of worrying about like, oh, but is it is it this that's probably I'm struggling with? And it's like, but I don't like it this way and I go to the gym and is it, am I supposed to do this rep or this way? and I'm just like, how many times you've been to the gym? I've been twice this month. And then it's like, okay, cool. So we have all this information,

but it's just like the application. That's probably one of my biggest philosophies that I will always come back down to just like, track your action. Track the things that you're actually doing all the time. Like, are you actually the information, just take one little bite-sized piece and then do it. And how do we get a client to be more compliant?

How do we get them to take more action? Oh, I'm happy ask that one. Very happy to ask that one. I have, again, there's more like methodologies and concepts. And I think this will, this will be an interesting one to sort of, I actually just saw a snippet of one thing that you were doing with your group and you're talking about core values and sort of we follow, our actions follow what our core values are.

And I'll probably challenge you a little bit on this as well and to think about this a little bit differently. So if we think about like a triangle, yeah, can we put like a little image maybe here on the, I see, a little, a little. What do you will do that for us? A little triangle, so you have a triangle and on the top of the triangle and you have action, action or investment, okay, on the top of that triangle. On one side as well, it doesn't really matter which way the circle goes or the, you then have returns, rewards or results.

Okay, so sort of what you're getting to the actions and then the other far side of that triangle, you have value. And when you're looking, it's like the chicken before the egg or which comes first. And we're always looking at sort of what do I what do I value because if I value it, I'll do the necessary things But then we also have to think about now I'll sort of ask you a bit of a rhetorical question here Between me and you why do why do you value a run or a gym session? What makes what makes you value it? What makes a person who doesn't do any of those things? Not value. Why does it make those things not a core value for them and it makes it a core value for you and sometimes it can be hard to be like, um, like, can be hard to answer that sometimes. Like, why is it? And like, because you've done it, like, it can sometimes be like a little bit of a generic answer to that.

But at the end of the day, it's like if we go back to that triangle, this is a cyclical process. So the more action we take and the more things that we just do, that simple application, the more returns, the more reward that we're going to see for those actions, how you're going to feel after the run or how you're going to feel after the gym session. And that increases the value because we see, okay, I feel this way after I do that run. Then when we have that value, we are far more inclined to take more action and do the things that are making us feel that way. That is why we work out again.

That is why we do the run. So then the more action we take, it comes back again. Okay, cool. We're taking that action. So I get that feeling of how I feel after a gym session again. Or I may start now starting to experience physical change. And I might start seeing these things. So then I have that sense of return.

I'm like, God, I'm getting. returns this, this is starting to push closer up or higher up on my priority list now. And now I'm really starting to actually, I actually value this. Now I don't have to get someone to be like, you have to do this. It's like something like, I actually sort of want to do this now. And then you want to go to the gym again. That's why for me and you will never have to like think, oh God, I have to have to. It is just sort of ingrained to us, but it's ingrained because the action is difficult.

The action is difficult. And the reason it's not difficult is because we have gone through this circle and this system, thousands and thousands and thousands of times. So it sort of comes back down to that question where you're like, okay, you have to find your core value. You have to find your core value. But you're not going to value something if you have not seen the returns or the results of that thing.

And you only see the returns, the sort of returns for that thing from the actions you take. So the first thing that I always say to a client, if someone says, oh, but like, it's important. The first thing we need to establish your question, core values, sometimes I say, I was like, Carl, I don't care what your core values are. You actually just need to start doing stuff. Yeah. You need to start doing the stuff, even when you hate it, even when it's not a core value

for you, for you to start seeing these kind of these returns and then you're in this cycle. And that's a really hard thing to do. And if you say to me, like, how do you get people to do that? Great question. That's where it's sort of just like step by step going through things like, try this, try this, try this. But that's why I'm always action is on like just the forefront of my mind for most clients instead of thinking like going really deep into things which I've done before

I mean like where can I sort of manipulate your mind a little bit to make sure we're doing that and that's also a route of taken and sometimes I'm like that she just doesn't work as well and also the closing piece on this it's the same thing with me I just don't like designer clothes I like a 10 year a t-shirt from H&M I'm a dad now so like I asked my birthday a pair of like a marks and Spencer voucher like for clothes yeah I legitimately shop and markets and Spences and I love it now. That's really showing my age as well. So I don't like any brands. I don't like anything spending 300 year on a Gucci t-shirt or Valenciag and stuff. It just doesn't float my boat. It's not, it's not value to me.

