Nardia: 00:03
Hey, Hey, it’s Nardia here. Welcome to episode three of the Fitness Legitness show. Today I’m riding solo riding solo. So yeah, it’s me. It’s all on my own. We’ve got a solo session today and I want to talk to you about something that is absolutely crucial in your fitness business. And it’s something that is oftentimes overlooked and probably something that we don’t or a lot of people don’t pay a lot of attention to. And that is mastering the mindset of being a business leader. We’re talking mindset today, team, and if you’ve been following my work for awhile and you know that I am all about making sure that you have your head in the game that you think in the right way, that you act in the bunny ears right way and by right, I mean in a way that helps you step up and be the better version of yourself who’s running the bad-ass business that you want.
Nardia: 01:06
So I’ve got a few key things that I want to talk about today then not in any specific order. I, as I was writing the notes, I just kind of allow them to come out. But these are all things that I have worked, helped work where I am fit pro pro clients through these are common to the majority of people that I work with. And I think one of the bonuses about me sharing this information is if you are experiencing the things that I’m about to talk about is just knowing that you’re not alone. I know that when you’re running a business, especially if you’re a sole trader somewhere, like you’re doing outdoor training or you’re working out of a studio where there’s not a lot of other [inaudible] around, it can feel really hard. It can be quite lonely, right? You know, if you’re at a PT team that’s a little bit different.
Nardia: 01:57
You’ve got, you’re surrounded by personal trainers, but when you’re just at this slogging away doing your own thing, building your own business, perhaps you’re in a smaller town it can just be really difficult to keep the momentum and you have all these thoughts and you kind of think, Oh my God, I’m thinking all these thoughts. Am I the only one who thinks this way? So it is nice to know that whatever thoughts you have about yourself and your business, whatever doubts, whatever so-called negative things come up in your world, just know that it is experienced by every one. All right? Even people who you think still have the, or have their shit together, they are still going through any of the things that I’m about to talk about. So let’s just start with understanding why mindset is so crucial. I think it’s a Tony Robbins that talks about business success of being a 20% strategy and 80% mindset.
Nardia: 02:55
And don’t get me wrong, strategy systems and procedures are absolutely crucial. We will dive into that overcoming episodes because I love talking about that stuff as, it’s quite methodical. It’s quite black and white. It’s easy to grasp. The harder part is shifting your own internal world. It’s shifting the way you think and your overall mindset. And I jokingly say to my FitPro clients all the time that there is nothing quite like running your own fitness business to bring up all of your shit. Any, any dat, any worry, any stories that you hold about yourself will show up and rear their ugly heads when you start running your own business. Not sure if you’ve experienced that so far, but it’s definitely true in my case, and it’s certainly true in the cases of all the checks the ladies that I work with. So if you want the business of your dreams, whatever that is for you, if this means that a financial or a financial number is your definition of success, then great.
Nardia: 04:13
If it’s freedom, if it’s impact, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Whatever your personal definition of running a successful business is, you will have to be an act in a certain way in order to bring that in. Okay? So if your business is not where you currently want it, if your business is not at the level that you desire, then you are not being the person that is required to get to that goal. I know that might sound a little bit weird, but at the end of the day, this is so true because every time you step out towards a new goal, that’s gonna require a new version of yourself. And the same can be said here in your business. If your business isn’t where you want it to be right now, the first place to start is to stop looking externally and looking at all the things out there. You know, you might be somebody who’s doing a ton of research on all the latest and greatest strategies, systems and procedures.
Nardia: 05:13
But ultimately, I mean today, in order for you to level up your business, you have to change who you are internally. It is the exact same situation that plays out in many of our clients, especially for our weight loss or or fat loss clients, right? We know that many clients can go on multiple different diets, follow multiple different protocols, but still don’t get the results they want because they’re relying on the external fixes to try and create the change when the reality is they need to start changing their internal world. They need to start changing their self belief. They need to change the way they the attitude towards food and movement. They need to operate from a place of self love, not self hate. Right? The same can be said for your business. And I think this is one of the things that I love most about talking to FitPro or a business owners as the, as the fact that everything I say you guys are going to get because this is all playing out and showing up in the way that we work with our clients.
