Why Most Personal Trainers Burn Out (And What to Do Instead)

In this video, Callum and Ryan reflect on the journey so far — the lessons, the progress, and the reality of growing a career in the fitness industry.

The emotional toll and grind of starting your own business

―――――――――――――――

🎯 Thinking about becoming a personal trainer?

Take the free PT career quiz: https://ptlaunchlab.co.uk/quiz

📞 Ready to start?

Book a call: https://ptlaunchlab.co.uk/book-call

🎓 NCFE Level 3 Personal Trainer Course:

https://ptlaunchlab.co.uk/courses

―――――――――――――――

Follow PT Launch Lab:

Instagram: @ptlaunchlab | TikTok: @pt.launch.lab | YouTube: @ptlaunchlab

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKqkq1d-_rI

🎯 Thinking about becoming a personal trainer?

Take the free PT career quiz: https://ptlaunchlab.co.uk/quiz

📞 Ready to start?

Book a call: https://ptlaunchlab.co.uk/book-call

🎓 NCFE Level 3 Personal Trainer Course:

https://ptlaunchlab.co.uk/courses

Follow PT Launch Lab:

Instagram: https://instagram.com/ptlaunchlab

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@pt.launch.lab  

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ptlaunchlab

#PTLaunchLab #PersonalTrainer #BoxingCoach #AddictionRecovery #FitnessUK

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Hello everybody, welcome to episode 20 of PT Lodge. Here we go, we're back. Hey, it's the first time in a long time we've actually been doing the podcast together.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

I know. Well, look, obviously everybody's noticed, but we've actually got a brand new setup now. Uh, we've been doing that over the past couple of weeks. So obviously I went on holiday. Um, and then Callum were busy with that. We've kept happy with it now, aren't we? We've still got a couple of little touches, but um Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Do you know what? We were just sick of the uh the darkness of the room, eh? Yeah, because we share the room with uh one of our colleagues, Jen, who does counselling. We were constantly building the studio, breaking it back down. We're like, why don't we just make it better for everybody and make it look really nice?

SPEAKER_00 0:55

So that's where we are. Um we've also got some good guests coming up this week, uh, and then we've got a good list of um potential guests to come on in the later weeks as well. So finally got as base where we want to we want to work from, we're quite happy with how the studio looks, and then now we can start really moving forward, cracking on getting some even better guests and um helping everybody out as much as possible.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yeah, and don't forget if you're gym, uh a fitness trainer, a coach, you're someone in the industry, and you want to come on a podcast, because what we're starting to realize now, there's not a lot of platforms for PTs to go on and talk about the trade, talk about the advice. That's what we're here for. Give us a message, let us know what you want to do, come on and have a chat. We're we're open to anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

