Strength Coach Collective

"Help Best": Your Guide to Delivering Client-Centric Coaching

• twobrainbusiness@gmail.com • Season 1 • Episode 27

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In this episode of “Strength Coach Collective,” Chris Cooper and Kenny Markwardt dive into "Help Best"—Chris' first book dedicated entirely to coaching, co-authored with Kenny and three other top Two-Brain mentors.

While most coaching books focus on specific methods, this one focuses on results.

Chris and Kenny explain why "method obsession" is holding coaches back and how the Prescriptive Model creates better outcomes for clients, whether you're coaching CrossFit, Pilates or anything else.

They share their own coaching failures (such as making an NHL goalie vomit halfway through a workout) and explain why great coaches must focus on individual client needs rather than force everyone into the same program.

Ready to level up your coaching with a client-centric approach?

Tune in and then get “Help Best”—and Chris’ other titles—for free from Aug. 4 to 8, 2025, via the link below.

Links

Chris Cooper's Author Page

Strength Coach Collective

0:52 - Why write a book for coaches?

10:31 - Client-centric coaching

17:32 - Two-Brain’s coach development plan

20:24 - Coaching in an evolving industry

25:14 - Key takeaway from “Help Best”

UNKNOWN:

music

SPEAKER_01:

It's Book Week, and you can get Chris Cooper's books for free until August 8th. We have a link to his author page on Amazon in the show notes. Use it to get a free gift from Coop and Two Brain Business. Then read a book and take action to implement what you learn. That is the key. As part of Book Week, we're digging into this one. Help best. It is Coop's 10th book. With the help of mentors Nick Habich, Peter Brasovan, Brian Bott, and Kenny Marquardt. Kenny is usually in the host chair. We kicked him out of it for this show to make him one of the stars. Gentlemen, welcome. How are you?

SPEAKER_02:

Great. I didn't know anybody be calling us stars though.

SPEAKER_01:

10 books in. I think that warrants something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. It's great, man. Thank you, Mike. This is awesome.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I'm excited to talk about this one. And you know, Coop, you've been saying for years, like being a great coach is not going to make you a great gym owner. And all the other nine books that you've put out are all about business. I've got a bunch of them stacked behind me here. So why write a book about coaching in 2024? Let's break open a new topic.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it seemed like every time Kenny and I or Nick or Brian or Peter got together, we'd be walking somewhere for coffee. And I specifically remember a conversation in Vegas about this last year. And, you know, there's some really amazing gyms out there now. And when we started Two Brain, you know, every gym owner had at least one coach that was like an eight out of 10, you know, really, really amazing. but their business was like a two or three out of 10, you know? And so we would come in and we'd fix their business. And now what's happened is you've got like a hundred millionaire gym owners in the program. You've got some amazing gyms who are running at like a full nine or a 10 out of 10, and their coaching is still a seven. And so for the first time in the industry, the coaching has to actually come up to the level of the gym, which is excellent, you know? And so we thought, let's start with a foundational book. And so this book is really about the prescriptive model. And I brought in some people who are really, really, really into this stuff to help bridge the gap between practical application on the floor and like the science that's out there, you know, the Peter Atiyah stuff. And, you know, Kenny is always a joy to talk to about this stuff. And so I asked him and the other collaborators to help me out with it.

SPEAKER_01:

Kenny, was that your experience at your gym? Like you're one of our top gym owners, you're a mentor. Was that your experience where you had to like triage, get your business systems under control and now it's time to start addressing coaching?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, a hundred percent. And as in the mentor role as well, I've seen that, that evolution over that time where it was so much, you know, don't, the coaching is fine. Like we got to get this other stuff in line and now it's, it is exactly like Chris said, it's, it's really the opposite, which is. really rewarding to be a part of and to see and to try and you know elicit the change on this other side now because it's cool so