Nardia: 06:15
It just happens to be in a slightly different space. Okay, so let’s look at the thing. Number one, the thing that I see a lot of trainers struggle with and freak out over and that’s the inability or the fear of putting yourself out there. Now is this, something that resonates for you?. So what does putting yourself out there mean? Well, first of all, we need to take a little step back. In today’s environment or fitness landscape, especially with the rise of social media and websites. I was about to say the interwebs. That’s what I call it – the interwebs. Ubasically our businesses have changed now we can’t hide. You are your brand. Okay. And I really want to make a clear distinction here. I’m not saying that your body is your business card. I fricken hate that saying that’s not what I mean here.
Nardia: 07:15
But if you have a business and you are a subcontractor or you’re a sole contract or you’re a sole trader, your business is your brand. It is very difficult to separate your personal life, your personality, your personal brand from your business brand. These days we are one and the same. So in order to attract more clients into your world or to attract the community that you want to work with, you have to have the confidence to stand up, be seen and be heard. And I know for a fact that that is really scary for a lot of people. So what does showing up every day mean? Well in this context, are you doing the things that you know you need to be doing in your business to attract more people into your world. Like are you doing the things that you know you need to be doing to create brand awareness?
Nardia: 08:13
The easiest place for me to go to right now is social media. All right? And we’ll talk specifics around social media strategies and ads and content creation at a later stage. But this is the fundamental, this is what underpins your ability to do strategy or not. So are you putting yourself out there on social media or into a space where you are able to be seen or more importantly where you are able to be found, right? Cause it’s very easy, even in the social media space, it’s still quite easy to hide and I put that in bunny ears. Right? And how can you hide in social media land? I know you probably think this is ridiculous. Well very simple. You could be doing things like taking people’s motivational cards or basically just sharing stuff to your social media pages without putting an opinion in there right?
Nardia: 09:14
You might tick the box and give yourself a Pat on the back and go, wow, job well done. Here I am adding value to my, to my social media pages when the reality is you haven’t, you’ve literally just been lazy or tricked yourself into thinking you’re doing something brilliant by taking somebody else’s stuff and putting it onto your social media. And here’s the reality. Doing things like posting other people’s motivational quotes and let’s, let’s just talk exercise quotes for a moment. They are done, they are boring. You know, we’re seeing the same memes go around time and time and time again. If you’re just doing that, your being vanilla and I say that to you with love and vanilla people don’t get seen, right? There’s a few people out there who love vanilla, don’t get me wrong, but I’m a pistachio kind of ice cream kind of girl that is more memorable.
Nardia: 10:04
So if you are going to do things like that under the pretense of being seen, then please at least add some more of your personality to it, right? What is your opinion, right? What is it that in the fitness space right now you absolutely love and adore and you’re like, Oh my God, I just have to keep shouting this from the rooftops. Is this specific exercise is a specific way of being, is a specific person that you’re following? And on the flip side, what is the stuff right now that you are hearing and you’re seeing that gives you that shits, right? What aggravates you? What gets you ranty? What gets you riled up? Because when you start to talk specifically to that stuff, so your passion is going both ways. Your people, the people, your potential customers and your current customers like to know who you are.
Nardia: 10:54
So they love it when they hear you or see you talk about things that you love, that you’re really super passionate about. They absolutely love it as well when they see you arc up and have a strong opinion on something as well. And those two things, right there are memorable. It’s compelling information, but more importantly, we get an insight into who you are as a person and that’s what your people are buying into. They are buying into you and this is a key point. You’ve got to, you’ve really gotta let this sink in and marinate for a moment. People aren’t buying into your services initially, right? These a thousand thousands of us personal trainers and Australia and New Zealand and Asia and fundamentally we, we do all very similar things. But what makes somebody purchase or buy into me is very different to the reasons why they buy into you.
Nardia: 11:45
And ultimately as they, because they’re buying into their belief they have in you, they’re buying into your philosophies. They’re into the way that you coach. They’re buying into the way that you create transformation and no one’s going to know that unless you are prepared to stand up and show the world what you have got. So you are your brand. Let your brand personality shine through and just something asked to add to that. You can talk about things outside of like just nutrition and fitness. People are interested in you and what you do outside of this. So what are your favorite foods? What are your weird bits? Like what are your quirky things that you just think are just weird and quirky but people would absolutely love, and this is one thing that I love doing with my FitPro clients is I’m like, tell me all the weird stuff about your life.