But I'm not saying it's not valuable because people love it. People like, that's why it's the price it is. That's why people buy it. But for me, it's just like the action is buying it. The returns is someone saying or the feeling they get from wearing it. And then that's why it's a higher perceived value. And then they want to buy it again. But for me, it's as like, I just don't care for a 300-year-o t-shirt or I don't care that it says Gucci. So therefore, I'm just not going to buy it and I just don't see the value for it. But that's with health and fitness. It's just getting people to like sort of see what they value and then just basing where their actions come into that as well. But it's not saying, hey, that's not valuable. It's just saying that I don't really

value it because that's just me. But the problem we have there then is if someone doesn't value exercise but we still have to create them the action of doing exercise so eventually they do value exercise and that's that's essentially your job to get someone to do something that they might not value because they might not be good at it they don't have the skills at it they don't have the experience of it they feel uncomfortable they don't feel confident and it's you kind of pushing the steps towards yeah because I I would say one of my core values is help yeah if you asked me at 16 it's one of my core values of health well first

of all I wouldn't know a core value is but but I definitely wasn't held. I definitely didn't live a healthy lifestyle when I was going out on a Friday and coming home on a Tuesday morning. So, like your core values will change over time. But like you said, that's because I've seen the reward

of going out for the run and actually feeling a little bit better about myself. You always had a first gym session. Yeah, I had my gym session and then, you know, I felt a little bit more confident after a couple of weeks. Yeah.

And again, that goes back into what you're saying. So again, like chicken or the egg. Like you sort of thinking about that, but it is, for me, the reason I got into gym for a second, I used to play sport when I was younger, The reason I actually got into gym training is because all of my mates played rugby, I stopped playing sports. And I was like, I need to do something.

I was like, I actually need to do something. So I just went, I just joined Rock Fitness, which was down to under a lot, it's the fly fit now. I was like, I'm just going to go to the gym. And I started to go into the gym. That's as simple as it was. Like, I'm not going to glorify it more than that of thinking, like, when I was 16 in Wesley, I sat down and I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, you know what? This is going to be me now. I'm going to be, I'm going to be, I'm going to be PD personal training, going to build a business.

I'm going to do all this. like it wasn't as any way glorified or sort of romanticised or inspirational in that. I just said I'm going to go to the gym because I need to do something and that's where the action started. It's not because boredom. Boredom, maybe again, I was really sick of being sort of the skinny and active person. Not doing I'm saying I'm big now at all, but it didn't start with the value. Didn't start with me like I value this.

I just did did the stuff and that's sort of where I ended up now. You touched on fatherhood. I want to ask you about how has. your life changed since how do you feel that it's made your job as a personal trainer or a business owner has it enhanced maybe your skills and experience or has it made it more difficult or both do you mean for me for me as a coach or me for as a coach to clients I think for you I think yeah I think for you as a coach to clients maybe I definitely because before you were probably

trying on a lot of parents and you weren't one and you obviously you can empathise with situations but you don't know the experience you hit the nail the head you sort of hit the nail in the head with that that phrase there is I wouldn't say like better or worse because I think I've definitely I follow systems and I'm and I assess clients how they're getting on these kind of things but the word you said there is I'm a lot more empathetic yeah a lot more empathetic now and the reason I'm so much more empathetic because again is because there's something else that is now coming into your life whether you're a first time dad or mom or third, fourth, something has come that has taken, it's gone really, really high or at the top of

your priority list. Yeah. We can have multiple priorities. I don't like to label things as one, two, three. We just have things on the top of our priority list. Yes. And they don't have to be in a particular order. And they can change at different times. They can change, exactly, yeah, and they can all get different parts of your focus and energy. Yeah. And I think that is definitely something I've become a lot more empathetic because I just sort of, I see the struggles, I see where the thought, the focus, the energy has to be a lot of the time. And I definitely saw when, um, um, where my daughter Margo was initially born, like I saw the difference of just like the lack of sleep.

It's only in the past, like the first four months is incredibly hard. But I was anyway, like, daughter, she's the most amazing thing on this entire earth. But God, she's not a good sleeper. She wasn't. Now, for the first four months, we finally found our feet. We've got a system. We've got structures in place.

So we're getting more sleep now. But my wife, Claire, and myself, she's, we really sat into the edge of bed and we were hitting these points of fatigue that we've just never, ever, ever experienced before. And she's, she's doing work placements. student nurse and she was back into work pretty much weeks after having Margot as well. I came back into work as well and it was just trying to navigate all of these things and then what we always say is like as a naive coach you'd be like you just have to want it more.

