If you’re a gym owner or personal trainer and your mission is “to change the fitness world”, I’ve got bad news for you.
Over the last 25 years (God it has been that long) only a few people even approached that level.
Greg Glassman made an undeniable impact with Crossfit. Bret Contreras is why I can never get a squat rack at commercial gyms anymore because they’re all full of women doing glute thrusts.
Thing is, besides being wild exceptions to the norm, they didn’t change the landscape as much as give focus and direction to existing desires. (An important lesson in itself.)
Most new trainers and new gym owners won’t last more than 3-5 years before they flame out and do something else with their lives. And those are the grizzled vets.
Here’s the thing about fitness.
Like its cousin health, the job has nothing to do with what’s on the label.
You’re not dealing with workout programs and coaching form and all the mechanical details that PTs and coaches obsess over.
What you’re really dealing with is the snarling, ravenous, lustful yet lazy brute lurking in the depths of the psyche.
You can get men and women to say all kinds of things about their goals, motivations, inspirations, and desire to change their lifestyles. That’s not hard. That’s pretty easy.
Getting them to act, and making that a permanent change, is the magic trick. You have to cast a spell on the brute and get that sucker to cooperate.
If your mission is to “change the fitness industry” and you do not understand this, you might as well hang it up and head back to the cubicle farm.
You aren’t going to change anything because you haven’t understood the problem.
Worse, you don’t have any way to stand out from the 10.3 million newly-minted 22 year olds that decide to change the fitness industry every year.
They’ve been trying as long as I’ve been in it. No signs of change.
When you tell the world that your goal is to “change the fitness industry”, you’re not standing out. You’re saying what everyone else says. Which makes you one more commodity making promises you can’t keep.
You know what though?
It’s okay to solve one small problem for one single person.
Start there.