SPEAKER_01:

yeah and I was in that boat where you know I thought I was a good coach and whether I were or not is debatable but I thought so my business was terrible and then I had to call coop and then later on you know once that you start you know turning a profit and not bleeding out every month it's time to start looking at other aspects of the business and that's kind of a two brain principle of like fix the important thing right now and then move on to the next important thing and in the business world two brains fix so many gyms it's now time to look at coaching. And I think this is such an interesting topic. And, you know, I said, I thought for a lot of years as a coach, I thought it was about knowledge and credentials. And I thought that that made me the best coach because I had a bunch of things on my business card and so forth. I wasn't alone in that, but I'm going to ask the question that frames chapter two in the book. What actually makes a coach a good coach? What is that?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I think it's getting clients results. And so that's why we can afford to say that we're method agnostic. I mean, you can get clients great results with CrossFit. CrossFit is a good example of a methodology. You can get clients great results. I've seen clients get great results with Pilates or yoga or running only or HIIT or bootcamp weightlifting. I've been in the industry for 29 years now, and I've seen people get results from programs that I thought were ineffective, you know, like those vibrating platforms, like people got results from that. And I think especially now when people are turning to chemistry, like Ozempic and GLP-1 inhibitors to get results, it's really important to keep like the method kind of fluid, but also have like this bigger foundation underneath you so that you can change methodology as you need to without kind of like losing your entire model for coaching people.

SPEAKER_01:

I focused too much on a method for a long time. Kenny, did you?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, for sure. And I think it was the acute result rather than the long-term. Like, that was, I think, one of the biggest things. Like, dude, we can do all this stuff, and six-week challenges are 90-day things, and now it's so much about, like, I don't really care if you can tell me you can do this for the rest of your life. Like, whatever that is, as long as it means you're going to go and participate, that doesn't matter to me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and that's something that you taught me was– you know, what I want for clients and what clients want are not the same thing a lot of times. And I thought a lot of clients wanted, you know, torn hands and, you know, the t-shirt for vomiting out the back door and all that stuff. That's not what they wanted, especially after the early adopters went away at my gym. They started asking, people were coming in for like weight loss. And I never asked them about that until I started, you know, working with Two Brain and figuring out that's what they were actually looking for. So if you're, if you're, you know, you're blinded by a narrow focus on a method and Now, and you change that, how does it focus on results? What does that do for client acquisition and retention? You mentioned the prescriptive model. That's a big part.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, do you want to start with this one, Kenny?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think it's really, it's tying back into the results or the long-term results and considering what that means for that long-term and then backing that down into exactly how they're going to get there. And I think really painting the accurate, a good transparent picture of like that that's what our outcome is. We want you to be able to do this thing For a long time. And that's how we're going to paint a picture for the next 90 days, the next 90 days, the next 90 days. And that's essentially what we're talking about in the prescriptive model where that's how we're going to frame it up.

SPEAKER_02:

There's a difference between what's important and what's urgent. And so we produced these videos and we put them on YouTube. You can still see them. And I thought they were the sexiest thing ever done and nobody else cared. And the clients were like, cool, what's the WOD today? And so what we learned was that you have to... Because there's no sense of urgency attached to how you're going to feel in your 80s, what you have to do is link backward from that to here's what you're going to do today. And it's fun and exciting. And you also have to tie that to more urgent goals. So when I have a zone two day at my gym, today was strength and zone two. And when I present that, I have to present it as like, okay, you're going to do this thing. It's not going to crush you. We're not going to take an Instagram worthy photo of you dying on the huddle later. But what we are going to do is you're going to feel way better and you're going to start burning fat and you're going to start building mitochondria that's going to chew up fat while you're sleeping tonight. Okay. Now that's an oversimplification, but it makes things easy to understand for my clients and adds a sense of urgency that makes them want to show up for the zone two stuff. And we mess that up so often, but that's the ultimate lesson. Like if you can take what you know to be the right answer and make it appear as like the sexy answer that they want to hear about right now, without trading one for the other, that's how you market.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And I struggled a lot of times to acquire clients until we put the prescriptive model in place because we weren't asking them what their goals were. We were just making assumptions. And so we were able to solve their problems. So we just, you know, we show them Fran or the gym or the reverse hyper and all this stuff. And people are like, I want to lose fat. We had no idea. It didn't really work that well. So our client acquisition was rough. And then the retention was rough because we weren't doing the goal review sessions that happen in the prescriptive model every 90 days or 120 days or whatever it is. We weren't doing that. So clients, you know, I thought like I could see them getting stronger and fitter. But they weren't really interested in that necessarily. And you told me the story, Chris, I think it was someone who, didn't she hit a deadlift PR and she quit because she wasn't fitting in her bathing suit or something like that?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, her husband said she looked like a man.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and like you were so pumped about her strength PRs and she just wanted to look a certain way and it was this mismatch between goals and reality or method even at that point probably because you were looking probably hardcore at CrossFit. So that for me, the prescriptive model, you guys lay that out so well in this book, is that whole thing is, it's the thing that supports coaching and results and putting results in people's faces like how important is that like Kenny at your gym when you tell people like here's what you accomplish where are we going next what happens with that client