I had this conversation just like sort of out with term with even lads in the in the boxing gym who are still hearing about the um the podcast that we do, and I I believe that we've got quite a niche here because it doesn't matter if you're actually in the fitness industry or you've got something that's a benefit towards running a business. So we've had obviously we've had motivational speakers, we've had uh people who are working already, uh people who are actually in the fitness industry themselves or using principles from their business already and then putting them into personal training, which is all good. So we're just going to try and get as much widespread uh different angles and different stories for people to actually either break into the industry or how they use the principles in their line of work.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yeah, and for everyone who's been watching the podcast, we we've done that, we've got such like a really good calibre of people coming in, and not only sharing their industry secrets, let's say, they're also sharing the stories as well. So we've had obviously Marcus from me and Clean, we've had Luke coming in, we've had Matty. Matty's just qualified, and he's now actually in a sticking point where he was nervous about coming to PT, he didn't know how it was going to work at long-side his job, and now he's got a different problem where he's building his business, he's getting too busy, and he doesn't know what to do with his time. It's like, yeah, but I'm always having these problems. Like, they're good problems to have.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Well, I caught I caught him outside yesterday when he was leaving with his certificate. Uh and we're just checking how we're doing. He told me how many online clients he's got, how he's uh he's struggling to juggle it at the minute. But like Gallum just said, it's a very good problem to have. I um I believe, like we've spoken about before, is creating your own safety net. Yeah, 100%. So he's not actually spending any of the money that he's making right now, which is I think the smartest thing to do. Leave that in a pot. Figure out, I don't know, let's say six months' worth of your mortgage, that's your safety net. Then what you I feel like you work a little bit harder once your back's against the wall. Whereas you're not in a rush to keep expanding as long as you've got a safety net of your of your job that you're doing at present.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Yeah, and that's the thing is we never ask people to just jump ship and jump straight because it's it's not realistic, especially this day and age. I mean, the cost of living anyway, unless you're confident you're walking straight into the same hours, the same money, it's unrealistic. When you're building a business, the great thing about this is you can do it on the side. And uh we had Mark, who was a productivity expert in the other day. And uh oh, screen went off. Anyway. Uh and you were talking about if you say that you don't have time, it means you don't have priorities. Now I think that carries over very well to building a business. Yes, you're working, yes, you've got a family life, but you can prioritize that time to build your business, and it's actually pretty easy as well. And we motivate all of our learners on the course to don't wait until you finish the course to start getting the feelers out there, talking to people, start building the foundations of your business because when you get a certificate, you want to hit the ground running, so start the process already.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Absolutely. People want to see that you've got that little bit of experience before, so not everything's the certificate's not the being and all, is it? It's just it's that's what you need to be legitimate in this profession. Obviously, the experience speaks a lot louder. Matt's got tons of experience. Now the certificate's just like the icing on the cake. But I feel like the passover again at the minute, Matt is a good hard worker, which is what you need to be, because I feel like PT now is more of a luxury than ever. Like you said, cost of living crisis. Yeah, cost it. It's definitely an expense. Like just doing one session a week is an expense to anybody, especially if you've got a family. So I feel like being a hard worker like Izzy said, the one thing that is finding difficult. So when you've got a job and you leave, you can leave your work at work. Yeah, yeah. When you come home, you've got the downtime, you can do what you want, you can do the things you enjoy. When you've got your own business, especially when you're trying to do a job and your own business, there's not really any switch off time, or you're constantly thinking how you can expand, how you can progress onto the next stage, and you're trying to free time up that don't really exist, but that is temporary. I say that you can actually have more freedom to work your own hours, but if you are driven, it's probably less likely that you're gonna leave free time because you're gonna try and fill those gaps as much as you possibly can. Oh no, I do.