Nardia: 12:37
What stories have you got? What hardships have you overcome? Where have you traveled? What’s unique about you? So there’s a really cool word and it’s called quiddity. And I heard this I can’t remember who presented this, but it was at the opening of one of the Filex’s and he was talking about the concept of quiddity Q, U, I, D, D, I,T, Y. And that is essentially a fancy way of saying the essence of you. So in your fitness business, how can you bring more quiddity into every single interaction that you have? And automatically, as I’m saying this, the first place my brain goes to is Mark Fisher from Mark Fisher fitness. Like if you haven’t checked them out, do so here’s a shining example of someone who’s, who’s quirky weirdness personality traits have come through into his business and now his business is built around this.
Nardia: 13:35
It is very cool. So point number one, you are your brand, stand up, be seen, be heard, be found. But ultimately you’re doing it by being true to you. And this relates to the second point that I want to share with you. Be totally authentic in your dealings with other people, from potential clients to meet and greet clients to people in the online space. I find it really fascinating when people say, Oh, here’s an authentic post, or here’s something that’s really transparent. I find it weird because it’s like, what? What does that mean? All those other posts aren’t. Or if somebody says, Oh, I’m trying to be more authentic. I’m like, well that’s weird. Again, I’m reminded of a quote from Yoda who says Try or try not. A, there was a shit recollection of that quote. I’ll find the actual quote, but it’s basically it’s something along the lines of you don’t try.
Nardia: 14:34
You do or you do not, and that’s the same with authenticity. If you’re trying to be an authentic version of yourself, then you’re not being authentic. Okay. How else is this showing up then in your daily actions? Well, if you’re someone who does a gazillion edits on your photos, if you are doing a gazillion retakes on your videos, or if you’re being a super perfectionist with any of your things and your products before you put them out, you are literally editing or Photoshopping yourself. You are diluting your realness. Now, of course there’s a fine line between being an oversharer, which we can talk about because there is a lot of people who do a lot of oversharing in this platform, but ultimately, all right, a lot of women will present a version of themselves to the world that they think will be most liked.
Nardia: 15:37
And again, this comes back to number one, like be seen, put yourself out there. Use your trueness to attract your ideal client into your business. And so the more real you are you, it’ll be fascinating to see what kind of person you attract into your business. And oftentimes it’s these kinds of clients that end up being the best clients because your vibe has attracted that person to you. You have not morphed yourself, edited, or changed yourself to be something to another, to a market you think that they want you to be. And every time you operate from a place of being something that you’re not of being different, it is fricking exhausting. I did this for years and it was hard work guys. And so this comes back to again, that mindset of being totally okay with who you are as you are right now, right?
Nardia: 16:32
So you might want to improve yourself still, right? You might be thinking, well, I’m a personal trainer. I’m carrying some extra weight. Well, that’s cool, l share that, share that journey with other people. Be vulnerable with that, right? You still get and you’re still entitled to be on the quest to improve yourself. That’s, that’s fine, right? You don’t have to be a ripped six pack wielding personal trainer to make it in this industry and in fact. A lot of people are moving away from that. Real people want real clients, want real people who know how to create transformation, right? So, so kind of own that situation. If, if you are someone who’s like, I, I really dislike this, then say it out loud. Okay? So just be you. Be truthful to you. And this is what my point number three is here is just practice your truth telling.
Nardia: 17:22
Because for us women, we have learned that we, well, you know, society has taught us and given us lots of different messages you know, so an example of my story is when I first started into the online space, I thought that I had to be doing fat loss. I thought that was my messaging. I thought I had to talk about that because that’s what the market wanted. And trust me, when I say guys, nothing else bores me to tears more. I would sit there, I’d rather sit there and stab myself with a blunt spoon, then try and talk about fat loss. It just doesn’t fit me. It doesn’t make me feel good, right? I don’t want to be talking about that. And I don’t want to be talking to people who want to hear about that information.
