3 Weird Lessons Gymnastics Training Has Taught Me About Business

Transcription

I’ve been doing some gymnastics training. That’s my new thing. And I’m going to share three weird lessons that gymnastics training has taught me about business, and specifically how it can help you build your business.

I may have mentioned this in a previous episode, but I talked about how when I was playing soccer for 24 years of my life, I’d never really had issues working out. I always had a very, very, very clear and compelling goal. Jump one inch higher. Dive one inch farther, et cetera. But when I stopped playing soccer, professionally at least, my workouts really had a lot to be desired, to be very honest. I didn’t have a compelling goal. I didn’t really care about packing on pounds of muscle. That was never really something compelling to me.

How I got inspired to pursue gymnastic training

I was listening on the plane to a Tim Ferriss episode on his podcast, where he was talking to an Olympic gymnast coach.  It was a three hour session. You know Tim Ferriss, just three hour marathon sessions. Everything he does is long and drawn out, which was really good for the plane ride.  I’m listening to this episode, and I’m thinking to myself, “This is what I want to do. This is what a want to do,” because a couple days prior, I’m dead lifting in my gym. And I’m thinking to myself, “I’m not really progressing on my dead lifts that much.” Because I’ve got a longer torso, it’s not really suitable for dead lifts. Every time I dead lift, there’s usually a little tweak. I don’t really … I mean, I feel strong. But at the same time, it’s like I’m one rep away from tweaking my back.

And I’m thinking to myself, “Why am I doing this? What’s the purpose of all this stuff?” When I came across the gymnastics stuff, and a great website that I’m using called gymnasticsbodies.com, and I mentioned this in a previous episode, heavily underpriced for what they’re delivering. This should be a premium priced program for the way I see it. It’s incredible. Anyway, I started getting into this. And the nice thing is that I can do the workouts with almost no equipment. There’s no barbells for the most part. There’s no heavy lifting. And it’s all about, for me at least, starting with a foundation.  I recognized that the reason I’m having an issue with dead lifts, for instance, is that I’m super immobile. I don’t have good ankle flexion, or good ankle flexibility. There’s a lot of areas in my body that are a lot tighter than they should be. And it’s also part of the reason why my shoulder’s always been limited when I’m playing tennis, which is as you probably know, what I love to do more than anything when it comes to sports.

When I looked at this, I said to myself, “This makes a lot of sense.” I’ve always admired gymnasts because not only do they have the most incredible physiques, but they’re strong, they’re flexible. They can do things that most humans can never dream of. And I’m thinking to myself, “That’s what I want.” I don’t care about competing in the Olympics. I’m not going to go to gymnastics school. But that’s the level of fitness that I want to achieve. And it wasn’t just so that I could do handstands. It wasn’t just so that I could do muscle ups, or ring work, or whatever, it’s the ancillary benefits that brings in my life. For instance, with extra mobility and proper range of motion, I’m able to play tennis at a much higher level for as long as I possibly can, without all the nagging shoulder injuries. That’s one thing.

When I get back into some more heavy lifts, I’ll have more mobility in my lower body to be able to crank out some of that stuff without a lot of the issues that I’ve experienced in the past. Those are some of the reasons that, for me, the gymnastic training just made a lot more sense than anything else I’ve come by. When I used to think of: When did I really feel my best, it was when I was doing hot yoga three times a week. And I think part of that was because I was just so limber and flexible, and my body just felt really good. Now what I’m doing is every single day of the week, I have something that I’m doing in my gym. I’m doing some kind of limber work, like limber mobility, flexibility type stuff. Or I’m doing some type of high volume, strength, body weight type stuff. Obviously, that’s following their protocols. And so far, it’s been really good. It’s been a challenge. Right?

The first lesson: You’ll suck at first

And that’s kind of where it segues into the lessons that I want to share with you in this episode because as I’m going through this, I’m thinking to myself, “These are like, everything I’m going through, and everything your clients go through,” for instance, if you’re a trainer and you work with clients, everything that they’re going through is exactly what you go through with your business. I want to share three really important lessons, kind of weird lessons if you think of it, but very, very applicable to your business.

The first thing, the first lesson, is understanding that you’re going to suck at first. Really. Now here’s the funny thing, is that I’m a very kinesthetic person. I pick things up athletically very quickly. Not everyone does. But even then, I’ve recognized that I’m really bad at flexibility and mobility stuff. So they’re doing seated pikes, back flat, so imagine you’re sitting on the floor. Your legs are straight out in front of you, knees locked, ankles flexed, your toes are pointing straight ahead, arms above the head. I can’t even do this properly. Biceps to the shoulders. You can see even on this video that I’m limited on this one side. But actually, the right side’s actually going a lot better. Anyways, arms by the head. And then hinging from the hips right down to the thighs, flat back. And I’m looking at myself, and I’m not even close to that. And my back is rounding out hard core.