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah, it's a fallacy, innit? Like everyone says you can work your own hours, and everyone that says this, by the way, is people that don't own their own business because everyone that does, they realize that all their own hours is all the hours that they've got in the deck. Like, because uh we were talking about the 80-20 rule, and the 8-20 is the 8% of the business is all the fundamental bits on the inside, the mechanics of it, you know, making sure you've got automations in place, you're paying your bills, you've got your insurances, you got your daily automations to make sure that the business can be stable. The 20%, even though it's a small margin, that's your scaling bit, and your scaling bit is something you want to touch on every day. But it gets difficult. Like I was speaking about this the other day. Like we run a gym, we've both got PTs, you know, your boxing, I'm doing all the other work on the outside. We're trying to build the podcast, we're trying to build the PT course business, families. Like you just rail off all these things that are going on, but I also wouldn't change a thing either because you choose your struggle in life. I think you've got you can either choose a struggle in something that you hate doing, or choose your struggle in something that you love doing. Now, we've all gonna struggle in life, so just choose which one's gonna suit you better. I'm much happier struggling with something that's ours and that we love and we're building ourselves than going to a nine to five and serving someone else's purpose just to bring along the wage that doesn't take you that far, you don't feel good about the work that you've done. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

So, just on this point then, so how how how do people go about getting signed up to be?

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Yeah, so when you initially sign up, so whether you find us through the podcast, the website, everything like that, you fill out a simple contact form or you ask for us to give you a call. It's always better to have a call, I'll say this to everyone, because it's nice to hear the other person on the other end of the phone and actually walk you through it. So imagine you say yes, imagine you want to take the leap. We walk you through the different payment options and stuff like that. We've got different videos on that, but basically, you pay either in full or you spread the cost 0% finance, whatever. Then we get on to the course. So the course is a very small part of your journey, but it's with NCFE, it's fully accredited. It means that if you wanted to go into employment in the PT industry, you can walk straight through the doors where you get insurance, it's all recognized, and it actually spreads through the UK, Europe, some parts of Canada, it's valid pretty much in a lot of places in the world. So 12 units, a lot of them cover obviously your basic anatomy and physiology, applied anatomy, then you're talking programming, you're talking nutrition, then you're looking at like a business study one, basically just to sort of edge you into sort of the business studies. Once you complete that, and I mean during this as well, we're ringing you, we get your business mentorship. So we give you a ring once a week, see how you're getting on. We give you some little tasks, some thought-provoking tasks, some little bits to get yourself out there, start talking to them. So at the minute, we're talking to a guy called Jonathan, we're working with him at the minute, and his initial idea. I'm not going to give away all his ideas, but he wants to work more towards recovery people in recovery. He wants to work more towards people who have come across from addiction or some type of struggle and get them healthier. I says, Well, why don't you start approaching these charities and groups where they all get together, offer some free training, start building up your experience and also get your face in front of people to tell you who you are and what you want to do. It's all about these little trials and tribulations. So you do that in the background while you're doing the course, it's fully online, meaning you can do it as and when you need to do it. You don't need to come and see us. The only time you want to come and see us is if you want to come and do your practical in person, or you get a video assessment option as well, just to make sure that we're covering everybody. So once you complete that, your business studies continue. You enter our uh private Facebook group where it's filled with everybody else who's doing the course and other fitness professionals, and you just start networking, you start understanding different aspects of business. You might find someone in your area you want to work with. But all in all, this course we believe is a very, very small part of your journey. So we aim to get you through as quick as possible. Four to eight weeks, we can estimate that you're gonna pass that course. Once you've done that, you've got your tickets, and then the real work starts, the lifestyle part starts.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