SPEAKER_00:

well it's like a lot of times you have to talk people into the recognition of that which is so illuminating to realize like they don't know like they're doing the thing we're watching it and they have no clue because I think most of us are so Like, how often do you have it throughout the day somebody tell you you're doing a good job or they recognize your accomplishments? And so as a good coach, to be able to point that out to somebody and say, hey, check out what you've done. And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, my gosh, you're right. Like, I have done all that cool stuff. I think they light up in a way that, again, it's– a little bit depressing to realize how many of us just go throughout the day, kind of like observing the negatives and hearing about the negatives, but to be able to paint that picture for somebody and give them that, you know, becomes kind of a Pavlovian response where they come back to the gym to get more and more of that, the reward for the hard work that they've done. It's, it's really, I think that's what it's all about for me in coaching.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, Chris, you said, I think it was, you know, you were quoting success precedes motivation, right? And we don't realize that a lot of us gym owners, type A people where we've got a goal and we're going after it. But for a lot of clients, I need to see that I'm winning or I'm not going to be motivated to come back, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and none of us are immune to that. I mean, I'm really familiar with the effect. I've been looking at that for like 15 years now. And, you know, this weekend I had a great bike race, did really, really well. And I was so stoked to train yesterday, even on sore legs and like dehydrated body, just because I had some really good times on the weekend. And, you know, you can leverage that for good or you can leverage it for evil. And, you know, it's our job as coaches to discern the difference and leverage what we can for the greater good.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So how should coaches deliver the service to produce the very best results for clients? What do we do in 2025? I

SPEAKER_00:

think it's got to be focusing on the individual. Regardless of, again, method agnostic group or individuality agnostic in a way to realize we got to figure out what the best approach for every single client is. And I think that that's a big... That's a big shift from, again, most of us came up through CrossFit where it's like hop into the group, let's see what happens, and the ones that succeed will stick around, the ones that don't won't. And I think you can still provide a group solution to people, but you still have to focus on the individual aspects of who they are and how that they fit into that and how that fits into what they need. Maybe they are personal training. Maybe they're a group. Maybe it's a hybrid. Maybe it's semi. There's so many ways to go about this with people. And again, I think that's what's so exciting as a coach to be able to consider. Like there's really no limitations on what we can do when we look at the individual and how we can best serve them.

SPEAKER_02:

I think Kenny really got to the core of like what a client-centric business is, you know, and it's a big mistake for us to think Kenny likes group and Chris likes one-on-one training because the reality is like our needs and preferences, they change daily, you know, on... On Wednesday, I would love to go to a group. But Monday and Friday when I'm in the gym, I only have 11 a.m. and there's no group then. So I need to be doing personal training. And the only reason I go on Friday is accountability because it's my stretch and mobility day and I hate it. So I really need like an appointment or I'm not going to go. And so it's a mistake to say like– while CrossFit is group training or Pilates is best done one-on-one. I mean, there's endless variation that you can do there and you can shift your model even with like keeping your method. And so that's one of the keys of the book. Brian Bott was a contributor to the book. And one of my favorite things that he wrote in the book is like the best program or the best plan for any client is always the second plan. And then it's the third plan because the plan changes and you're sighting in your rifle and you're getting more and more dialed and precise. And then when you kind of like get into this perfect plan for the client, like pedal to the metal and it's working and they feel great. But even that plan won't last forever. And so you have to get in front of it as a coach and say, like, what's the dosage now? What's the frequency now? What's the surrounding now? What's the environment?