You just have to try harder and it's like when you're when you're putting it you're put into sort of a sleep sort of a sleep or a lack of sleep with that kind of state you're just like everything is just ridiculously hard all the time and I think it's just giving me so much more for my clients in those kind of positions with just external stresses, work, family commitments. And I think the way my coaching has gotten better with that is because I'm more empathetic, I'm also just making sure that I'm very appropriate with expectations. And that's really, really important because it's going to be a certain point that if you are on the kind of sleep that we were and most new parents are,

your every action, every mindset, every sort of ambition is going to be massively impacted. You can't be chasing a six-pack when it's like that because it's just not going to be positive. Well, that's what I was going to ask you. Because, like, obviously, you can only juggle a certain amount of balls at a time and you have a business to run,

you have a new family, you know, like something has to give way. For you, would that have been your training? Yeah. I think as well, and this is where, for me, I was very lucky in a sense and I was lucky in two senses because someone said any advice as a new parent,

I would say, like, if you're with your health and fists, and start as soon as you possibly, possibly can. And the reason I'm saying that is it is incredibly hard. I'm lucky enough now that I have all the systems and I love, I've put the actions in, I see the reward. So it wasn't a task for a real sort of task or hardship for me to train. So I was managed to go in 30, 40 sessions, be very productive, be very efficient with my time. But my training didn't really take that much of a hit at all because I just had to refine and improve my systems with it. Yeah. And also do your business and your health goals kind of link in a little bit? It's much easier

for me exactly. It's not for someone else because I have the facility. I'm literally in my work so I can just do something and I can be that didn't take the biggest hit it was the other external stuff and my wife always laughed about it it's like the little things of like how we how we interacted with each other as a relationship absolutely like there was a lot of time we were so we were so practical we're like hey how's margot fed at this time and how she slept at this time and so maybe the playfulness like that does get put to one side because your actuas have this new thing that you need to keep alive yeah and that was a really sort of a big shit so work wise my team even

said to me they were like it's mad because we felt like you have not even dropped the ball even the slightest bit because I've tried to designate my energy and my efforts on the right things in the right proportions. Did I think I got it perfect? No, but I've definitely, I think I've handled it quite well. Do you think that why a lot of people can't get in control of their health and fitness goals or whatever goals they're trying to achieve is because they are handling too many balls at one time and not prioritising where obviously you in that situation you have, your priorities, your family, your business, your health linked in with the business. But everything else probably, you know, push the side. Do you feel that some clients that come

into you, you know, they want to, you know, have the drinks on the weekend and have the takeaway during the week and also lose 20 kilos. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think again, it comes back to the thing that I said. I think it's being very like, I just think it's being really realistic with yourself. And I think that's something that, I think that's a thing that people struggle with a lot is just being very realistic with yourself. And I'll digress on this a little bit because this is something I've been thinking about a lot. Maybe I'll challenge yourself on this as well. And I've started to remove the word should from my vocabulary, like quite a lot. And this is for a few reasons.

But as coaches, we are the embodiment of like, you should be doing this and you should be exercising and you should be eating this. and you shouldn't be drinking this much. And when these should words comes, it's like where instantly that word is stemmed from an expectation from someone else or somewhere. Like, oh, we should be doing this. And I think when we start using that kind of word of should, it makes it, I experience,

I have personally, experience a lot of resistance from clients being like, maybe I don't want to do it. No, I don't want to do that. It only comes from like if a client wants to do something, they will do it. And I think if as a coach, as a healthcare professional, whatever word we want to use, if we're always telling people what they should do, like, it's no surprise, they just don't do it. And then you're like, God, I haven't made it too

easier. They don't want it enough. And at the end of the day, it's like, there is no should. If you, what I always say is, there is no should, there's only a want, but have the greatest understanding of what the consequences are of what you do. So what I mean with that is like, there is no should, you shouldn't, if you don't want Xers or there's, you shouldn't, it's not like you should exercise. It's not like you should eat vegetables and loads of protein or you shouldn't drink. At the end of the day, it's like if you don't exercise, this is probably what's going to happen. If you don't eat enough protein and if you don't eat vegetables and you don't control your nutrition, this is what will probably be the consequences of doing that. I love that quote,

there's no solutions only tradeoffs. Yeah, that's exactly it. The tradeoff is, okay, you want to get in shape or your solution is you want to get in shape but the trade office now you have to try it. Yeah, that's exactly it. And I think we've sort of preconditioned things saying like, oh, you should be doing this, you should be doing this. It's like, if you, I mean, truly, this sounds like very weird as a coach saying this. If you want to go out and drink 20 points in the weekend, listen, if that's a party and that's what brings you happiness and you want to do that, how about it? I know it sounds like, it doesn't affect me. It only affects me if you're one of my clients and you're saying you want certain things. But if you want to do it, and like,

this is why, I don't know if you've ever got it. Let's say, for example, I'm at a party and Andrew comes up to me, he starts talking and he goes, what do you do? I'm like, oh, I'm a coach. Yeah, I used to exercise loads when I was a coach. Or when I was back in this gym, I used to train loads, used to be really good. But I've just sort of let go. I'm like, in a really nice way, I'm like this, I don't, like, I'm not judging you.