What I’ve come to peace with, what I’ve come to terms with is that, listen dude, you’re just stiff as a board. Don’t expect to look like these gymnasts who are on the videos. It’s not even feasible for the next 12 months probably. You are in a point in your journey where you just suck at this stuff, and that’s fine, because I think the tendency if you’re a high performer, type A maniac like I am, is to expect perfection from day one. And that’s just not feasible. In your business, if you’re doing something new, like for instance our clients, they’re working with us, building out their perfect client pipeline.

And let’s say they’ve never written a Facebook ad before. Well thankfully, we give them templates, so it would kind of like be helping their hamstrings be more flexible. That’s kind of what we’re doing for them. But nonetheless, if you’ve never written a Facebook ad in the way that we teach, which is very story based, and you’re not really sure how to communicate a story properly, your first ad might not be great. And that’s okay because it’s just a matter of putting in the reps, and looking at what could be better, where some tweaks might benefit the copy. And that’s one example.

Another example, and I think this is probably the most relevant example, is if you have never done phone sales, if you’ve never, or if you’ve only had a few conversations over the phone with prospective clients, and they don’t enroll a few, it doesn’t mean that the process doesn’t work. It just means that you suck, and that’s totally fine. And that’s totally okay to admit because you have to start with awareness. And we spend a lot of time training our clients on how to get better on the phone, how to be much more confident and persuasive and how to really lead the discussions to a point where that person feels like enrolling with you and working with you is the right deal, and obviously, you feel like they’re the right fit to work with you.

But again, if you’ve done a couple calls, like one of our clients was posting some of his critical numbers in the group the other day. And his numbers were actually looking really good, except for the fact that he had three calls booked, and none of those people enrolled. And I said, “Listen, man. It’s all good.” It’s all good because you have to understand that you have to put in the reps. And I recommended to him and I said, “Listen. Find one or two buddies in the group. Schedule a daily practice session for the next one to two weeks, where you guys just hammer out the transition from the conversation to the close, whatever objections might come up.” We give them all that stuff. So I said, “You just have to practice this stuff.” And I asked him. I’m like, “Where did you drop the ball? Were these three people good prospects for you? Or were they just not qualified at all?”

He said, “No. They’re actually really good candidates.” He said, “Two of the three of them really should’ve enrolled.” And the good part about that is that when you acknowledge that, you understand that you’re just one or two tweaks away from a breakthrough because zero out of three is a very different business than two out of three. If he’s charging $2500 for his program, and he’s got three calls, and no one of those three enrolls with him, he’s batting zero. But if two of three enroll with him, he’s now made $5000. And he’s almost at a 500% ROI on his ad spend. Little things like that can make a huge difference in your business, but you have to recognize that if you’re not getting those types of results, you just have to be honest with yourself and recognize that you are responsible for the outcome that you create.

We talked about this in episode 236, I believe, with how to deal with potential clients who’ve been burned before, and they’re looking for 100% certainty that they’re going to get results. And I’m thinking to myself, “That would be like a tennis player hiring a coach, and expecting their tennis game to magically be top notch overnight.” You can’t expect that because you’re the person on the court hitting the balls. Right? It’s like you’re the person taking the phone calls. We can give you the training and the scripts and the frameworks and all the stuff to help you, but at the end of the day, you’re the person on the phone. And you have to get better at having these conversations. And for some people, that just takes longer than others.

In my case, if my posterior, or if my hamstrings and calves and achilles are super tight, I’m going to suck at a lot of flexibility work initially. And that’s okay. And that leads me to the second lesson here.

The second lesson: You must give it time and focus

The second lesson is that you have to give it time. You have to give it time. And this is probably an area that I may have, with other types of workout approaches, jumped ship too soon because what I was doing wasn’t really tied into a bigger objective. But with this, I recognized, dude, you are trying to change the nature of your connective tissue. And you’re now 39 years old, and that’s more challenging to do than if you were 12. It’s going to take time. And most experts will tell you that if you really want to change connective tissue, it’s going to take six to 12 months. Now the same thing in your business. If you want to make really great strides and improvements in your business, if you have a great foundation already, it’s going to happen a lot faster.