And I can't stress that enough for anybody who's doing PT and then not qualified. I actually posted a story yesterday from my Instagram where a personal trainer got sued. He was actually insured, but he got sued. He was doing the exercise, he was doing his job. The woman got an injury, sued him. I think she got£200,000. Yeah, I saw that, yeah. Yeah, that's why it's important, right? These people are out there, people are looking for money, they're looking for claims. As horrible as that sounds, it's real, it's a reality. Um, and if you're not qualified, you're taking that full money on yourself. Um, so if you are a PT and you think you're getting away with it, you're always running that red line, and it's just very dangerous to be in.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

It's quite surprising how many people we've met that said, oh, no one's ever asked for a PT, so it's all just crack on. It's like, well, it's I always relate it back to driving because you never think that drive. You never think it's gonna be who do gets caught, but but when you do, uh you're all right up until you get caught. It's it's it's when it needs to be there. And for the price that we charge, it's a fair price to make sure that you're insured and you're legal, and it means you can progress onto other courses as well. So you're talking your exercise referral courses, your level four level four strength and conditioning. You've got all sorts of applications. So if you want to go down the academic route, this is your starting point. So it's really important to understand, yes, you can do it without you can do a lot of things without the proper certificates, but up until that day you get caught, you need to think about that day.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Yeah, and so on that point then. So, how much is the cost? How much is our cost?

SPEAKER_01 12:11

So we charge$15.99, okay. So that is the flat rate cost, but if you're willing to pay in the full, we knock off 200 quid just for doing that, okay. Then we offer zero five uh zero percent finance options. I'm tripping on my words today. Zero percent zero percent, zero percent finance. So basically, you get a stripe link. Um there are some options on there as well, like Klarna, stuff like that, that you can go through to make sure that it works for you. Uh, we also have pay later, which are another financial service that you can use if you want to spread the cost all the way up to 18 months. Um, you can do that as well. But initially, what we need you can always put down a deposit. So deposit is$5.99. That gets you registered and onto the course, and then you can split the payments how you want over the time up until you're certified.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

So, working out from that say$1,600 to make it easy, right? What we're what we're trying to give you after, we're not just going to leave you in the dark. So, what we want to do is kind of pave the way and also help you get that money back. All right, so this is you'll not get this from any other company, no one else does this. Again, it's something that we put on that we think is beneficial for everyone who signs up. We're not just here to take the money, we're here to try and earn you it back as well. So that's what we're trying to do at PT Launch Lab is actually help create some momentum to get you up and running. So what we'll we'll run a couple of um let's run, get the calculator out, Cal, and we'll um we'll break it down how quick it is to actually make this money back. All right, so PT cost flat rate. Let's go, we'll go pretty cheap. Let's say you pay£10 to your gym or you pay five pounds to your gym. So profit£20. All right, so£20. Let's do that. There's£52 weeks, let's take two weeks off, make it simple. So we'll do£20 times£50. Bear in mind, so how's that code?£1,000. Right, so£1,000, right? So that's just doing one hour a week for the year. Okay, so let's be more realistic. We're gonna do more than one session a week, aren't we? So two sessions a week. So we already know that's two thousand pounds, okay? Right, so on that note, how much is the cost?

SPEAKER_01 14:28

£15.99. So you're actually£400 in profit.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

You£400 in profit, that's your first year only doing two sessions. All right, this can keep going up and up and up. Alright, so let's put five sessions five sessions a week. Five sessions a week. Can't believe you that can be doing that. Yeah, I know. I shouldn't be able to do it off the top of my head from that, so so hundred quid a week. Hundred quid a week.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

So that's five grand extra. So imagine you are earning£25,000 a year. You just upped your wage to£30,000 a year. In the midst of paying off your cost and whatever profit you have over, so you've got nearly a three and a half grand profit on top.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

So So just and even that you've paid it back before six months there, with still some profit. So although it seems like it's a lot of money to pay out, within six months, you're then in profit for the rest of your life. Like out, you need to you need to visualize that small little investment for yourself to do something you want to do. If you've already got a job, it's constant profit after that point, and that's not just for that year, that's every single year after that. Okay, so what seems like a big investment right now, the quicker you do it, the quicker you can start making money. And these are realistic numbers. It's not like I'm saying, oh, well, you have 40 clients a week. All right, we're not saying that.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

