Instructor Newsletter 30 June 2011

I’m actually a little embarrassed as I write this to be honest.

You see, despite seeming like an arrogant, brash know it all. I’m actually just a normal, run of the mill dude that tends to swear a lot.

I also don’t want the article to come across as an ‘I’m holier than thou, I’m brilliant and you should listen to me article’

I probably wouldn’t have written it if Rachel hadn’t asked me too.

I really hope it helps you and inspires you actually because if I can do it, anyone can!

I’m writing this sitting in the beautiful Laguna village beach bar in Marbella. I am in fact writing on a notepad, which I haven’t done for years- I’ll type it onto my laptop later. Anyway, I digress.

It’s baking hot, my wife (whom I only married 5 weeks ago) is sunbathing next to me, and my 5-month-old son Max is asleep in the shade after a tough morning in the pool.

Oh I’ve also been here for a month and have 12 days to go!

Just yesterday I got paid £2, 000 for 3 hours work in a workshop teaching 20 people my top tips for getting in shape. But wait, these things aren’t the best bit.

The best bit is I’m going to be LIVING here in Marbella come November.

Sure. Lots of people move out here but the reason I’m so happy about the move is that my business in the UK will continue to run as normal- making me money while I lie on a beach- which I DEFINITELY won’t be doing by the way. I LOVE training and educating people too much!

The members of our camps will continue to get amazing results, the kick ass trainers that run the camps will continue to change lives and get very well paid for it.

Yu could say that I’m living the dream so to speak 

Again, PLEASE don’t get this confused with bragging, I really hate stuff like that and you know what, I know for a fact I’m nothing special.

I’m not telling you this to impress you at all, (I’m too old for that now) I’m sharing this with you because:

1. Rachel Holmes forced me too
2. 2- I want to impress upon you that if a hyperactive tourettes sufferer (people in fitness think I swear too much) from one of the poorest towns in the UK can do this, then YOU can too.

Oh and it has NOTING to do with ‘Earning 6 figures’ in fact, you don’t need to earn anything like 6 figures!

1. And lastly I want to continue to give something back to an industry that I’m still head over heels in love with and has allowed me to meet so many brilliant people!

So anyway, I wanted to keep it short and simple to follow so I’ve put together my 4 top tips to help you ‘live the dream’ and the first was is actually a bit controversial and goes ‘against the grain’ (you know me, always like to say something a little different)

Tip 1- STOP setting goals and STOP even trying to earn 6 figures.

They’re both pointless.

Let me explain.

Around 3 months ago I had a MAJOR discovery. Now don’t get me wrong, I still do set a few goals here and there and it still can be useful but I realized that it isn’t all its cracked up to be.

This discovery has transformed my thoughts and my life.

You see, setting goals and aiming for the ‘magic’ 6 figures is all based on ‘stuff’.

Guess what though? The stuff gets boring.

(I’m not into the whole money doesn’t buy happiness thing by the way- because it certainly can help)

You see, the nice cars are great, the holidays are great, the business class flights and gadgets and clothes are great but what we’re REALLY, REALLY looking for is the EXPERIENCE of those things right?

We want the FEELING of driving the great car, the FEELING of being able to fly business class yer?

These things all bring about an EXPERIENCE.

I bought my self my first brand spanking new car last year- it cost my 21k.

It isn’t quite my dream car but I LOVED it when I saw it.

Guess what? After about 6 weeks and all the excitement wore off- I was bored with it.

Speak to a new people who have a lot of ‘stuff’ and I’m pretty sure they’ll say the same.

Buying the most expensive ‘stuff’ ‘because you can’ is nice but again- it becomes boring.

So what was it that changed my thought pattern so profoundly?

It’s an exercise that that awesome Frank Kern put me onto and something I’ve also looked at with my friend Dax Moy.

It’s called ‘the perfect day’

Here are the basics of it (the full thing takes around 4 hours)

Write down, in detail (in fact the more mundane things you get in there, the better- it makes it more REAL) your PERFECT DAY.

From waking up (where, when who with etc) to going to bed on a night.

