Why Emotional Intelligence Makes Better Personal Trainers

Personal training has never been just about exercise.

Every day, coaches help people navigate stress, heartbreak, self doubt, major life changes, and the emotions that inevitably show up outside the gym.

In this episode of Smittyville, Chris Smith and Krissy Vann explore the human side of coaching. From crying at work and leading with empathy to navigating relationships and becoming a better communicator, this conversation is about the skills that separate good coaches from great ones.

Because the best coaches don't just change lives.

The work changes them, too.

In this episode:
• Is it okay to cry at work?
• How leaders should respond when emotions show up
• Why communication is one of a coach's greatest strengths
• Helping clients through difficult life events
• The connection between personal growth and professional success
• Why becoming a better human makes you a better coach

Welcome to Smittyville.

Building better coaches.
Building better careers.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

So if relationships go wrong, and again, we can make it about love, but I can make it about a client-training relationship. If that goes wrong, why did it go wrong? Because I really dig in. I'm going to find out that there wasn't great communication. And if there's not great communication, then that definitely doesn't lead to a like great communication is the first step to building trust.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

You just rolled into the smartest small talent fitness. Smartest small talent fitness. Merry Christmas. Christy Funny. A podcast for personal trainers. Let's get to work.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

You did cry in front of me. I did. Through this process. I did. And you were like embarrassed about it. Yeah. Which I would tell you that in my professional career, because you are going to lean into this a little bit. Yeah. That is like a very common thing where I mean I've been doing this long enough, helping enough people at different levels where they do get emotional at times, and when they do, they always want to apologize for it. And I'm always like, it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

You're just you're just getting into the emotes. It's alright. In fact, just hang on. Here's some Kleenex. Because yeah, just let them get it out. I'd rather you get it out than hold it in. Yeah, I'm definitely less of a crier and more of a motherfucker. One of those. So anyway, folks, we're talking about love and all the greatness it brings to your life.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

And seeing.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

It does, though.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Love is learning.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

Mm-hmm. And I think as you go through life, you get to a point where yeah, you do appreciate the obstacles, adversity, challenges, whatever, more than necessarily just imagining if just everything what would have been perfect. Whereas life is generally never perfect.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

True.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

So it's figuring out how to roll with it, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:56

It'd be boring if it was. To give trainers context as well, why we're diving into this. Chris, yourself, your coach people as a CEO, that's part of your role from top down. And you've been in this leadership position, not necessarily as CEO, but in a leadership position for some time, plus being a parent to five children. Therefore, there are conversations that sometimes bleed into business because you all of a sudden end up with a a staff member or a member of your team that's going through something in their personal life, and naturally that's going to affect their performance in their working life. So that's kind of how we landed here.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Whether it's a breakup, a divorce, you know, mutual split, not mutual, all sorts of different dynamics that go into the human element, right? And so yeah, I think it's just one of those things you intersect and connect with. And yeah, I mean, one of my gifts in some ways and a curse, because a lot of people come to me with their problems. And I'm happy to kind of do, you know, always just listen and try to understand is there something I can give you directionally to help you get back on track in terms of wherever it is you're trying to go.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Often people feel broken. There can be a semblance of their own identity that was meshed in with another individual, attachment styles, all the rest of it. And when that doesn't go well, they can proverbially seem as though they've fallen apart. I mean, heartbreak has the word break in it for a reason. So how do you kind of jump in there as a leader where obviously you still have a business to run and maintain, but you're dealing with somebody that's feeling the heartbreak?

