John Berardi, PhD, CSCS, Co-Founder of Precision Nutrition, is back for round 2! In the last episode, we discussed the importance of mentorship and how John uses Precision Nutrition as a vehicle to help others find the relationships they need to make meaningful changes in their lives.
This week we’re digging into what John and his team have learned about mastering behavior change, and applying that to industries outside of the fitness and nutrition space.
You Can Lead a Horse to Water...
When John is talking about behavior change, he likes to use the old adage, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” Essentially, that adage means that, unless someone wants to drink the water, unless they want to change, nothing else can have an impact.
But John disagrees. You can’t make the horse drink – but you can make it very, very thirsty.
That’s what coaching behavior change is: you can’t force or trick anyone to change, but you can put them in a position where they decide to change themselves; you can make them thirsty.
Coaching with Psychology
Most fitness and coaching programs are very prescriptive: eat this, don’t eat that, do these exercises, and do this number of reps. The coach positions themselves as an expert who tells the person being coached what to do.
It’s the easiest possible way to coach, but it’s not effective. People join programs, lose focus from other parts of their life, “fall off the wagon,” then go back to the gym... But now they’re less fit, more dejected, and their behavior hasn’t changed. It’s a vicious yo-yo.
Precision Nutrition does things differently, and they incorporate change psychology: building practices and habits that integrate with your life as it is today to develop skills that you can take with you into the future.
They want to engage with the client in a way that recognizes the realities of their life and helps them make changes that are lifestyle-based, instead of project-based.
Practice > Skills > Goals
Practice leads to skills, and skills lead to goals.
You can use Precision Nutrition’s style of coaching to achieve any goal, not just fitness goals. First you develop skills or habits, then those skills help you achieve your goals. But the development of those skills doesn’t come naturally. It comes through daily practice.
Willpower is Irrelevant in Real Behavior Change
John says that willpower is irrelevant in real behavior change because it speaks to the very thing that he wants to avoid when trying to coach change.
He doesn’t want you to white knuckle your way to any lifestyle change – he wants it to feel like a natural part of your existence.
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Production & Development for The Impact Entrepreneur Show by Podcast Masters
Today’s guest, John Berardi, PhD, CSCS, is Co-Founder of Precision Nutrition. His purpose is making health and fitness something that's achievable and attainable for every type of person, from every walk of life.
Mentors helped John completely change his life and start his path in nutrition, so the company is his vehicle to pay that forward and help others find the relationships they need to make meaningful changes in their lives.
Give, Give, Give, Give, Ask
Precision Nutrition’s marketing has a specific cadence and ratio for how much they want to give before they ask for anything in return. It can be summed up simply as Give, Give, Give, Give, Ask.
It’s strategic, but it also reflects the idea of giving without expectation of return on a huge scale. This changes the business at its core, and it impacts how other people perceive the business.
Be a Mentor and a Mentee
The mentor-mentee relationship is extremely important for personal and career development. Mentors have something valuable to offer people who are trying to follow a similar path, and it’s only good to share that.
Mentors also get a lot of value in seeing their mentee implement the teachings and grow, so it becomes a mutually rewarding relationship.
However, even after you have a lot of value to offer, it’s still important to look at the people farther on the path than you and find your own mentors. This will help you continue to grow, and it will help you offer the most to your own mentees.
Precision Nutrition: Give Yourself an Opportunity to Continue
The precursor to Precision Nutrition was a dial-up era website, Science Link, attempting to link regular people with the helpful information discussed in scientific research.
They weren’t selling anything but, two years later, they had 40,000 people subscribed to their newsletter, and they were building a reputation in the industry.
Precision Nutrition officially launched in late 2006. They consolidated their teachings into the Precision Nutrition System, created an online support community, and created a series of books. Their greatest success – a huge sale – quickly became their greatest weakness.
Because the fitness industry is known for scams and there are frequent chargebacks, the sudden success got flagged as a scam and their merchant company held the money. Over the course of the sale, which went on for a few months, they sold nearly half a million dollars in product without receiving a single dollar.
This taught John an important lesson: the ability to keep doing what you love doing is fragile. Even a big success can topple it so, if you love what you’re doing, you have to give yourself the opportunity to continue.
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We are also brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. The are your one stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.
Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.
Production & Development for The Impact Entrepreneur Show by Podcast Masters
Brad Stulberg researches, writes, speaks, and coaches on the science of human performance. He explores the principles of mastery that transcend capabilities and domains – the underlying practices that are necessary for sustainable success – and helps others implement those practices.