Do this without any limiting thoughts Such as financial limitations, time limitations and your location limitations right now.

Write down what you eat, where you eat at, what you do in the morning, what you spend your afternoon doing, what you’re thoughts are as you go to bed etc etc.

Why? Because you’ll ‘Wake Up’ and realize that to LIVE this perfect day, EVERY DAY doesn’t actually involve THAT much MONEY or ‘stuff’ AT ALL.

It’s probably nowhere near the magic 6 figures we seem to have been chasing for so long (that’s around £8,800 a month by the way)

Pretty much every decision you make from then on can based upon the Question “ Is this helping me to get closer to my perfect day or not?”

Seriously, this has totally changed my life and several of the guys I mentor feel the same too!

When we set financial and ‘stuff’ based goals, the ‘Stuff’ can sometimes seem like its light years away and we get down heartened, you think ‘I can never earn that much’ and you chances are you won’t.

After all, ‘if you don’t believe it- you wont achieve it’

But this is WELL within peoples reach and I guarantee that if you do it- you’ll have SEVERAL ‘light bulb moments’

What are you waiting for? Go create your perfect day!

2. You MUST build something UNIQUE.

For my business and myself this is thefitnesscamp.co.uk and my ‘unstoppable-fat-loss-formula’

Why is this important?

Well, as brilliant as you guys are at what you do, most personal trainers, group x instructors and zumba instructors simply swap money for time. Which is great, I still do some of that myself, BUT can you keep doing that until your 65?

Think about it.

Swapping money for time means you can’t…

3-De-personalise the stuff you do

Zumba is an amazing example of this.

Sure, you guys that teach it are doing pretty well (BRILLIANT by the way, you guys are really getting bums of the settee) but again, most of you are swapping money for time.

The creator of Zumba, Beto Perez has it sown up- he’s got it in the bag!

This dude is worth millions. When the Zumba bubble burst and the next thing comes along. Mr. Perez will be fine- he’ll still be loaded but what about the zumba teacher who’s given up all her other classes while zumba was hot?

Food for thought huh?

Similarly with most bootcamps out there. Why would someone come and teach one for you, when they can do it themselves?

The fitness camp not only has its own workouts, its own identity, its own ‘tribe’ it pretty much has its own language too (this belongs in point 2 to ne honest)

The unstoppable-fat-loss-formula and all that comes with it was created by me but CANNOT only be taught by me. It’s unique in its own right. It’s a SYSTEM for success.

Anyone can teach it, just so long as they’re knowledge and enthusiastically ‘kick ass’ enough!

Think of Rachel’s Fitness Pilates. Another great model!

Think of Andy Wake who owns’ Boxercise’

Making money while you sleep AND helping people get in shape is cool right?

You can do that by…

4. NOT getting busier but LEVERAGING yourself and your time.

I’m gonna keep this one short as my hand is hurting now!

A common theme amongst most of the trainers that come onto my mentoring program is that they’re very ‘busy’

Busy doing the ‘money for time’ stuff.

Creating 3 and 4 mean you can get other people making money for you.

You can ‘leverage’ your knowledge base and your time.

Start by documenting and templating everything you do. From email replies to your workouts.
Instead of doing 1-1 training can you do 1-5 small group training? (Katie Bulmer does this VERY well with her LBD club)

Why not create your own version of Zumba? Seriously, Why not?

NOTE: YOU CAN indeed do all of this but the KEY to success as a trainer, is to be BRILLIANT at getting BRILLIANT results. We’re in a results industry.

Be 1 step ahead of the curve knowledge wise.

Do every course you can. DEVOUR nutrition books and online stuff.

Form your own opinions and create your own ‘formula’

PS- if you’d like to learn more about this type of things. Keep your eyes peeled on my ‘fan page’ on facebook. Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/bootcampking

See you over there!