SPEAKER_01:

So we're talking business models now or coaching models, right? And as opposed to like, we just do group, we're trying to figure out what is the best way for my clients to get results. And that's each individual client. And like you said, some it's one-on-one, some it's semi-private, some might be small groups, some it's big group, but it's certainly not a one thing for everyone. And that was such a mistake that I made. Kenny, did you do that at your gym? Like was, was, you know, was it just group classes for forever?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that was it. That was the solution for every single person and every single walk of life. Hopping in the group is the best. And that was what resonated with me. So I would talk about all the reasons that I loved it. I grew up in team sports. I was quite used to practice at 3.30 or 4.30 in the afternoon. I was used to working out with a group of individuals. And that's what resonated with me so much. And so... to try and tell a middle-aged whatever who's coming back to fitness for the first time and who's terrified about working out with other people and who probably doesn't know what they're doing, group fitness is not a good solution. And so they come in and they walk out with this kind of scowl on their face like, what in the world did I just experience? And yeah, it was unfortunate. I feel like I've failed a lot of people. But hopefully now we can rectify some of that. And

SPEAKER_01:

I did the same thing when someone would say, do you have a group class at 10.30? I'm like, no. Nope. And he's like tapping his foot. I'm like, We don't have a class and he just walks out, right? Whereas I could have said, hey, you know what we do have is we do have a personal training session. I could do that with you. No problem one-on-one if you want that convenience and flexibility. Or if you have a couple of friends, we could do a three-person semi-private session where we could put together personalized programming for each of you or even a small group if you're all working towards that marathon I heard you talking about. You could do all that stuff. I did none of it because I just thought group was the answer and it wasn't until I started thinking about it. And we start with personal training because that's such an obvious compliment. But now we're getting into like semi-private and small group That stuff is such a huge opportunity for people and gyms. And you guys covered that in the book. Do you see that as like the next step in the evolution of sort of gyms and coaching models?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think so because you can get the model wrong. That's the example you just gave, Mike. I don't have a group class and you didn't have a model that would have encouraged you to say, let's try one-on-one. You can also get the method wrong. Years ago, I trained a guy who had won the Vesna. So he was the top goalie in the NHL the year before and then retired. Three months later, he was training with me one-on-one. We did a CrossFit workout called Fight Gone Bad. He threw up halfway through and said, I never want to feel like that again for the rest of my life. And so because I was a personal training client, I got lots of stories about this guy, Kenny, I'll tell you later. But because I was a personal training client, I could quickly apologize and shift the method. But in a group setting, that wouldn't happen. And if that was a brand new person who came in today, they tried a group, they threw up, and they just quietly left. You would never even hear from that person again. You'd have no clue. In fact, we used to have a sign at my gym that said, if you throw up on your first day, you get a free hat like that's how clueless we were about it and the reality is like you need to build a client centric business that allows you to pivot the model or the method over time and that's how you keep clients long term

SPEAKER_01:

So Chris, you actually managed to take, you know, someone who had been through the fires of an NHL, you know, overtime and made him so miserable. He didn't want to do anything. You told him to ever again.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And the funny part is like his wife was like, you know, she was, she was like, yeah, this is for me. And he was like, I'm never forget my face. Like I'm never coming back. You know, he was serious.

SPEAKER_01:

He was really mad. And we've all made mistakes in that range. Like that's a great example, but we've so many of us, old school gym owners have made those mistakes. And now that you guys, I mean, that's again, that's why the book. And again, guys, go to the show notes and check this thing out. It really gives you a great idea of how to serve clients better. And I feel embarrassed by how focused I was on one thing, CrossFit in a group, you know, and it's so silly when you think about it now because of all these other ways to get results for clients. And to be fair, I did get results for clients who thrived in that environment. I failed, like Kenny said, the other people who wanted a different space. And so guys, if you're listening out there and you're starting to think about how can I get better at results for clients, pick up this book, clicking in the show notes. You'll find this on Amazon. It's free for just a little bit longer. Do it. Get it right away. You can get this and you can start looking at addressing your coaches. You can even give this to your coaches in your gym. That's another one. Let's talk a little bit about that because this is exciting. So being a professional in 2025, Two Brains Coach Development Plan. What is that program about?