No, but separate yourself a little bit as well. And yes, it can seem a dart in price, any any price that we charge. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's courses out there for 500 quid. There is. You can price match it, you can go and find them for 500 quid. Um, some very high-ranking PT courses, right? But what I'll tell you is this their PT certificates are not certified. I know because I've got the same PT certificates, I had to do them again because I paid 500 quid and I got 500 quid's worth of a course, right? Um so you're not going to be able to get an employment anywhere with these certificates. Now, I said we the course is a very small part of your journey, but it's an investment in yourself, okay? If you're willing to drop a thousand pounds on clothes over the year, just in average, so you're willing to drop a grand on clothes to look better. Imagine dropping a little bit more than that to personal development, improving yourself. And think about it like this: you could think about any career option you want, but nine times out of ten, we're speaking to people who are already in love with the fitness, they might have been through a journey, they might have something of value to add to the fitness industry. You could be someone that could change someone's life. What is 1500 quid compared to the career that you could have?

SPEAKER_00 17:07

And that's not even like you're not even going out your way. So say, let's make it relatable. So say you're already going to the gym on the night five times a week, but then you you're already at the gym, you're doing PTs from that gym. You train, you train a client. You've already added£100 to your week. Now just five with no extra testing. One hour that or you could train yourself, and then you could do five hours on a weekend, you could do three on a Saturday, two on a Sunday,£100 extra week. That's four to five hundred pounds a month extra for doing something you love and passing on the knowledge to someone else. Like for me, four to five hundred pounds extra a month is good in anybody's pocket for an extra hour through the week or extra five hours on a weekend.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Like it's nothing. All the free advice that you've given over the years to people asking you because you go to the gym and all that wisdom that you've imparted right for free. Imagine doing that on a basis with someone's paying you for that knowledge and wisdom, okay? And I'm not saying that you know everything that you need to know about personal training, but you have been doing these so-so apprenticeships for years, you've been learning about your own body, you've been learning about exercise and diet. So now you're in a position where if you just learn the technicalities and the bits behind it, you can make a business out of it. So why not instead of giving people information for free, start running it as a business and start actually waking up and going, Oh, I'm going to work today to talk about a thing that I love talking about. Because the gym takes over people's personalities. I know I do, but it changes it then. I don't know, I know you're probably the same. So now you do it for a living and you see someone outside of work, you're like, you go out for a meal or something, and then someone's asking about fitness, like, sure, I just want to eat.

unknown 18:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Gets to the point where people are asking you, like, listen, I've been doing this all day. Just talk about something else.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

That's like we with boxing. Yeah, we're gonna go on night out if it well, never go on night out anymore, but yeah, what I used to, I used to spend half my night talking about boxing training, or someone's gonna start, or they want to they want to get a fight set up, but it's just yeah, it's always I'm trying to get away from that right now, but there's always an older bloke, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Going, yeah, I I used to be a boxer back it, dad. I couldn't have gone through, you know. He's got a pack of Guinness's ammo. I used to look like you, but a bit bigger. Yeah, I used to be shaped like that. Yeah, yeah. It's it's one of those, it's um it's a privilege to do it, but it's also sometimes an anchor because you can just be known for that. Yeah, and you do a lot of other stuff. It's one of those, it's it's a nice compliment sometimes, but in the wrong environment, you're just like, I just can we just talk about something different. Yes, that's how I am. How's my day going? But um yeah, um, so yeah, I've been we've been loving the podcast, it's been it's really changed for me. I've loved having conversations, I've loved just being involved in you know, I think it changes the way that you change perspective as well. Um, we've had to evolve the way we do our podcast. Um, if you go back and watch the very first one we did, it was very robotic, it was very like, what do we talk about? And then this, yeah, and then you realise that people don't tune in for that. People tune in for a conversation, and there were a lot of cuts, there were a lot of stuff where we were like, Oh, we meant a mistake, we'll cut that out. And uh now we just don't bother because this is what a podcast is, and it's all about learning and journeys. And I got we got to meet some really interesting people. Um, Miles were an interesting one. Went down to see Jimmy Bradford, went to a seminar as well, and you realise that you can just start working with your peers and seeing mentors and different people who are in a different real uh exercise realm or a different knowledge realm and start learning stuff from that.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Yeah, the thing is we we have these conversations every day, so they're just not filled. So it's just nice to uh to get them to get them on camera and obviously share share it with other people as well. Especially I feel like um people really enjoy having the guests on as well. Obviously, the bit that we do together is very much swaying to the business that we do, and it's it's very it's refreshing then to hear other people's stories, other people's journeys, other people's businesses and the routes they're taking. So uh for me, I'm still absorbing it all in. I've been very much isolated into my own business for years. Uh, this is how I run it, and I've always been the one giving advice to say this is what this is my approach, this is how I do it, this is what I do with my first five clients, etc. etc. Here's how I do my social media. Whereas now I'm starting to just I'm learning other things as well because from the guests that we've got on. So the people who are very interesting people, everyone seems to run everything slightly different. So I think the more knowledge you can get and the more understanding of people's different paths, the more likely there's one to suit you.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Yeah, and as we're getting more towards the end of the year as well, it's uh really the time for reflection about you know where you're going. And I think our approach now is very solid in terms of we want to just hear people's stories. We're happy to sit here for an hour and someone yabber at us about the stuff that they love. Because again, you can be very isolated as a PT because you are the expert and you can get caught up in that. And this is what we're trying to teach people not to do. Don't think that you are the only source of information for these people. There's nothing wrong with being open-minded and taking in your points and your opinions and getting challenged on them. Um, there's a lot of different approaches that I didn't have before, and then meeting people like Miles, even Marcus, to be honest, the way that he did it. Because a lot of people think about when you're building a business, especially like social media say, it's like post twice a day and do this, do that. It's got to be structured, it's got to be this, it's got to be that. And then you meet people and just like, oh, I just like posting stuff, I just like putting stuff out there, and that's how I got busy. And that's the way we're doing it now because we always we've been wanting to do a podcast for ever since we started working together. We're always talking about it, but we're always like, what do we talk about? Yeah, and then you realise after so long, it's we'll just talk about stuff you're interested in.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Yeah, I'd say I trained a influencer last Friday, and uh, he's been trying to he knows like you know Dappa laughs and stuff like that. So he's been doing this, he'd been on the circuit for years, never really kicked off, and then he put a funny tweet on, went went massive, and uh now he's just making money from put putting posting like jokes of like snapshots of tweets, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he were just showing me the internals of it, and he said there were like there were no structure to it. So some things were getting 20k views and you get 100 quid, and then other things would get 100k views, but you wouldn't get anything. And he said there's no real structure on the Facebook, but it was just showing me like what sort of money can be made for it purely from jokes, and I know that's not in line with this business, but again, you can still take that principle to anything if you can get a good enough views from this content, then you can make money.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