SPEAKER_03 3:36

There's always two sides to a story, and generally you might only be hearing one. So what version are you really getting? So hopefully it's the closest thing to the truth as possible. Because then from there, for me, whenever I'm talking to people that are going through situations, I just try to understand. So what do you want to do? And a lot of times I think in those those those times, a lot of people, if they're especially still in the trauma of it all, they don't know that yet. And so for me, I'm usually advising them, well, until you know that, don't do anything crazy. Like just stay chill. Don't do anything crazy. And then once you feel like you've got enough mental clarity to go, okay, I've processed what's taken place, and now I know what I want to do. Now let's talk again. And let me make sure let me help you get your plan together. And let's just talk again and say, so what is the plan and how are you going to get there? And so again, I think different people arrive at those places in that time and space in different sequences, right? I think some people, if anything, I think some people try to move on too quickly, right? Back to the heartbreak and heartache and whatever they can go into the personal dynamics of those situations, and sometimes it takes people months and sometimes it takes people years. Now, again, if it's respectfully, if it's totally negatively impacting the business, then you know I have a fiduciary responsibility, I'd have to address that. But I I'll be honest, I I've never had that where it's like, oh, I had to remove someone from their position because they couldn't figure out how to separate those two dynamics, if you will, or put something else in a parking lot until it was appropriate to address it, or that sort of thing. So, but yeah, I mean, certainly I think, you know, as a leader, any leader should be empathetic to the uh the challenges that I think everyone faces. I mean, you know, again, you're we're over your dynamic. I mean, I've been married for 30 years, right? Or 31 years, you know, this year. And, you know, I'd love to sit here and tell you it's oh, it's just been the easiest thing ever, and just every day's been such a blessing. But I mean, I'm a pain in the ass. I mean, my wife and I joke about it, right? Like, I joke with her. I'm like, when you met me when we were in high school, like, did you know that I was like you'd literally just like won the lottery? I say stuff like that to her, right, as an egotistical idiot. And then she says back, like, you won? Like, no, no, no. Like, you won. Did you know that when you were 16 you were gonna meet someone that could put up with all your shit? Because you're a pain in the ass. And it's like, yeah, I am kind of a pain in the ass. And so, you know, I think if you can kind of even humanize and and bring laughter and appreciation for, you know, what your partner brings to the table and those types of things can lead to you know, longevity and those types of things. But yeah, nothing, no journey's ever perfect, and no journey is ever, you know, ideal.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Yeah, I think anytime in human relationships, exactly your point there, it's really easy to look at they did this to me, or they spoke like this, or they're like this, but I really appreciate flipping the script of looking at yourself exactly that where you're like, oh, I'm a bit of a pain in the ass, or like what am I willing to accept in my life? Why is that? Getting really curious about self. And I think a lot of times we look at other people to fulfill some other part of ourselves that we haven't figured out yet. Whereas it is kind of that old adage, like to be able to give love to somebody else, you need to love yourself. Well, what does that actually look like? And I think it on the human experience, it's constantly getting deeply curious with the version of yourself you are right now.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

The conversations I'll have with people again, and I'm managing against IQ, right, EQ, and then what I call BQ, business intelligence, right? Which the business intelligence is kind of out the door when we're talking about like personal relationships, dynamics, whatever. But from an IQ, EQ perspective, it's again, where are you at? What are you thinking about? What are you trying to do? Because even through those, those, you know, if you just even boil it down, right? And just take it all the way down to the bottom, it's like, okay, so if relationships go wrong, and again, we can make it about love, but I can make it about a client-training relationship. If that goes wrong, why did it go wrong? Because I really dig in. I'm going to find out that there wasn't great communication. And if there's not great communication, then that definitely doesn't lead to a like great communication is the first step to building trust. Building great trust then leads to other bigger emotions. And so if I can find out, like how are you as a communicator back to are you open? Are you transparent? Are you vulnerable? Do you actually listen? That's the big one. Like, do you do these things? And it's like, well, and again, if you take stock and inventory of yourself to go, well, gosh, I'm not as great at that. So what are you doing about it? Are you going to counseling? Are you listening to podcasts? Are you reading books? Are you like, what are you doing to get better at these things that you know you're deficient at, whatever that might be? Because again, I've also, you know, I've shared with people openly, like, the things that I've done to make my personal relationship better have always benefited me professionally. Always, right? So the things that I've done to be a better father, a better husband have also always helped me be a better leader and a better boss or whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

With that client-trainer relationship, vulnerability. I feel like, you know, it's a term much like authenticity that we hear turned around over and over again. But from the trainer side, what does vulnerability look like from the trainer to then earn trust with the client to cultivate that vulnerability?

SPEAKER_03 8:41

Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes a client might ask, you know, again, it's not necessarily, I think, on the same dynamic, but let's just say a client said, Oh, I really want to learn how to use kettlebells. And you were to be as a trainer, say, Well, I'll be honest, I I lift with them and I do some stuff, but I've never taken a course. So I'll tell you what, since you really want to learn it, you've been really clear that you want to learn that, I'm gonna ask trainer X to come alongside of us one session to help teach us both how to use kettlebells more effectively. Would you be open to that? Is that okay if I brought someone else in to help us with your program? And in the meantime, if you're gonna say a client of mine long term, Chrissy, like I promise you, I'm gonna go get kettlebell certified.