SPEAKER_02:

So I can speak to that a little bit. There's a lot of different parts to it. Part of it is this podcast. Part of it is a free group that we call Strength Coach Collective. Kenny and I are active in there. But also we've been working with some of the top gyms in the world to see how they develop coaches. And there are ways to develop coaches that are method specific. So for example, you can get your CrossFit level three or level four or whatever it is now. You can go get like your master's of yoga practitioner. You can go get your black belt in jujitsu or whatever. But that's not really, that's how you get better at the model. It's not how you get better at coaching. And so the difference is that we want people to actually be better coaches. And I think that if people went through this training program, you could have them coaching CrossFit at noon and probably run a pretty decent jujitsu class at one, you know, if you had to. And this model of coaching really applies to, you know, any fitness pursuit really. And it's a balance of like, the left brain, here's the prescription, here's exactly what you need to do, and the right brain is creatively getting you to do it. And that's kind of what we're after, and that's how we want to develop these coaches. The reality is, if you're a gym owner out there right now, Up until this point, like this day in history, you could only expect to keep a coach in the industry like two and a half years and then they would churn out. People like Kenny now are keeping people long term, you know, and the longest serving coach at my gym is 17 years. And, you know, I've got a 15 year coach at my gym, too. But their job has changed so much over the last few years that like if I didn't actually have a framework for them to follow, they would have left when CrossFit started falling off at my gym or they would have left when, you know, their method was no longer popular. So I think like what we want to do to build career coaches is give them something foundational to work from. That's the prescriptive model. And that's also like the six outcomes for clients that we say in the book.

SPEAKER_01:

Kenny, developing coaches at your gym. What's that process look like these days?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I've had not as long as Coop. My gym's a little younger than his. We're 13 years old. I have coaches that have been with me for seven and eight years. And nine. Those are three different people. Same thing. It starts with the foundations of what we just talked about, where it's the prescriptive model and asking questions. One of the exercises we've done consistently as a team and as individual coaches is the seed clan exercise, which is something we've done with gym owners for years at T-Brain. But we talk about who these people are that we love, and then we talk about what they need, and then we talk about how we can best serve them with what we're doing. And the point of all of that is that we really make it client-centric and everything else agnostic. So we don't know. We're going to make changes. We're going to make tweaks. We're going to evolve our business or our coaching practice according to the people that we want to serve. And I think that that helps them just get it. because everything else can change. If they get the foundations of it, then they're gonna be a part of the evolving, moving, changing thing that you have to be to be a successful GM in 2025 and beyond.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. The most constant thing that I think Kenny and I both see coming in the industry is, this rate of change is going to increase. There's going to be more changes faster that we can't predict right now. The fitness industry for the last hundred years has just kind of been this slow pendulum between you should use these machines and do isolationary exercises to get off the machines and do compound exercises and back and forth. The diet's the same kind of pendulum. That's completely changed now. The clock has been knocked off the wall by drugs, by AI. However, there are certain principles that if you start your career understanding then you can adjust to all of these changes that are going to happen in fitness over the next decade. And part of that is you need to be a client-centric coach. You need to set up a prescriptive model so that if something new gets learned, you can just prescribe that to your clients and they'll stay with you instead of seeking out the practitioner of the new thing. So for example, at my gym, we've always had nutrition coaching until recently. And then six months ago, we said, what if we just did a habits challenge? We were learning from 75 hard and and we were learning from some other things. Well, guess what? Like people got really excited about that. signed up and actually got great results from it. And they wanted to do it again right away. And so we thought, well, maybe there's some novelty here. That's all, you know, we ran it again a month later and boom, more people signed up, including half the people from the first run. And so what we said was, you know, if we did this four times a year, people would actually get better nutritional results than they have been getting. And the reason that we could make that pivot instead of waiting for a new nutritionist to come into town and sell their magical thing or a new diet book to get written is because we have this framework of the prescriptive model that lets us put new things into the hopper add new tools to the toolkit without like sacrificing our business and that's where the set like the fragile gyms you know the old circuit training when there's a beep you move to the next machine curves i think that was called like that's what killed them and and that's what is probably going to kill these franchises that have this like fixed model where you can't have personal training and no no no you can't have like you know your garment smart watch on to tell you what heart rate you're in