What do you think the ultimate value is about being a PT now or just doing this fitness stuff in general? Because I've realized a lot over this last year just how much value's in it.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Um to me, the values uh I'm just so passionate about it. I've always have been. Um, I feel like we've talked about before doing the years as a ground PT, being on the gym floor, you build up a different respect for people that you're training, the the people that you've coached for years, um the reward that the amount it feels rewarding to you when because they are they become your friends. There's no they say try to try to say keep it like your business and um pleasure, but it's almost sort of like you get so much enjoyment out of seeing them do well or get a new record or a new PV. The only one problem I see now for PTs is that it's a way to make money just online. There's there's there's not always the same passion. It seems like a shortcut way to be able to sit in Dubai and sit with a laptop and be a coach when you've actually got no experience. And we spoke about it before. Unless you've actually been on the gym floor for me, I don't think you understand what being a real PT is because being in person and being a character and creating personal bond is what this job for me is all about. That connection at first, and when you when you're speaking to them again, that person might not have been confident to come in. Then now they're in the gym, they're friends with everybody, they're now coming and training with someone else from the gym who you almost like introduce them to, or they've come to a class, it's built a bond. I've still got people in the class now who've been with me for 10 years, and like family to me. So for me, being a PT on that for that side for the correct reasons, I think it's the the best the best job in the world for me. I just I'm hoping that the new generation of personal trainers have still got that that same look.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Yeah, you gotta. I mean, the value for me is you're there to help somebody, and sometimes the programming and the nutrition and all that that is a very small scale of what you do for a living, which sounds silly as a personal training because you think that's just everything, and I think that's why people come in with this fallacy that they're gonna do really well online because they can make a really good program and they can make a really good diet and they can get results. That's literally 20% of it. It's the emotional side, letting someone know it's alright to feel the way they do and where they are, and it's alright just to be accepting where they're starting, it's good to come in the gym and see other people doing stuff, it's good to have conversations with these people when they're having moments of doubt or moments of despair where maybe the scale rate's stopped or they don't feel as motivated that day. You're gonna be a cheerleader, you're gonna be somebody who they rely on for that support. And again, this is why on-floor PTs, I think, are coming back. The podcasts have changed my opinion of it. Everyone thinks it's all going down coaching, he's gonna switch back because people need people.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Yeah, and I believe there's pros and cons to each one. Like, let's use Matty, for an example, doing online, very, very knowledgeable, doing fantastic on the online game, but he's on demand, he's there, he's he's wanting to message back, don't matter what time it is. He's doing everything that I think the qualities of a PT needs to be. You need to be you need to be on on tap ready all the time, especially when you build in someone could be doing a late run, you might have just got in from your job. Someone asked, I'm going on a run later. Um it says this zone, but I'm feeling a bit fatigued. Am I still it's in this? Am I changing to and he'll be there to to to reply? I feel like those little personal touches are what you need. If you're not there and you feel like it's online, that means I need to do less. Then I think that's where it comes and goes. I think another massive part would be understanding, right? So user PTs, they're very, very into whatever they do, whether it be high rocks, whether it be the gym itself, boxing, whatever. Most people that you go to train are like Bill and Joe blogs from down the road. Like they want to get into it, they're not, they're sort of on the fence. I think there's got to be a level of understanding that they've not right now got the same mentality as you, and it might take them a little bit to get going. There will be there will be setbacks. Sometimes there will be late cancellations if you're on the gym floor. Again, it's been understanding, it's not treating it like a business always. Again, this is just my point of view. I know people say, Oh, I should take um deposit up front and then do all this. I understand that I agree to a certain extent, but I feel like sometimes give back and not being just money grabbing and saying, Oh, well, you're not letting me know within 24 hours on the first chance, and a couple of times then be like, Look, if the cancellation's not within 24 hours, then we'll have to charge you. You can still go for contact client agreements and you can have make them do this from the beginning, but I feel like there's got to be a bit of humanity in there as well. But you're understanding, look, don't worry about this time. Obviously, I prefer, but let's get back going. And rather than straight away being critical of the them being unmotivated, let's see how we can get them on the right path. That's how you sustain the client, not just taking for what it is right now. You talk, you've got to make these clients long-lasting. If they're coming short and they know there's no leeway, or if they cancel late and you're at first, you need to be doing this, send me this money, but then the next time they'll be they'll be afraid to tell you they just won't speak and you'll never hear from them again. I've been there long enough to understand that they've got to be comfortable to come to you and approach you that they say, Look, I've not done the diet this week. Yeah. I don't necessarily oh well, you'd find another PT. Well, that's not the attitude to have for me. I feel like there's got to be an element of strictness for sure, but then there's got to be some reasoning and also how can we stop this from happening again?