unknown 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

Or whatever that is, right? Versus like, yeah, yeah, no problem, I'll teach you kettlebells. You know, I really want to know how to do deadlifts and this and that, and like it's a trainer that maybe has never really done a lot of barbell work. Probably shouldn't say, yeah, no problem. If you're not truly a subject matter expert at a particular niche of like something, and you can't tell show do, you probably shouldn't be doing it. And telling a client that I don't think is like the worst thing in the world. Back to you're communicating, you're building trust, which will ideally lead to more you know, likability and rapport as well, which if you have that, I call that the like the Bermuda triangle with the winning triangle. So if you have likability, rapport, and trust, the client generally will never leave you. Like they like you, there's rapport, right? And they trust you, they're going nowhere.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Trust is huge in relationships. Are you somebody that believes if trust is broken that it can be regained? Or are you the type that believes trust is broken we're done?

SPEAKER_03 10:15

Uh not always. I think again it's situational and con context and like what depends on the severity and whatever. So I tend to believe it can be rebuilt, and I do believe that, you know, we're human beings, and that's what I try to often tell people when they're really frustrated, or even a team member of mine makes a really bad mistake in the business. And let's say a member as an example or a client is really upset, I try to just humanize it and say, look, I look I wish, you know, in some ways I wish it was an idealistic world and they were robots and every I could program all to say the exact same thing at the exact same time, do things a certain way, but they're but they're not, they're humans and they're fallible and they make mistakes. And that's part of learning in life. And so if you can just give them some grace and let us do what we do, which is coach, guide, give feedback, I'm fairly committed. Like I know this person, I know their character, I'm I'm confident this mistake won't happen again. So in the in that in that way, you're betting on two people as well. You're betting on yourself that you can in fact do that, and you're betting that that person will like grab onto that. And if you said, has that worked out for me every time? No. Has it worked out way more than it hasn't? Absolutely. So I'd rather be someone that believes in people and helping people be better than someone who just uh you fucked up, you're done. Get out of here. So I'm I'm much more of like you can you can find a way back.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Like humans are just so complex, and you've had to coach so many of them from a professional standpoint. I mean, you have people on your team that have been who what's the longest member on your team actually?

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Well, I mean, uh, we've got a couple people here at Fitness World that from the prior entity into this entity when I purchased it in 2020. I mean, they've been around for like 35 years. Wow. Um, I've been here now 15 years, so they've been with me 15 of those call it 35. The longest person that's probably working with us now that's known me the longest and worked with me the longest professionally, uh, I think is Nastasia. And uh that's our VP of fitness services here. She's been like 18 years.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

So she's got stories.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

I'm sure. I'm sure we'll have her on here to divulge some of those over time.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Well, I mean, again, if you're talking about relationships and trust, I mean, I was really hard on her when she was young. Really hard. I coached her real hard. And and you know, and she did great. And she came out the other side of it, I think, better for it in some ways. And again, I was a fairly young leader at that time too, so I wouldn't love to sit here and say, Oh, I got everything right, I was perfect then. I wasn't perfect, that's why she's got stories.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Yeah, fair enough. But where I'm going with that is, you know, you've had to guide and coach these individuals. And I'm just curious, what are some of the most common challenges, personal challenges that you've kind of had to navigate through it?

SPEAKER_03 12:49

It's for sure the the personal breakups and the, you know, relationships that are don't make it, those types of situations. But I mean, I've had, you know, team members that I've known since they were essentially kids, 17, 18 years old, and they're in their early 30s now, and I've seen some of them go from a lifestyle choices or even sexuality choices, um, you know, pronoun choices or whatever, right? And I think, you know, I think what people often want from me is like, truthfully, is they want permission. And and I that's how it feels anyway. And for me, it's like, you don't need my permission. Because all I ever really want for any of my team members is to be happy, right? So whatever's gonna make you happy, be happy. Um whatever you do to be happy, I'm indifferent as long as you show up every day and do your job, right? And you work hard and you're that. But there's a lot of that personal dynamics and the relationships and the breakups, and how do I deal with it and how do I move through that? Um, you know, lots of tears for those individuals as they go through those, like those are usually the biggest stuff. And then there's also like the bereavement issues. So you'll get individuals that lose their mother, their father, um, or somebody else close to them unexpectedly, especially. Those are the ones that um I think have a hard time with that. I mean, I've you know, not fortunately for sure, but I mean I've lost my dad almost 10 years ago, right? He was 68. Um, so I was, you know, whatever, 41 or so at the time. And so, you know, I had to kind of experience that myself, so I have some empathy for that. And again, I had aunts and uncles and other people around me that helped me process it or figure out, so I even lean on some of that in terms of when I talk to other people about their own journey in that process, but everybody's got to go through their own journey, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:24