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

we want to give people like a foundation that will allow them to change their method or their model at any time without killing their career.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And that would have reduced my anxiety and fear a lot back in the day. Cause I remember as a CrossFit gym owner, I got really scared when Orange Theory started showing up and I got, I would have been scared when High Rock showed up and things like that, because I was like, they're good. You know, I'm going to lose all my clients to that. Whereas I could have very easily pivoted my model a little bit. And I wouldn't have obviously become an Orange Theory franchise and a CrossFit affiliate, but I could have definitely changed things up to accommodate people who are interested in that. I could now we We've talked about this. Hyrox affiliation is so cheap for a huge ROI. You could easily put that in, but I would have been threatened, right? It was like, oh no, we just do CrossFit. This is a, I don't like this blend, but you could do that now. And there are gyms that are successfully CrossFit gyms affiliates that are now putting in Hyrox programs that are bringing in tons of leads and they're making people super happy. There's hybrid programs there in Ireland. Brian Foley, one of our mentors is running an amazing one where he says, this is our CrossFit price. You want to add Hyrox? Here's the add-on. And he's raising his ARM by serving his clients, giving them what they want, getting better results. And so we're seeing the financial metrics of this commitment. So we want results for clients, obviously. But on the gym owner side and the business side, we're seeing the metrics reward them for doing this. And Coop, you've looked at metrics more than anyone. Is that what you see across the industry now are two-brain gyms that are serving clients and focusing on results?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, more and more. And, you know, I think a good example of this might be Spartan Race. So five years ago, you know, every gym had clients who were doing Spartan Race. When's the last time a client from your gym did a Spartan Race, Kenny?

SPEAKER_00:

That's, yeah, probably three or four years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And they're still around. I mean, they have an affiliate program. High Rocks has 7,000 affiliates, you know, and so you have to be, you have to have a solid foundation if you want to be able to adjust to these changes. What you can't do is say, we are a CrossFit gym. Now we're a High Rocks. Now we're a Spartan gym. Now, you know, you can't jump back and forth. You have to have your own foundation so that you can add or subtract like building blocks on top of that over time without eroding your base.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm going to give you guys, we're going to close this out. I'm going to give you a couple of quick things. I'm going to go coop GPT because we're all into quick summaries of things now. Chris, coop GPT me. What is the one thing that you want someone to take away from this book? If you only had to let them take one thing, what is it?

SPEAKER_02:

How to actually change a client's life. We all love to say, I'm changing all these lives. But the reality for me, you know, I'm a metrics guy is like, if you can't measure it, it's not happening. And, you know, I want to be able to say like, yeah, you have meaningfully changed a client's life according to one of these six criteria, which we break out in the book. And then we also tell you how to do it.

SPEAKER_01:

I like it. Kenny, your thing, what would you want to take away from this book for someone to be?

SPEAKER_00:

Ask more questions as a coach, like just lead with questions. Like, you know, your example with the guy coming in and says, I want to, I need a class at 10 or whatever. I just ask more questions. Well, what are you, what are you looking for? What are you trying to do? What are your goals? Like just, if you can, if you can lead with curiosity, you will always refine and come to some, some quality answer. Even if it's not your brand of fitness, even if it's not what you're going to be providing, like you can send them down the road because that might be what you've come to, to understand as their best thing. And I think that's like, the magical thing we're all trying to see is like that gym on every corner where people can be best served for them. And we're all successful coaches and individual owners of gyms, uh, as this thing moves along. So that's great question.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's the prescriptive model that is such a like fireworks in the sky thing for me was instead of assuming what clients want, ask them questions, ask what they want. They'll tell you like, it's so stupid. Right. But like I missed that for what a decade, you know, and that was just such a terrible thing. Uh, luckily I've learned and you don't listeners don't have to make the same mistakes because now you can just go to the answer and the answer is bring your clients in, ask them what they want, tell them what you can provide for them. And like Kenny said, if you can't provide it, you can send them to another gym because that's still serving them and saying, you're not going to get what you need here, but that gym down the road is awesome and you're still helping them achieve their fitness goals. You're kind of winning as a coach and eventually that's going to come back and you're going to get, you know, someone will pay it forward and you're going to get that client in return as well. Because it's book week, I'm going to ask you two recommendations, Coop. Help best. This is the one if you guys, Chris, it's most recent. If you want to get it, go to Amazon. What is the second book that you would advise them of yours to read right now?