But if you don’t, and you’re learning new things like how to get better on the phone, how to communicate your message more effectively, how to do all this stuff, it’s going to take some time. And that’s why our Health Business Accelerator program is six months because we really feel that we can get a lot done in six months. Most of it should be deployed in two to three months. And then we’ve got another three to four months to opt my scale, tweak, and really perfect that foundation so that it’s almost making sure you’re stretching every single day to reshape that connective tissue and retrain your body to perform and move in better ways. And so I think it’s really important to put your blinders on. And that’s why whether you work with us or anyone else, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that what you’re doing, you feel is right for you and your business, because there’s obviously a number of different business models you can follow.

You can post on Instagram all day long. You can do summits. You can blog. You can do all this stuff. And some of it’s smarter and better and faster than others. You just have to choose one that works for you. But when you’ve made that decision, you need to put your blinders on and only do that, and only do that for a minimum of six to 12 months because you will not see results usually in a quicker, shorter period of time. Now obviously, that’s not true because we do have clients that see amazing results in a week. But for most people, it takes longer. Go into any endeavor that you are looking to build in your business, like any kind of new business model, or if you’re looking to really accelerate or scale what you’re doing, give it time. Give it time. Don’t jump ship. Don’t try the latest thing. Don’t jump on the next bandwagon. You have to put your blinders on. You’re like a race horse. And race horses have those covers on their eyes, pretty much all horses do for the most part. They have covers on their eyes so that they’re not distracted by outside things and start going crazy.

And that’s what you need to think of in your life, in your business. You have to become that horse that has the blinders on because if you don’t, it’s too easy to be distracted by things you think you should be doing. For instance, one of our clients was, she had posted on her Facebook profile, “Does anyone know of a Facebook ad copywriter?” And I told her, I’m like, “Why are you looking to hire a copywriter to write your Facebook ads when we give you the exact templates to use in our program?” And what she got to, she was basically like, “Listen. I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I want to get this right.” I’m like, “You are possibly giving away the most important element of your business. Your message, your offer, your business, your story, no one else knows how to tell that like you do. So follow our templates. Plug in your stuff where needed. And I guarantee you’ll be a lot better off than some overpriced copywriter who probably doesn’t even understand Facebook ad compliance.”

This is an example of, there’s things you just have to learn how to do. There are things you have to learn how to do. I really believe that copywriting, at its minimum, in terms of being able to really clarify and communicate a message, is extremely important. If you try to delegate and outsource a lot of stuff like this, you are handicapping your growth because you don’t understand. You won’t have the fundamental skills that are required to influence people. One of the things I do every single week, because I write one to two new ads every single week, and that’s obviously something I could outsource. But part of the magic in a Facebook ad is the story. And you can’t have somebody else tell your story the way you want to tell it.

Now obviously, you can give them bits and pieces of your story, and they can kind of bring it all together. That’s fine. But I really believe that you should master two things in your business. Number one, and it’s actually they’re the same thing, it’s communication. One is phone sales. The second is being able to write words that move people to action, which is essentially called copywriting.

Those are two things that if you get really, really good at, you are literally writing your own lottery ticket. And everything else outside of that is a distraction. But you have to give it time. You have to give it time. Listen, the only reason I understand copy and marketing as well as I do is because I spent 10 plus years, 13 years now, since 2006 learning and applying and doing this stuff. And I’m not saying it’s going to take 13 years for you, but you have to give it time. And it’s really, really important to understand that what matters is communication more than anything else.

If you’re writing a post on Facebook, if you’re writing a post on Instagram, what you’re doing is communicating. And being able to put words together, either on video, or on audio, or writing them out, is a really, really important skill. And if you don’t develop that, you are really handcuffing your growth. So give it time, just like I’ve got to give my hamstrings and posterior time to just lengthen out.

Lesson three: When you do the right things, you’ll see growth and scale

Third big lesson from the gymnastics training that applies to your business is that when you do the right things, it sets the foundation for incredible growth and scale over time. Right now I understand that by working on my mobility and really getting my body moving in the way that it probably never has is going to take time. I also understand that by doing this, this is the right thing for me to do because I understand the payoff. I understand the benefit that being flexible and mobile, but strong as well, not just strong and not just flexible, but both combined, because either one by itself is useless. I want to be strong and flexible.