Nardia: 18:07
So unsurprisingly, and there was always a disconnect between the message that I was putting out there and that my actual way of being. So it was really incongruent and the audience knew that, which is why it never took off because there was incongruency there. So if you’re finding that in your business, it’s really hard work to keep getting clients into your business. I would start by again going inside and going, well, how are you showing up? What is your vibe at the moment? Who are you attracting into your world? Are you attracting the right people or the wrong people? And if you keep attracting the wrong type of client into your world, you need to do some introspective work and go, huh, okay, I wonder why that is happening. All right? So practicing truth telling is really difficult. This is not an easy thing to do, especially if you’re a people pleaser or you’d like to avoid conflict.
Nardia: 19:00 If you come from this deep sense of not enoughness, so not pretty enough, not rich enough, not fit enough, not skinny enough or strong enough, not muscly enough, whatever, the not enough, this is for you and your world. If you happen to have it, it’s really difficult to practice speaking your truth. So I’m just gonna leave it at that, but we’ll talk about this again because I’ve got a really cool little challenge that you can do that will help you to find your voice and help you to communicate your actual truth to the world. Okay. Point number four is like when our clients know what they need to do to have a physical transformation, but they don’t follow through. The same occurs for us in our business. Like, I guarantee that, you know, like deep down you probably know what needs to be done in your business to make your business better.
Nardia: 20:01
So for example, if you’re like, well, I need to create more money or I want to have a high profit margin, it’s going to start with the basics. Like you’re probably going to need more clients, right? And to get more clients requires you to do more in depth marketing or advertising or putting yourself out there or following up with leads or hustling harder, whatever those little small actions actually are. But we tend to avoid those actions. So this point is all a, Oh, sorry. What else about say then? As we tend to avoid these actions, especially when we’re not confident in our ability to perform these actions, right? So if you want anything to shift in your business, you have to take action, right? Any sort of action action creates momentum. When you have momentum and you start doing the thing, you feel better for doing the thing.
Nardia: 20:53
And once you feel better at doing the thing so you become more competent at the thing, you become more confident in the thing. Alright, I’m over the first time that I had to floor walk the gym floor, I was absolutely frozen with fear. I would scrub those treadmills too though, as such, to the point where they were so bloody polished. There’s no way I could Polish those treadmills again and I was doing it to avoid walking up to people in the gym and striking up a conversation. And if you are a gym P T you will know that one of the easiest way to build your business internally is to floor walk and pick people up off the floor. And everybody hates floor walking. Cause we’ve got the story in the side, our heads that we’re bothering other people that we you know that we’re going to be seen as being a pest if we walk up to them.
Nardia: 21:44
And of course there’s that whole skill set that’s required to be able to strike up a conversation with an absolute random. So I was shit scared of doing it and I had every story under the sun and I covered every single excuse under the sun. I polished and cleaned every single piece of equipment you could possibly think of. But it got to the point where was like, it’s become such a huge hurdle inside my head. And the story I had created around it had just got bigger than Ben Hur. I knew that I just had to do it right. And this is a take home point. We have to challenge our stories sometimes because we put more emphasis into the stories and we make mountains out of molehills mole Hills. So the first time I, you know, the first week I set myself the challenge of meeting and greeting X number of people on the gym floor and they had to be people that I didn’t know and I started and it was awful.
Nardia: 22:38
I’m not gonna lie, it was yucky. Anytime we do something for the first time, whether it’s doing your, your first Facebook ad of making a first call or making a first sales presentation or running your first session. It is icky. We don’t know it, but the only way you get better at those skillsets is by doing them repeatedly over time. And so you have to kind of force yourself into these situations to get the thing done. Now obviously the more I did it, the easier it became, the more comfortable I became with it. I learned some skills around it. I learned what to say and what not to say to strike up these conversations. And then this skill set trickled over into other areas of my life. I found myself starting to have random conversations with random strangers because now I was becoming a master at small talk, which in turn then increased my skill set so that when I came into the gym to do some floor walking again, I was feeling better.
Nardia: 23:39
So you can see how it’s like a, a feeds that momentum feeds forward into itself. So the, the challenge I have for you right now is there’s probably something in your business that you know, that you need to be doing, but you’re avoiding doing because it feels scary and icky. So the challenge is this, just go do the damn thing. All right? So whether that is create an email list or sending out a newsletter, maybe it is walking up and doing some floor walking to the stranger at the gym. Maybe you are running an outdoor boot camp and you’ve got to go and approach local businesses and put yourself out there. Maybe it’s posting some videos on social media or doing an Instagram live or something like that. Okay? So put yourself out there. This relates back to number one, take action on it and just know that any action initially in the first, first instances are going to be really imperfect.