Brad writes about performance in New York and Outside magazines and co-authored Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success.
“It’s very, very hard to go full tilt without giving yourself time to rest and recover.”
High performers are often driven or passionate, and we’ve discussed passion a lot on The Impact Entrepreneur Show, but we rarely discuss the dark side of passion.
When we’re truly driven by a passion, we may not have the ability to turn it off or detach from it. This is dangerous because, inevitably, you will burn out and fall short of your peak. That’s why rest is a vital ingredient in sustainable success.
In Peak Performance, Brad writes about The Growth Equation: Stress + Rest = Growth. (Stress, in this context, doesn’t mean something negative – in biological terms, it is any stimulus or challenge to an organism.)
Balance doesn’t really exist, so we’re not going consider this equation in terms of balance. Instead, the challenge is finding just the right amount of friction to keep going without experiencing so much friction that you stop completely.
All world-class performers are aware of this cycle. They understand that achieving a goal requires leaving their comfort zone (stress), but what separates the best performers from those that fall short is that the best performers also have the courage to rest.
So how can individuals and organizations prevent their passion from turning into obsession and figure out The Growth Equation?
Aligning your goals with a purpose greater than yourself, what you are creating, or the amount of money you have in the bank can give you the perspective and mindset necessary to achieve sustainable success.
The first step is to reflect on what your core values are, or guiding principles for how you want to live your life and function as a person.
When we combine this sort of visualization and reflection with presence, powerful things can happen.
“All great performers have figured out the value of single-tasking.”
The key to maintaining presence, especially in today’s notification-heavy digital age, is single-tasking.
Whether you’re having an important conversation with your romantic partner, writing a white paper, pitching a client, or building a financial model, if you are completely focused on what you are doing you tend to have significantly better results and output.
One of the simplest tricks to make single-tasking easier is to simply remove temptation. Even when we’re not using our phones, for example, their presence has an effect on our brain and our focus. If we remove the possibility of distraction, and another decision, we don’t have to rely on our willpower to be productive.
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We are also brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. The are your one stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.
Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.
Production & Development for The Impact Entrepreneur Show by Podcast Masters
This episode marks the end of the Halftime Series. Mike reflects on the biggest lessons our guests taught us about not giving up, growth, and serving others.
Halftime is over. Get ready for kick-off and remember to grab the opportunity bull by the horns and ride it into submission. You can start by heading over to The Impact Entrepreneur Show page on Facebook and sharing what you are going to do with the rest of your year.
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We are also brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. The are your one stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.
Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.
Production & Development for The Impact Entrepreneur Show by Podcast Masters
It’s the middle of the year… are you still on track to meet your goals? Many of us have gotten off track but now is the perfect time to determine how the rest of the year will go. It’s time to grab the opportunity bull by the horns and ride it into submission with the help of these inspiring guests. Get ready: this episode is part of the Halftime Series.
Steve Sims is an international speaker and the visionary founder of Bluefish, the world’s first luxury concierge that delivers the highest level of personalized travel, transportation, and cutting-edge entertainment services to corporate executives, celebrities, professional athletes, and other discerning individuals interested in living life to its fullest.
What is cutting-edge entertainment with concierge service? Well how about a 16-day trip to the International Space Station, or a submarine trip to the wreck of the Titanic. Those are the types of experiences that members of Blue Fish can look forward to.
“The perfection is in the imperfection.”
Steve grew up in a modest family from East London, and three generations of his family worked in the family construction business… but that wasn’t enough for him, and he wasn’t going to let it hold him back.
After a few stumbles, which led to Steve jobless in Hong Kong, he wanted to get a job at the bank (where the rich people were). To get that job, he started throwing exclusive parties for wealthy people – the seed that eventually grew into Bluefish.
“If you want to kill passion, work out how you can make money out of that passion.”
Steve continued to throw clandestine parties for much of the 90’s and 00’s before Bluefish was officially founded in 2008.
Every time Steve started to change, or monetize his passion, he would stumble. When he listened to his gut and remained authentic, his ability to form relationships propelled him to great success.
You have to own your story if you want other people to listen. Give them the real you – don’t give them the filter.
“There’s been no thought or intelligence that’s gone into Bluefish in the past 50 years – it’s all been gut reaction, keeping things primitive, and doing s&!% you like doing.”
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Don’t be a podcast junkie…
Resources:
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We are also brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. The are your one stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.
Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.
Production & Development for The Impact Entrepreneur Show by Podcast Masters