Yeah. Boy, do they ever Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

I mean, you can get all the advice in the world from all the smartest people in the world, but at the end of the day, you still gotta do the work, you still have to process the thoughts and uh, you know, find it find your way through.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Like no one's coming to save you in this life. And I also feel like there's no rule, like to your point, all these different pivots, there's no one way to live a life or anything like that, but cultivating like a loving relationship with yourself is kind of the biggest one.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

As long as it's healthy. Yes, because you can love yourself too much.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

Well, fair enough. That's ego.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Well, that's narcissism.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Which again, if we're gonna be fully transparent, I would tell you there was certainly a time in my life where I've I let my ego get so big that I wouldn't necessarily tell you that I was a narcissist, but I would tell you I had narcissistic tendencies. And I would say it probably wasn't healthy, and I don't think it was good for anyone.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Was it somebody else holding a mirror to you that helped you recognize that? Or did you kind of hit a point yourself where you were like, I don't really love this about myself. I want to change it.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

That's kind of where it started. And then the more that the mirror got held up, the more I realized how true it was. And I was like, oof, that's pretty ugly. Part of me getting to a better place, truthfully, was even back to recommitting myself to some of my religious faith and some of the things that I had grown up with in my life, and that as I got busier, I just found ways to not make that part of my week or part of my my you know, my system. And so, you know, I'm back to kind of recommitted. I go to you know, service just about every Sunday unless I'm traveling. Um, you know, I read the Bible pretty regularly and study and try to do some of that, and I've I've found that that meditative work has helped me in particular just stay centered on who I really want to be, right? Yeah, people want to know who I am, what I do, what my weeks look like. That's that's what I do every Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

And it's a blessing. It's great and go with my wife and my children show up, my grandchildren are there. Yeah, the big challenge, right, for all of us is can you be the best version of yourself? How do you show up every day and be the best version of yourself? And you know, some days you might not. So then how do you turn the book and do better tomorrow?

SPEAKER_02 16:31

For those that are looking to kind of reconnect and wanting to be better, what are three actionable tips that you would give them?

SPEAKER_03 16:40

I'm just a believer in, you know, leaders are readers. And if you want to lead your own life, just lead yourself, not other people, then I think you should be reading. Like, well, I can't actually read a book, I'm terrible at that, I can only do audio. Fine, then do that. But readers are leaders, right? Um, so I would subscribe to that back to um other things in terms of being your best version of yourself, like being vulnerable, looking in the mirror, knowing where you have a gap, and then saying, Well, who can help me with that? Is there a podcast out there? Is there someone else in my life that's been through similar experiences? Where's the right place for me to get mentorship in that area? Would be like the second thing that I would take you to do. And the third, I would say, is having a goal around where you want to take yourself. And that again, those other two things should feed into that. But I mean, at the end of the day, like where do you want to go? Who do you want to be? How do you want to show up? How do you want others to think about you? Like that's there's there's you know, most people don't think about this when they're younger for sure. In fact, most of the the trainers, the audience will look at this, but if you think about what is my legacy, and I do often think about that. I start to think about that now, and honestly, I'm 51, and if I died today, I'd be pretty proud, really, because I think people go, man, that guy did like a lot in a a certain amount of time, and he impacted all these people in such a way, and to me, that's the legacy I want to leave. I don't want the legacy to be like, oh, he was a CEO and he made money and he owned a company. I I don't I I want people to like my legacy to be like I touched all these people's lives in a way where like I made an impact and I made them better, right? Like that's what I care about from a relationship standpoint, or like where my legacy is gonna end up.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

I mean, you are in the business of changing lives.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

Exactly. And don't take that for granted. And so just be appreciative of that, to say, man, I've got 20 clients. How can I help them be the best version of themselves? Because over time, I mean I'm still in contact with people I trained 30 years ago, right? Through Facebook and other mediums or whatever it is, right? Where yeah, you just maintain those relationships because there's such a level of you know continuity and trust and all the things.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Let's head to the trainer circuit. Real questions, real situations. Chris shows up, listens, and mentors from experience.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

All right, now it's your turn.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Uh, what are the two biggest setbacks that you've faced as a personal trainer and a business owner, and how did you overcome those?