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Yeah, and usually it's a deeper reason than just they couldn't be bothered. And I think this is where it separates the online coach who we'd know Jimmy XP's. Usually, if someone says, Oh, I'm I'm not feeling it's like I can't make it in, and you get on your high horse to work, well, I've got all this ready, I'm gonna have to charge you a fee. Like, it's everything alright. Yeah, what's going on? Yeah, and sometimes it's breaking those barriers that lets people know that you're not just there to take the money. And don't get me wrong, we're all in for money. Don't get me wrong, we need to pay those bills, but you're trying to create a bridge to someone to let them know that you're here to support them when they don't want to be here. Yeah, because you need to let them know that this is a place of therapy, this is a place of if you don't feel like you want to come in, it's the best time to come in.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

And this is this is just coming from experience as well, everyone. So it's not um it's not something that I I think from the outside, it's something that I've lived through. So when I used to be on in fight camp, I had a fight coming up, everybody who I trained then thought were in the same mindset as me. So if anyone was slacking on too sad, I don't want to do it, I'm not coming in. I'd I'd I had no I had no barrier, no wall to to to say, well, and and and tell them how it is really, but without any uh compassion to be like, yeah, do you know what we all have them days as well? But because I was so mentally zoned in and this tunnel vision on this fight, I believe that everyone should be training like that, everyone should be going through the same struggles, and I used to lose clients weekly. Uh, we're dieting, I used to take the the that hunger out on on clients. It's something obviously I've worked on over time, I've done for 15 years now. Uh but early on, I've I found it very hard to separate my own emotion then to other people's uh motivation as well. Which now, obviously, now I know I've known for many years. Now it's not the way to do it. Nobody's holding a gun to my head to tell me to box. So if I'm dieting and it's affecting my mood, then don't do it. So absolutely. No one else asks you to do these things, no one else asks you to train like that. People want to do it as a hobby, they want to come in, they want to feel good, they want to start getting records, they want to be aching, but they don't want to be paralyzed. Yeah, so slow, slow progression, let them enjoy it. Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like I talk about it nearly every podcast is natural motivation. So you give people a little bit, look, keep dangling, they carry it in front of them. This is where we could be. So let's use training for example. They're doing uh two tens aside on a on a bench press. Let's make it really, really classic. And let's start counting the weeks now. So they've just got a PB, they've just got an extra five aside, right? We keep going like this. What I think we should do now, due to his body mechanics, how fast you are progressing, if we keep progressively overloading this over the next, this is where we should be, and you're almost dangling that carrot in front of the face. This is what you could be lifting, this is what we where we could be, this is what's going to improve, this is benefits you're gonna see. And I feel like the first bit, just getting them motivated, getting the ball running, making it manageable, so they actually think, you know what? It's not as bad as I thought this, I can do it. And then what'll happen then is they actually start chasing that that that ache and that struggle, which is the weirdest thing. You can people come in and I don't want to do that, it's too hard. Or when you get them into it, and then all of a sudden they're coming and they're asking to flog them. They're like, I want a really hard session today, or the messaging the day before, what are we doing on Friday? Can I have a tough one? And these are people who, when they first came in, didn't even want to ache. And that's what I say about natural motivation because what you do after so long, your body starts then thinking, How can I push myself? and you want to start pushing your limits even more. But I think that's a great place for them to be while the momentum's high. There will be dips in that in that momentum and motivation as well, but it's keeping them chasing them goals all the time.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Yeah, Mark's a great example for me. Uh I I love Mark, you trade Mark as good for boxing, and he so we were finding a little bit of a barrier to start with, and this is a really good thing that I installise quite a lot. If your clients starting to not feel the sessions as much, and if you're like just going from A to B, I start training with them. Yeah, and I get in the session with them, and I start because when you're training with somebody, you've got intrinsic motivation where you're like, Well, they're doing this, so I've got to bring the same intensity. And I started training with Mark on a regular basis, and the weights might be a little bit different, but he's seen that and goes, I want to do that, yeah. And he's pushing himself and he's grinding, and he's one of the most motivated individuals I see when he comes in, and he's almost to the point where it's like a tipping point because he gets angry at himself that he can't do something, the old rugby boy mentality. And he's gone from being worried about getting back into the gym by all these injuries that he might get, all these limitations that he's got, and now he's boxing, he's lifting weights, he's actually messaging you two or three days before going, what's the plan this week and what we're doing this week? And that is what makes personal training so fun when someone's literally cannot wait to come in because again, it works on your emotion as well. Like, if they're not wanting to be there, nine times out of ten, you're not wanting to be there as well. If you're in a session with somebody who's dragging the heels, just looking at the clock, making sure they get the full hour in, and you're like, Well, you're not interested. I've got to put in all the extra motivation to fill your interests and mine to make sure I'm boosting this session. And again, you're gonna meet these people that never feel the spark, yeah. Like it's it's part of life. You've got to work with people who don't want to work, they're gonna work with people who don't want to.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Funny enough, I've trained people like that for for years and they still never found their spark. They train once a week, and they're just that it's like that. That's just what they want to do. But I've had people who've come in and they've trained with me for six months and they've had boxing batteries, and they've had people who've trained for five years and there's no interest in it. So uh it just shows what kind of scale you're working on. But like you just said with Mark, I um I'm progressing slightly with him again in the boxing. So I I had the gloves on, he had the gloves on that after you two trained together. Yeah, yeah. Uh, we'd just done some pads and drilling, and then we did some blocking defence drills, but it were actual active drills where we had to actually defend, we weren't trying to kill each other like, but um just seeing how quick his reactions and he loved it. Actually, there's no there's no closer to boxing than actually doing that thing. So for him to you can hit pads all day, but until there's a little bit of competition in front of you, and that's what sparks it again, like you said, like you see where people can actually be if they progress, like whether it's weight rooms or boxing, there's always progression, there's always the next stage. You just need to keep feeding them enough to that they can see a little bit of light each time, and then they're like, Do you know what I will be I will get there?

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Have you got any uh takeaways from the last 20 episodes? Is there a particular particular episode or particular conversation that you had that you loved?