I understand that when I have the combination, those pair working together, I’m going to be bullet proof pretty much. I’m not going to be injured, obviously less. Well, I can’t guarantee that. But my likelihood of being injured is a lot less. I’m going to perform better. I’m going to feel better. I’m going to be able to do things for a lot longer period of time than if I didn’t do that stuff, because if we think of death, death is rigor mortis. Right? Rigor mortis is when your DNA … Sorry, not your DNA. The cross bridges in your muscle literally seize up, and your muscles can’t even move anymore. If you think of death as no movements, well, I want the opposite. I want to be as mobile and as moving friendly as possible. And that’s because what I’m doing now is setting the foundation for a lifetime of amazing things, travel, playing with my kids, outlasting my kids, playing tennis on the court with people 30 years younger than me, and either giving them a really good battle, or beating them, or whatever. That’s important to me.

And so for what you’re doing in your business, you need to understand that what you’re doing needs to be setting a good foundation for your future. With our clients, we tell them that what we’re doing, the perfect client pipeline that we’re building out with them, is the most important thing they should be doing to ensure their future. You don’t need to have a pretty looking website. None of that matters. You can spend $15,000 to have someone design a nice website for you, and then it’s like, all right. Why aren’t the clients coming in? Well, here’s the reason. It’s because you didn’t focus on what matters. You focused on the shiny shit. That’s what I’m going to call it, the shiny shit. Not the shiny objects, the shiny shit. We actually had a client who’s starting with us in a few months email us this morning, or yesterday, and Phyllis, one of our coaches, sent me the email. She’s like, “Hey. What do you think about this? What should I do with this?” And the person was like, “Hey. I saw one of your clients had a really beautiful website. Is that something you guys do?”

I’m like, “No. We’re not going to do that.” Maybe in our Luminaries Mastermind, we can talk about the messaging and layouts of good websites, but we’re not going to build the website for you because none of that stuff matters. We’re going to get you clients, and we’re going to put money in your bank. That’s all that matters. Then when you have all that extra money, then you can hire someone else to build your website eventually. Our Healthpreneur website right now, it needs to be redone. The messaging needs to be redone. The layout needs to be redone. Some of the stuff is old. We actually have buttons on the website that lead to things we don’t even offer anymore. That is how much of a change we need to make on the website. But are we doing it? No, because it doesn’t matter. No one’s landing on our website anyways.

What you need to do day 0 of business

You have to be doing things that are going to set the foundation for success in the long-term. And what that means, the number one thing you should be doing in your business is building a predictable sales process. That is the number one most important thing you have to do from day zero in your business. And if you don’t have a predictable way of bringing people in … If I were to meet you at an event, and I’m saying, “Hey. Awesome, great to meet you. How do you get new clients?” And if you can’t tell me predictably how you’re doing that, you have no business. Oh, I do a little bit of speaking here. I post some flyers here. I’m sorry. You have a job. I’m sorry. You’re out of business. You’re done. You need to be able to tell me, we’ve got a really strategic and simple, predictable, three or four step process where they come in from here, they go here, and this happens.

I’d be like, “Man, this person’s got their shit together.” But 98% of people don’t. So you need to do the most important thing first, which again takes time. And it might not be comfortable. But it’s the thing that is going to set you up for the rest of your life. And it’s going to set your business up in the right way. It’s not about posting on Instagram. It’s not about shooting videos randomly on YouTube, because then let’s say that people somehow find your videos. What’s going to happen next? Where are they going to go? Oh, they’re going to download your lead magnet for free. Great. Then what? You’re going to offer then a $10 product? Awesome. Then what? Oh, you’re going to take them through an up sale flow $47, $97. Great, well less than 10% of people are going to buy that stuff. You’ve got a $10 customer after processing fees, maybe you have eight of those dollars in your bank. Great job. How’s that working out?

See, it’s stupid stuff like this that just drives me crazy. And that’s why I’m on a mission to continually hammer this home, is that your sole job is to build a predictable sales process that brings in high paying clients into your business. If you want to write a book, that’s great. We just actually released our new focus planner. By the way, if you actually want the planner, go to healthpreneurgroup.com/planner. It’s awesome. But do you think my business relies on this planner to make money? No way. I don’t personally care of people buy it or not. I mean, I built it for myself and for our clients. So whether or not people buy it, who cares? If you want to get it, it’s amazing. Grab it. But whether or not us do is not going to really affect my bank accounts.

Here’s the thing. People are spending a lot of their time and energy writing books and doing all this kind of stuff. What’s the point of the book? What is the point of the book? I’m going to get my name out there. Why don’t you focus on getting other people’s name in here, in your business, instead of you getting your name out there? And then what’s going to happen when the people have the book? Oh, they’re going to read it, and it’s going to transform their life. Well, number one, it’s not going to transform their life. Maybe 10% of people actually read the whole thing and apply it. And then it’s like, well, a lot of people who are reading the book are going to hopefully seek me out as a coach, or hire me. I’m like, “That might be true.” And if that’s the ultimate goal, why don’t you just build a freaking sales process that cuts to the chase and gets them on the phone, so you can work with them as a client?

