Episode 757 - Movement Industry Professionals Roundtable

In this episode, Jeremy is joined by 3 non-martial artists to discuss ideas that you may try differently for your Martial Arts schools.

Movement Industry Professionals Roundtable - Episode 757

Myson Jones, Kristen Leach, and Greg Johnson discuss similarities of their industries to Martial Arts all in the name of helping Martial Artists, teachers, and school owners to improve their service. In this episode, Jeremy is joined by 3 non-martial artists to discuss ideas that you may try differently for your Martial Arts schools.

After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section below!

Show Transcript

You can read the transcript below.

Jeremy Lesniak:

All right, welcome, everybody. I don't even know if we're gonna have a separate intro or if you just rolled in called, what I'm expecting to be a really fun, really interesting and educational conversation. Today I am joined by three non-martial artists, certainly the first time we've ever done this on our show. And the whole premise here is to cultivate some ideas. We're all of you around things that you might try differently in your martial arts schools. And I'm joined by three folks and I'm gonna go kind of in an order that that I see might show up a little bit different on your screen, but we're gonna start what looks to be below me, Myson, take 30 seconds. Tell us about what you do. Who you are. 

Myson Jones:

I run a basketball training business here in Greenville, South Carolina. It's called Hoops University. The motto is helping student athletes graduate to the highest degree of fulfillment. And we run camps, clinics, groups, private training lessons here in the Upstate, as well.

Jeremy Lesniak:

There is a lot of synergies there. All right, Kristen.

Kristen Leach:

Hi, everyone. I'm Kristen Leach. I am the executive and artistic director of the New Hampshire Dance Institute in New Hampshire. We are an affiliate of the national dance institute in New York City, there are 13 in the country. We are arts and education organization serving over 4000 children in New Hampshire alone for NHDI. 

They dance as part of a child's school day so that it's not exclusive to children getting to a dance studio. It is also not exclusive to financial, um, existence or body type or clothing, it's jeans and sneakers we have a lot of, we have a lot of hockey-playing boys that love to dance during the day at school. It's a very athletic form of dance. It's very accessible. 

And it is artistic. But it also has a very, what we call the educational business, which is a social-emotional learning component in growing self-esteem and inspiring excellence and dedication to work ethic. 

Jeremy Lesniak:

Awesome. More synergy, Greg.

Greg Johnson:

I really like this group, I'm gonna stay connected. I own a Personal Training Studio in Sacramento, California. We predominantly focus on one on one training or semi-private, semi-private, meaning only two to four people tops. So everything still has a kind of individualized approach. 

Most of my population is the general population, weight loss, fat loss, and muscle gain. But we also specialize in golf fitness. And we also do a little bit of long-term athletic development with juniors, we have a, my youngest is eight right now. And my oldest is just turned 90. So I have a very wide scope of people. But for the most part, there's just Fitness through the ages.

Jeremy Lesniak:

All right. And because I don't want anyone to think I'm hiding this fact, Greg and I went to school together. And it was watching some of the things that he was doing that sparked the idea that led to what we're doing today, this idea that, you know, I see people doing things that on the surface might seem more different, but really, it's the same we're teaching movement for certain purposes. And there's generally a financial exchange, I mean, somewhere along the way, money is changing hands. And we can all get better at that, which we do. So let's start with this. And I'll mix it up with who I'm going to have to start with. What one thing Have you learned this year that you wish you had known before? And I'll start with you, Kristen.

Kristen Leach:

Oh, start with me. What one thing that I've learned this year more than before? Well, I guess it's something I knew before. But I didn't employ as much so I have in my position in the organization I've served as Artistic Director where I've been writing stories and choreographing dances and teaching being a teaching artist and directly related to the children. And at this point, within the past few months, I've stepped into the executive director position, which is certainly you know, looking more at the funding pieces. I wish that I again, I knew it but I wished I had employed it is getting to know the families more I knew of them and I knew their stories but now really getting to know their names and to use their stories and, and their experiences to, for funding to tell their story and look at donors and foundations and, and really try to put those things together in a better way. So I knew that that was a thing, but now I'm really doing it. And it's really, we're seeing a lot of growth because of that, that direct interaction with families.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Great. So let's kind of set it up. I don't want to call it a rule, but I'll give you the flexibility. So, you know, Kris, we just went, Greg, I'm gonna call on you. If you want to answer the same question I asked her, by all means, or if she just said something that makes you think you know what, yes, I want to respond to that. And what she said instead.

Greg Johnson:

Man, I'll double down on that one, I think, I think getting to know the families goes a long way. So that's one thing again, when we work with our junior golfers, thankfully, I do have a relationship with the families to where they don't have to worry about me, what we do in here may not look anything like a golf swing, but I'm not constantly being judged by the parent wondering what they're doing. So I'm getting to know the families of whoever you're working with is always great. And that's part of like, relationship building, as well as how are the kids? How are the sisters? What is your dog up to these days? 