I'm like, people will start thinking that because I'm a coach, I will just start judging you because you are here. I expect you to be training. They're drinking beer and they're being like, oh, I usually drink gin and tonic because it's lower calorie, but I wouldn't usually drink this, Phil. And in a really polite way, I'm like this, I don't really care what you're drinking at a party. Like, I've just met you. And so with all these things, it's like,

it's, I prefer to start thinking, if a client wants to do this, cool, this is what we're going to do. If a client wants this, this is what we're going to do. If a client wants this, this is what we're going to do. And I think that's so much more systematic. And I also think there's such a better agreement of terms and conditions then, because they're agreeing to like I'm meeting you in the middle, you're meeting me in the middle, and then the commitment is far better.

Yeah. It even goes back to what you said even about, okay, what does that word mean? What's the meaning behind that word between what you want? It's laying out what you want, why you want it, and the tradeoffs of doing that. And that's yeah. And things get so much, things get far simpler when you do that. Yeah. Far simpler.

And like I said, if someone comes to us and sort of coming 360 to the question that you asked of when a client comes, it's like, how have you, approach things differently, it's just being more realistic with what they're expecting when they come in here. And that's what it is. If you're coming in and saying, these are the results I want, this is how we want to feel, this is the outcome I want. I'm just going to tell you, whether it's in a gym setting or a nutritional setting, I'm just going to tell you what the systems and the processes are. And it's up to you to be like, hey, listen, I don't really want to give up all of those things. And then I'm going to, and as coaches, it is not our job to them being like,

come on, it's our job to say, no problem, okay? What can we agree on? Where can we meet with this goal and then that's when success and that's why I really do think why our client retention is so high because We always meet clients where they are and then we have an agreement of what they want to succeed Well it goes back to one of your P's purpose You're mapping out the journey of where they're going to be when they're going to be achieving it because what they've Decided that they're going to do and that's the expectation Yeah, and if someone wants to have a good few drinks and eat out a lot in the weekends and that's their purpose but if I'm telling them they need a different purpose they're not going to stick to that.

And then who's to blame for that? No, you. Yeah. Only a few more questions and then we'll wrap it up. So I wanted to move on to a little bit of PT wisdom for young aspiring personal trainers. Is there anything that you would have done differently in your career? No.

Tell me about that. Yeah, there's like a lot of things. Like I said, I've, I've learned just as much on what not to do as I have on what to do from a coaching, from when I started being a coach to write at the end. And I think there's so many things that I've just gained so much value in when I've seen how things have been run or I've done things as a coach. I'm like, God, that was really dreadful advice. Or I've seen how a business is operating and things that they've done. I've definitely, like I said one of the main gyms that I worked in, client care was just probably on actually the very bottom of their priority list.

to my client care in a client-orientated business is not there. You're going to run into difficulty sooner or later. Values are a bit off there. A bit off with it, exactly. So they're the kind of things. The reason that I wouldn't do anything differently, as honestly, is if I did something wrong, there was such great purpose to that,

and there was such a great outcome of actually doing something wrong, so it wouldn't have changed it in that reason. Like one of the, I'll tell you a funny story, one of the, one of the worst pieces of advice I gave as a coach, I'm not lying. It is actually the piece of like. And again, I was learning from this and just learning how to navigate as a coach. And listen, we all have different methodologies.

Like some people preach keto, high carbohydrate, you know, cut all this, whatever your approach is. Yeah. Like, one of my coaching, coaching advices to one of my clients was if you're struggling to feel like it's being too restrictive, your nutrition is being too restrictive. On the weekends come Saturday and Sunday, you can eat whatever you want. Have your cheat day. Have your cheat days, eat like, and I'm talking about, like, go out of your ways and like, I said, write a list of all the foods and all the high calorie, highly palatable, highly attractive foods that you like, write them on a list and eat them all on the weekend.