And then when you’re rolling in the dough, listen, I’m not trying to sound like Pablo Escobar here, but when you’re making enough money where you have the freedom of thought and space and time and all that stuff, where you can think of all this stuff, where you can step away from enrolling clients all the time, where you’re making six figures a month comfortably, then it’s like, yeah. Now I’m going to write a book because I want to. If you’ve got a book, and you don’t have a big platform, what’s the point? Right? It makes no sense. Very few people are going to buy it. You’re going to do the whole kind of media tour if you want, and it’s going to look great. But at the end of the day, you’re going to look at your bank account and you’ll know the truth.

I don’t want that to happen for you. Listen, I’ve written three published books. Everything I’m saying, I’m not trying to be pessimistic. I’m trying to be … Listen, words don’t teach. Life experience does. Everything I’m telling you to do here, you might just be like, “Eh, I’m going to do it anyways.” And that’s great, go for it because you’re going to very quickly realize that it’s a lot tougher than you think. And it’s probably not going to get you the results you think it is.

Now I’m not saying that what I’m talking about here with building a predictable sales process is easy. But it’s the most worthwhile and important thing for you to do because once you have this predictable treadmill bringing new leads and clients in every day, and as you improve your ability to have conversations with people that leads to enrollments, now you’re moving the needle in a big way. Now you’re doing the things that really make a difference in your business.

Why a coach is important for long-term success

When we first started doing this, this is how we built Healthpreneur. I had more clients enroll in one week than I had in the previous year doing other stuff, like the content marketing, the lead magnets, all that stuff. More clients in one week than an entire year previously. This is what’s possible. But you just have to understand what to do and what not to do. And this is why it’s important to have a coach. And listen, whether you want to work with us or not, that’s for you to decide. I’m not here to beg anyone because I could care less because our ship is sailing anyway with the clients we’re working with. But you have to find something that makes sense for you. And you’ve got to follow that. And you’ve got to put the blinders on, and you have to understand that it’s setting a foundation for years to come. If you’re doing something that is not setting the foundation for the future, and if it’s just like making a quick buck right now, you’re going to lose in the long run.

Anyways, yeah, that’s the deal. Those are three lessons that I’ve learned from doing gymnastics training. Again, you’re going to suck at first. It’s going to take a long time, minimum six to 12 months. And the same thing’s going to happen with business. And you have to be doing things that are going to set the foundation for a healthier, better, stronger, more profitable future for your business and obviously for your life as well. That’s the deal. Just a couple quick announcements.

As I mentioned, our focus planner is now available on the website. Go to healthpreneurgroup.com/planner. It’s pretty bad ass, at least I think so. And I’ve got a phone call coming in, and I can’t decline it.

Anyways, second thing is we’ve got our Luminaries Mastermind coming up in Toronto June 26th and 27th. If you currently have a coaching business, but you’re not quite growing fast enough, if you want more clients, but you’re really good at what you do and you just need a better way to get them, well, I’d invite you to join us in Toronto. We’ve got a couple spots left. It’s in Toronto June 26th and 27th, that’s what I said. Two days. The first day, I’m going to teach you our million dollar model. I’m going to walk you through all that good stuff about how to predictably get prospects, how to teach to sell, how to ask and assess, instead of tell and oppress, and how to coach to close, all so that you can enroll more clients and make a lot more money. That’s on day one.

Day two, you’re going to be thrown into the mix with our existing clients who are coming in. And then we’ll start talking about some next level stuff to really move the needle in a big way. It’s going to be an awesome, awesome time. We’ve got a great hotel in Toronto. I’m super pumped about this. If you know anything about the events that we throw, we always do them at amazing venues. This is going to be no different. It’s right in the heart of the best part of Toronto. It’s going to be great.

If you’re interested in joining us, you have to apply to attend. Go to healthpreneurgroup.com/2day. That’s the number two and then D-A-Y. And you can learn all about the events and what’s entailed. And then if you’re interested in applying to join us, you can do so. And again, we’re making it super affordable, so you’re basically just covering the cost of food and materials. This is a very rare opportunity that we’re offering. And if you’re interested in joining us, then there you go.

That’s all for today. Thanks so much for joining me. I hope this episode has found you well. And I’m going to continue to do my gymnastics work. You’re going to continue working on your biz, and I’ll see you in the next episode.