SPEAKER_02:

Golden Hour. I mean, honestly, if people just did Golden Hour on repeat every 42 days. their gym just wouldn't stop growing. And what's interesting about the Golden Hour is it's also a framework that you can change, you know, the strategies and the tactics and the methods on it. But if that's all you do, and literally that's all I've done for the last 15 years is Golden Hour. And that's like the secret for me.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. And one other book, another book that a coach could pick up And get better at coaching skills. Anything in the world. It doesn't have to be a fitness book. It could be how to win friends and influence people. I may have stolen your answer. I don't know. What's another book that a coach could get to get better results for the clients and become a better trainer?

SPEAKER_02:

Ah, Kenny's got to go. I have to think about this for

SPEAKER_01:

a second. Kenny, go ahead. Hit me with something.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, man. I think it's so– because I just had Joel Jameson on the podcast and I know that's out so I can say it. Nice. Ultimate MMA conditioning. Yeah, yeah. I think that's because I think that the principles of conditioning aren't talked about nearly enough and I think that that is the best way rather than just like hammer it. Zone 5 all day, every day, or Zone 2. It talks so much about effective program design for conditioning and cardiovascular stuff. Even though it's titled for MMA, it's the best, most well-rounded conditioning book I've ever read.

SPEAKER_01:

So there's a technical one for you. Coop, you got one on your list now? Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_02:

I

SPEAKER_01:

would have picked

SPEAKER_02:

How to Win Friends. You're right.

SPEAKER_01:

I know I stole it from you. As

SPEAKER_02:

soon as I

SPEAKER_01:

said

SPEAKER_02:

it, I regretted it. No, I'm going to go back. I'm going to go back to one of the original Dan Pink books. So Dan Pink is like a Harvard researcher on psychology, and he wrote this book called The The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. And that was life-changing for me. Reading that book helped me understand myself better. And in turn, it helped me understand my clients a lot better too. The first time we ever did The Pumpkin Plan, which is another great book, I picked my top five clients and I took them for coffee. And I was like, what brought you to my gym? And what's your favorite thing? And what have you tried that you didn't like? And I thought they were all gonna be like, oh, it's fun and it's different every day. And CrossFit feels like a sport. And instead it was like, This is the only time in my life people tell me I'm doing it right. And like I was floored and then I'm like, you know, tear trickling down. So that's another amazing book that should tell you like how to build a client-centric business and do what Kenny said, which is like, you know, tailor your service to the clients you do best for.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll toss one in there and I'm going to do it with a shameless plug for the Two Brain Summit. Joey Coleman, how to never lose a client again. What a great speaker at our 2025 summit. That book he gave away, he signed. Tons of them. And the best thing that I could say is I watched Joey sign these books for people and he signed them like he was never going to lose a reader again because he didn't just sign and give you the book and walk. He interacted with each person in this giant line and made it like a really personalized experience for them. And it was watching his book in like watching him act out the principles of his book. And I think that was a really cool thing. Yeah. So you guys saw that. It was incredible. We had him on stage at the Two Brain Summit. The 2026 Summit is going to be a new location, bigger and better and more. Just I can't even wait to see you guys there. Check that out. We're going to close this out, guys. Thank you so much for your time. Listeners, head to the link in our show notes here. You can go to Chris Cooper's author page on Amazon. You will see 10 books, one of which was co-authored with Kenny and some other great trainers. Get one of these books and then take action. Guys, thanks so much for being here today and talking books. Thanks,

SPEAKER_02:

guys. Thanks, man.

SPEAKER_00:

See you, Chris.

SPEAKER_01:

That was Chris Cooper and Kenny Marquardt on Strength Coach Collective. To join 3,300 other trainers who are pushing the industry forward, head to strengthcoachcollective.com. And don't forget to click the link and get one of Coop's books today. Then take action on what you're learning.