And as much as you want. And I said, the words were it's, get them out of your system. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then come to Monday, you're going to be far more driven and think, I've had my treats and I'm ready now to make progress. That is the worst advice you could probably give from a physiological perspective, from a psychological, from a psychological perspective, a weight loss perspective,

from an emotional perspective, from a weight loss perspective, from every way you look at it. That is just not going to be, but yet again, it's like, you learn from those things to think like, and I still do it now.

Like I still think, like, okay, how have I approached that? Maybe wrong or different, and that's it. I wouldn't change anything. The mistakes have made you better because of them. Absolutely, yeah. And that's where,

I said from one of the first things where our talking points was skin in the game as a coach. Like you have to be in here, doing the hours on the, the gym floor to make those mistakes to know how to get better. And that's the only, you're not going to learn that of a book. I've a podcast, a mentor, you just have to do it, you know, so.

So what would your advice be to a young PT who wants to make a decent career and, you know, become a successful business owner like yourself? Like what do you think are the first steps for them in order to, to start that path and get on the road to where they want to become? I think that's a very long, that's a long answer. So I'm just going to start with like the first thing that I think you should do. because if I'm going through all the steps here, like what a successful personal trainer should do,

that's just going to be quite all-encompassing. So I'm going to keep it quite specific. And the first thing it sort of touches again when I talk about methodology and principles and concepts, they all apply to very similar things. Yeah. Is defining what your terms of success are. And that's something that I don't believe in coaches,

but also in personal training, maybe qualification sort of courses do enough. if I was to ask you like what's success to you with your business and like what success to me in my business again they could be two very very different things and my business alone or the way I do things I'll give you an example A and an example B and I always think about this right now let's say for example I'm A and right now I have a well established business my my top line revenue would be quite high but with that as well comes like a lot of extra costs in responsibilities and team members and sort of a lot more vision planning a lot more

safety nets to make sure everyone is like I'm responsible for people's income all of these things I'm responsible for a lot more hours I have to take upon myself to make sure my head is switched on and I'm clear with a lot of things at all times pretty much and whether I like it or I don't I don't really switch off either and to me of like where I also want to go like that's success to me that's a like what that means to me. But for a person who does want to do 20, 25 hours with a few clients every single week and rents out of the facility and really likes those clients and they get great results for them, but they want to stay within a certain tax bracket. They don't really want to

open up their own facility. They want to switch off. Once they finish at three or four, whatever time that is and a full day and they go back to their family and they're able to switch off and their phone isn't buzzing and they don't have to think about what I'm going to be doing next month and what I have to do to expand the business, that's absolutely okay. There is no should. There's only like what your expectations are and are your actions aligning with what those expectations are. And for someone on that side, it doesn't mean it's better or worse here. So I think the first thing as a coach you can do, it's like outline what you want in the industry. As a coach as a PT, like who do you want to be if you were sort of person auditing your own life if you're an external person

looking in on you like what does success look like is it your own gym is it loads of hours is it only a few hours is it more of a casual basis is it more of a boot camp is a group training is it one to one like define these terms of success and then you can then start outlining okay what are those the commitments i need to add to here to to align with that and then what are the tasks I need to do that align with the commitment, that align with the goal. And that's one of the first things I would do. I was actually like outline what you want from the industry. Like you said, if someone comes in, this is the sort of the big surprise that a lot of people

get to come in and they go, I want to be a personal trainer. Sorry, it's shit hours at the start. It's really shit hours. And then all of a sudden someone goes, oh yeah, I actually don't like this. Probably because they haven't established like what their terms of success are to them. And I think once you do that, it's much easier. We end up getting kind of dragged down following someone else's career. path or what looks because it looks successful to them like I want that chapter 10 to

chapter one yeah you know and like that's that's what it is and like if someone looks at me now my hours would be from six in the morning and depending on the day like I could finish up around two three when I say finish up that's my coaching day that's my one-to-one coaching day meetings could have me going until five meetings can go to four things like that but it can't be like oh that's what I want here but it's like you have to know what what I have done to get to this point yeah that also may not be favorable for you as well and that's another thing yeah it's just understanding again what what you want and what aligns with also your external life and again because that is something that you want it doesn't

feel like work as much as it would for someone else yeah absolutely yeah and I think that's it comes back down to the P word of purpose if you don't have that sense of purpose yeah you'll start questioning why you're doing stuff a lot and you won't really have much clarity with that and that's something it's like once you have a better sort of sense of purpose you'll know why you're doing stuff and you'll be a lot more confident doing it and if it's a it's a crap load of work I'm just like this is what I have to do. And it's easier to accept that for me, you know. Phil, it's been a pleasure as always.

I always love having you on here for a talk. So thanks for coming. Thank you very much. Pleasure.