SPEAKER_03 18:57

Two biggest setbacks. Yeah, I've talked about this before, um, but like my biggest setback, and it actually made me step out of the industry, right? Was one of my one of my best clients, if not my best client, died. And so it made me really tough on me. And I trained him for two years. I took him from 400 pounds to 200 pounds. Uh his name was Phil. He owned an excavation company, and I got a call. He missed his session, so I was calling him and nobody answered. I was like, that's so weird. He always like shows up, he's always in time. Train him four days a week, four days a week for two years. Didn't show up, no callback, no nothing. Eventually his wife called me later the night. She's like, Sabi, I'm like, what's wrong? And it took her a minute to even get out. She's like, he died. I'm like, I was like shook. And I'm like, what can I do? This and that, going to his funeral, to the point where, like, again, and I had a studio at that point. I shut my studio down. I was like, I don't know if I can handle this. It's like emotionally, this is too much. Because I was like friends with the guy, right? Like it was, it was it was rough, it was real hard on me. Um, and to the point where again, like, I stepped out of the unit, I said, I don't know if I can do this. This is this is a lot, man. Like, this is brutal. And then, truthfully, it was almost like the movie Jumanji, right? There's like that drum, right, that you hear. And that's kind of where it happened. And so after about six, not even quite six months of being out of it, I was like, I really do miss it. And I started then looking around, where would I go? What do I want to do? And it was actually at that point I said, I want to go back into training, but I do want to get in a company where I think I can also leverage leadership and growth and just see where it goes, just see where it takes me. And that's when I started my journey at that point in time in my career at a company called a little small company back in the day called 24 Hour Fitness. It wasn't small. Uh it was 180 clubs when I joined it, it was about 440 when I left. Um, but anyway, had a really amazing journey. So that would be what I would call the biggest setback. Um, the other setbacks are more like in my early days. Again, we there was no class like this, just so you understand. Like when I started as a trainer, there was no onboarding, there was no class, there was no curriculum, there was no ICT in-club training checklist. It was like, all right, here you go. Here's like here's your uniform. Have a great day. And you're like, okay. So the setback was more about like, what's the it's not even the comeback, it's the how do I make this happen.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Before we wrap, we'll leave you with a smithism, a lesson Chris has picked up along the way.

SPEAKER_03 21:10

I was at a HFA board meeting earlier this month, and uh, you know, Luke Carlson, who's you know had uh succeeded me as chairman of the association, he's doing amazing work. We talked a little bit about you know, strategy is often what not necessarily what you do, but uh sometimes what you don't do, right? And so back to this idea of love, um, I would actually take it back to some of the stuff we were talking about earlier from a biblical perspective, and then you talk about First Corinthians, it goes into great detail around what love is. And I would almost in some ways say when you're trying to love yourself or others around you, sometimes it's also what love isn't.

unknown 21:44

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

And so I think if you take stock to say what is loving behavior, whether you want to use a biblical example, or if you want to use it and just make out your own list to say, what would love mean to me? If I'm loving someone, how would I show up every day? Or you could also again say, what are the things that would to me tell me that someone doesn't love me? And you write that list down. And so even back to the interdynamics relationship, if someone comes into your life and they're red flagging a bunch of the things that you've already decided that that means like that doesn't feel like love to me, then remove yourself and get out of that. Don't wait to see where it's going. You already know. Like if someone tells you who they are, trust them. It's like, well no, I gotta wait again. It's like, mm-hmm, maybe back to that trust thing. But especially early days in relationship, don't try to change people. Just really don't. It's a waste of time, energy, effort, all of it. It's not sweat equity. It's just stress. That's what it is. So anyway, first Corinthians, love is patient, love is kind, all the rest of it that goes in there, and I don't not trying to discredit it, but I think if you just take stock of what is love to you and what is it not, and then stand for something, right? Or your fall for anything. That's a song, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

What's it? Can we sing it?

SPEAKER_03 22:57

You've got to stand for something, or your fall for anything. And then there's more of it. It's a country song.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

Yeah, I'll sing you the rest of it. With my guitar, maybe. Maybe that should be the song.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

For you to come in.

SPEAKER_03 23:12

Only if you wear clogs and stomp the whole time.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Excellent deal, done deal. We just lost all our listeners.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

Bye, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

That's today's Smithism. Chris Smith is the mayor of Smithyville, and I'm Chrissy Van, your town correspondent. This is the smartest small town in fitness. We'll see you back here every other week.