Upon receiving an email from Skills Active last week informing me that modes of training including indoor cycling, Bootcamp and Boxing classes are to be run as courses and further assessed as they are not covered in Level 2 and 3 qualifications, it has really got me thinking. I am in a situation to gain from this as a training provider BUT just how long have we all been teaching these popular classes? As genuine protagonists of the Group X industry Rachel, Andy Wake and I as examples have researched them and created workable training models for you our clients with other experts like Paul Mort. Is it viable that an external team of experts deem them in need of further education. After teaching them for years should we now qualify to teach them? I am confused and probably putting my foot right in it again but I really think this needs addressing.

What do you think about the rationale behind our need for further education? you know only too well, much of my working time in the fitness industry is spent in the role of protagonist, championing what I believe to be the best route for the Group X industry. Over the years, I have had to learn to cross the line between saying what I think, believe and also in saying too much.

 

Daring to be you – time to step up and be proud to be the black sheep.

Why does it always happen to you? You’re such a pain, what a drama queen,  Can’t you be realistic, stop taking chances, you’re so awkward, why can’t you just follow the rules, stop being so over the top,  why are you so argumentative, no don’t do that, it’s stupid, high maintenance, black sheep of the family.

Some demoralising statements there, for many reading this, those statements will sound very familiar. From a young age we are expected to conform to what society wants, to behave a certain way, to accept what our elders teach us, expected to follow the norm, to not ask questions, to just do as we are told, to maintain the status quo, or as Paul Mort fantastically put to be “vanilla”.

Yet for some of us, from an early age we rebel against this conformity, there are those of us who want to question, who don’t agree with what we are being told, who want to try things a different way to everyone else, who don’t want to “play it safe”, we want to try, we make mistakes, we dare to be different but unfortunately this creativity, this spark will try to be dampened by others around us, others that want us to sit quietly at school, not to question anything, get grades A’s and walk into a fantastic high paid highly stressed job, and if you don’t well really your just “stupid”.

Its people who want to be different, who want to do all of the above that I just explained that will step up, that will take those extra chances that may well make them extremely successful, sorry re phrase that – that WILL make them successful.

Being the black sheep – A name I earned along with “I always knew she would be a pain” Yes that’s right from a little girl, I felt the need to be known, to get my voice out there, boy I made mistakes, big huge mistakes, but guess what – I dared to make them. Any of those mistakes could have been a success and eventually – they were. Unfortunately all the statements at the top of this page managed to crush me, as a young adult I had no voice, that beautiful spark I once had was gone and replaced with someone who didn’t feel her point of view was worth listening too, too afraid of trying anything as she was surely doomed to fail. I fear this is also the case with far too many people, but if this is you, you are a golden nugget, you are a white elephant, being a black sheep is by far so much better than the hundreds of white sheep you grew up with in fact I am proud to be that black sheep.  All of us Black sheep – we rock.

You have the ability to take chances to make a difference to be successful working for yourself.  You are not the type of person who follows the crowds, who is happy working your arse off for someone else, making them money whilst being stressed to the max, for whom one day you may well become dispensable, somewhere deep down inside underneath all the low self esteem, the little voice is there wanting to get out.

Look at the successful people around you, they are not afraid to tell you what they think, they question everything, they disagree with everything, they have a big voice, they are not afraid to fail, they have looked at those people who will have tried to squash them into the conformity box, those teachers that told them they would amount to nothing, and have stuck up two big fat fingers at them.

My favourite current saying which Seth Godin brilliantly put “find the always and do the opposite” Do you see where I am going with this – For too long being told your silly for being different and being a “rebel” is utter rubbish, you are one of the few people that has the ability within, to go out and do the opposite just like Seth Godin says, you have the ability to take the chances needed to be successful, you just need to realise it and break free from all those people whom are happy sitting in their box bobbing along playing it safe and wanting you to play it safe too.

I know right now, that this article could flop people could think I am crazy, that boy they were right to say all that stuff to her, but I am taking my chance, I am telling you from the heart my story, as you know what it could be successful – it could help someone else speak up, it could help someone take that extra step to be successful, it’s my big fat two fingers to those who wanted me to be normal and to be quiet and to conform. As I am a black sheep and I am proud J

Have a great week and I’ll talk you soon

Much Love

Rachel x

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