SPEAKER_00 36:57

Um I always like ours, mate. Yeah, I always like ours. Do you know um one of my favourites um will always be the recovery stories? So I've had uh I've had Matty and Matty and Luke on both doing brilliant in their um line of field as well. They both took all that addictive personality and put it into an addictive training personality, which I just think's the best the best thing ever, to be honest. I would love to have more people on like that. Yeah, I'd also don't want to make it a podcast that it's just purely on people who've had come from struggle. I think there's a lot of I say regular people who just never sort of broke out the nine to five. And I'd love to get some people on like that, so some new PTs, just how they're getting on. I'd also I wouldn't wish it on the person, but I wouldn't mind getting someone in who's actually struggling to get it off the ground as funny as that sounds. So that'd be an interesting take and see how we yeah, see how we can sort of help them or do a live coaching session. I'd love for anyone's input, anyone who's watching as well, what they want to see if they want to see it from a stem and conditioning point of view, if they want to see it from um a sports massage point of view, anything like that, um, online on in gym floor, older person, put someone just coming out of college. There's so many different variables that we can that we can talk about, and I feel like the more people we get on, the more I've been enjoying it. Uh just from the the stories. Now we've got the setup. I'm looking forward to the the next ones more than ever. That me and you can both be in together. Obviously, we've been limited to studio, so we can both sit here, we both get as input, we both get us takes. Me and Callum are again slightly different in PTs, uh, how we approach PTs, how we run the business. And that's people, two people who are like brothers. Um, we run it, we run our businesses like pretty pretty damn different. So it's uh it'd be good to have both of us views, both of his different questions. Um, I always ask completely different things to what Callum would, and Callum, that's why we get on from it. But um, but yeah, nothing's really stuck out. I'm just really, really enjoying it. Really enjoying it. I feel like everything from improving the studio, it's I feel like when I just started PT and like I'm so passionate about anything I go into. The ultimate shred. Now, on this point, I'll just make this point with it. So anybody who is confused about the uh Instagram layout, so the ultimate shred official is no more. That company has been shut down. The ultimate shred academy is still the gym, the boxing gym is still going. I know there was some confusion in that. I thought I made it quite clear, but obviously uh I'm gonna touch on that again. So the boxing gym's running as normal, the ultimate shred academy gym is running as normal, the PT Launch Lab is now the Ultimate Shred Official Instagram. So we've just we just transferred it all over. We're gonna make the other one purely for the gym. So the Ultimate Shred Academy is purely for the gym. The online stuff won't be anymore, but everything else is as it was, so there's no confusion. The only thing different is that the four-week online shred is no more, and the Instagrams have just been um adapted to make sure the business has now run smooth.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Yep, as well. Um, I mean I we briefly talked about it, but people that do miss the online shreds, we can do some internal stuff in the gym. If you want to come join us for boot camps, if you want to enjoy us for um strength sessions, we've got a bunch of new classes coming for strength, conditioning. Uh, we've got some morning classes coming as well that uh I'm putting on. Basically, I want to get the people who enjoyed the shred come into the gym and do some physical stuff and just keep pushing your fitness forward. We're not going anywhere, we're still here, and we love to see you come back down and take on a different path.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Yeah, um, so on the nutrition basis as well, me and Kelly are actually gonna start doing uh nutrition plans. So it's not that just because we haven't got the shred anymore and it wasn't very highly nutritional based, it doesn't mean that we're just in here doing the training side, we're actually gonna be um doing personalized so a lot a lot more personal to be honest. Civil One's very smart, very good platform for it. The way we engineered it was very, very detailed um to be as personal as possible, but not quite tailor-made to that individual. So that's what we're gonna try and um try and push on now. So just because we're not doing the shreds anymore, it doesn't mean that there's not nutrition available. So if anybody is still interested in uh getting in shape, whether it be just in life or for an occasion or anything, that will be something that we'll be putting up on offer very soon, alongside you've been able to give it away your own nutritional advice because we also do an additional course for the nutrition as well. Is there any standouts for you, Cal, over the episodes?

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Is there anything that's so I have a I have a couple um just to go over some little quotes that we did so you're laughing I just uh you can see the ones that we've said, you can see the ones that are professionals so there's one in here your future self is watching you, make them proud today, and this is something that stands out to me, and I can't remember what episode it was, but what you do now is gonna emulate who you're gonna be later on. So taking them steps, whether it's starting our fitness course or starting our mentorship, imagine how proud you're gonna be in a year's time by starting it, and being the person that you want to be. Now, you might not have a clear vision of where you want to go and who you want to be, but start doing something that you're interested in and find your path. So uh I always go back to this quote that one of our guests had said uh plane is never on course, it's always off course, but it always gets to its destination. It's off course 90% of the time, so it's always course correcting. Meaning the initial vision that you have, it's gonna change direction every now and again, but you're gonna get to your end goal. So if you've got something you want to do, approach it, go for it. You might have to reassess during, but you're on the path 100%. And then one more that stood out to me when you can't find motivation, focus on just moving forward, and I think that relates to what we've been doing with the podcast. So we had been through some trials and tribulations over the last few years, moving gyms, different businesses going up and down, and we were trying to really find something that sparked the light. And like I said, we were talking about the podcast for so long, um, but we didn't know where the other thing is. You're talking about the podcast in the other gym. Yeah, because we didn't know what we wanted it to be.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

And we still, up until we pressed play on the first very podcast, didn't really know where to go with it. And what I realise now is it doesn't matter. Yeah. Just get out there, do something. So if you are somebody who's on the fence about starring something, we're not talking specifically just. To people who want to do the course, but you've been thinking about something for a while, but you don't know the direction that you want to go with it. Start somewhere. Yeah, take the first step. The first step is the hardest, and things will unfold and reveal themselves throughout it. And be confident with it, be open-minded with it, and just try and enjoy life as much as possible. So, yeah, this has been episode 20. Um, it's a big milestone for us. We wanted to hit 20 episodes before the end of the year, and we have. Thank you to absolutely everybody that's tuned in, subscribed, liked our post, and just been involved in the journey. There's plenty more coming. And again, keep letting us know where you want it to evolve to. We want to see people want it to evolve to your wants and your likes.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

And if anybody does want to get on, has any questions at all, wants to share their story, please get in touch with us. This podcast works with other guests on the show. So the more people we can get on, no matter what walk of life you've got, we'd love to hear your story as well. And we'd also love to hear what you'd like to see on the podcast as well. So thank you again. Like and subscribe, keep sharing the post. We really appreciate it.