Nardia: 24:39
And you have to get okay with taking imperfect action. And in fact, imperfect action as like my, my motto, the one thing that I’ve often said to myself is good is good enough. I don’t chase perfection because if you’re chasing perfection, it’s just a procrastination tool. So if you want to create momentum in your business, you have to drop the perfectionist attitude and tendencies and just be okay with taking action despite how imperfect everything is. And that is where you’ll see a lot more traction and growth occur in your business. And I mentioned this last point here and it is closely related to all of this is just please make sure you are hyper aware of the stories that you tell yourself in your business, right? So we’ve got the potential to tell us to S tell ourselves really positive, motivating stories, but the likelihood is you’re probably buying into more of your negative, more limiting stories.
Nardia: 25:38
So things like there’s not enough clients out there. Oh, it’s December. Nobody will purchase personal training in December. I followed up on my leads and I’ve done everything I can. I still can’t make it work. Ah, I don’t want to annoy my clients by asking for some more referrals. Oh, you know, the market is saturated. Where I am is totally saturated. Like guys, these are all stories and like I said before, these stories have the potential to become mountains even though they are only little small blips. So it is not easy to to bring attention and awareness to stories because they just happen so quickly. They are so subconscious. But I challenge you to be aware of them in your day to day and just notice when something like that comes up. All right. If you, you, you’re having a conversation with a potential lead and they come up with a, an objection, just notice what story you tell yourself.
Nardia: 26:40
Is it a “see I’m a shit trainer.” If they, if like me, they would have bought. Well, challenge that notion. If they haven’t bought, do you go, Oh, we’ll see. It’s that time of year. No one’s going to buy now again, challenge that notion, right? These stories aren’t true. There’s always going to be exceptions to these stories. So you need to rewire and reframe the way you think. And one of the the best journaling prompts that I’ve used for myself personally that I really love to help you get into the right head space and mindset of that successful business woman that you want to be is to ask yourself this question, who am I being too? And then insert your goal. So if let’s just say that your goal is to have a six figure business, a highly profitable business I am being and then you go, right, I am being into all the things that you would need to be if you were operating at level.
Nardia: 27:39
I am being confident, I am being forward with my conversations. I am being decisive. I am being organized and every single day I turn up on social media and I spread my message. I am self validated. I am avoiding distractions. I am that kind of person that can create partnerships with other people and help promote my business through other businesses. Does that make sense guys? That is a lot more positive and it’s going to help propel you forward from a mind mindset perspective. Then hanging onto those thoughts of it’s too hard. The market saturated. I’m not good enough. I’m a shitty PT, I’m too tired, I’m too busy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right? So who are you being and who do you need to be in order to be the person who’s running the business of your goals? Of your dreams? Yeah. Alrighty.
Nardia: 28:34
I’m going to bring this to a close cause I’ve gone on like little tangents that are all interrelated, but just absolutely crucial. And this is not going to be the first time you hear about me and the only time you hear about me talking about this stuff, we will keep coming back to it. But I don’t want you to leave going. Okay, cool. Thanks Nards that was awesome. I really want you to take action. I’m a massive proponent of taking action, as you guys know. So I want to leave you with this. I wanna leave you with this challenge. What will you commit to this week that’s going to help you change and or improve your mindset? So what will you commit to this week that will help you improve or change your mindset? I want you to have a clear intention around this and then I want you to have a clear commitment around this and I would love it if you could DM me on my Instagram, Nardia Norman or even better yet, show up.
Nardia: 29:42
Take a photo or a video of your commitment of you doing the thing that you are committed to. Tag me in. All right? I want you guys to own this. All right? I want you to be hugely successful and that starts by making a commitment and having a clear intention. Now, Alrighty. If you are, I would love any feedback if this hit the feels please let me know. As per usual, if you’ve got any questions for me, please DM me or email me so I can get them and talk about them on the show. Until next time, peace out.
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