All that stuff is just really good for relationship-building. But what I learned this year, actually, is that it really caught me off guard, I was like, wow, I've been so entrenched in just kind of getting business back. And we've hired employees. I think the one thing that I learned this year was I had more systems in place than I realized I did. And systems go a long way. And I was convinced for a long time that I just, I don't know, I just figured out how to do it. And it worked. And I don't know how I'm going to convince somebody else to do the same thing. Then when we started hiring employees, I was trying to figure out how to teach them certain things. I was like, well, I guess I really do kind of a roadmap, the first three sessions a certain way, I guess I really do create that initial assessment evaluation consultation a certain way, I guess I do have more of a system approach than I thought I did. 

So now it's getting that stuff down on paper. So that way, I'm not just racking my brain over how do I do what I do on a daily basis. I just enjoy training people. And that's, so now all of a sudden, I'm being asked to like, have other people do the same thing. So understanding that, even though you may not realize you have systematic things in play, you probably do. So it's good to start understanding what you do on a daily basis. So that way, when you scale your business, it's a little bit easier to say, look, this is what I do. And this is what works. 

In my consulting work. Going from one person to more than one person is always the most difficult step. And it's for that system's reason that I'm talking about. Alright, Myson.

Myson Jones:

I would say two things. One, for sure. I agree with Kristen because we're talking about retention here, right? And being able to actually know who your customer is on a deeper level than just their transactional level. I think that is one of the number one things to increase retention in general, definitely makes the conversation easier when you want to keep that relationship going. And then the transaction goes on as well. 

So I think for me, I would say managing by the numbers, but doing that more. I would say whatever numbers are important, it might be active trainees, it might be operating capacity to make sure you're filling all your spots, all your sessions. Whatever that metric is, I think staying true to that metric is something that I wish I would have done more by Christmas. I wish I knew it.

But I should have employed it even more, especially with very important decisions. So for me, I would say managing by the numbers and making sure that I'm looking at those metrics that matter and abiding by those and making my decisions based on what those numbers say.

Jeremy Lesniak:

You just gave me an idea, something that we rarely talk about in martial arts, something that is often not discussed in most service bases, especially fitness movement related disciplines. Is this idea of what's the most powerful word in marketing? It's no, but how often does a martial art school do a personal training facility? Does a dance school say we're full? We don't have room for you. 

And yet, you're talking about operating capacity. Every martial art school I know would say you know what, when I am in my kids class or my adult class, when the ratios get beyond this, I know the quality suffers. How do you build that? So I'm going to turn it right back around to you and then we'll go around. How do you determine your operating capacity, how many people you can have at a given camp or clinic. 

Myson Jones:

So going back to my person to answer, and I like that question a lot, I'm still digging into the numbers to see, okay at 10 people for myself personally, because basketball is a team sport. So we need more people in the sessions, really, and see the growth with the randomness and the variability of a sport. 

So I can handle more people, let's say, eight to 10 people on my own, and still have a quality session, and I taught the parents to get feedback, we have weekly feedback all so I try to get that gauge and make sure that that's always the accurate number. But then when you start to bring on teammates parts, when we have five or six part time teammates who helped train, when you start bringing somebody else on, there's an economy of scale where you know, you might bring someone outside, but it's not really profitable to bring them on for the only one extra person or two extra people. 

So I'm still trying to figure that out myself, to learn what is the ideal number, the ratio that we have to wear, even by having the overhead of another teammate participating? We're still profitable for the revenue per employee. I would say that we actually are in that situation for the first time ever, we're over capacity. And we have a waiting list right now. So I'm testing right now to see okay, with this waiting list, will this lead to better retention. Or will it lead to more people in what is our lowest seasonality coming up in November through February? So hopefully, that's the answer to the question, trying to be concise here.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Appreciate it. Waiting lists, I think are something that is so valuable, gives you the ability to go back and say, okay, we just opened up capacity, we have a new session, whatever it is, and who wants it? You do it, right? Those filled pretty quickly. Kris, I saw you nodding your head through a good portion of synergy there for you.

Kristen Leach:

Yeah, well, we're having a similar capacity, your full kind of thing with, with our programming. In a school, if children want to dance, they dance. So we just keep adding teachers to kind of fill that it's hard hiring qualified people to do some of that. So lead teachers, co-teachers, assistants, I have a hard time with the know, saying, like, you know, like having more kids is like a great is good problem to have, right? 

And they're strengthened numbers, right? And then you go to your donors and foundation people and say we have more children that want to dance and they want to support it. So when we're talking about getting on a stage, I'm limited to 300 children by fire code, so sometimes, sometimes it's you know, it's not mind doing necessarily, but really, to our point, and like the quality of teaching and the relationship with the kid, or the participant. Yeah, you want to kind of keep that in mind. I mean, I just, we had a class this afternoon, two teachers, a musician and 42 children and, and depending on the age of the children, right eighth graders are a little more aware, have situational awareness and physical awareness of their bodies in space. Fourth-grade boys and girls alike, they bump into each other and figure stuff out. So yeah, it's all kind of relative to the age and, and the space in the room, and who I can hire, but I just kind of like the idea of, oh, we've got 60 Kids, let's hire two more teachers and just make another class, if possible.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Greg, you were, how long were you solo before you had employees? 

Greg Johnson:

Oh, gosh, I think so. I was working as an independent contractor as early as 2013. And then when I opened my brick-and-mortar, I decided to bring on one employee, but I was really still just kind of doing it on my own type of thing. And I think every business owner kind of goes through this. And it's like, Wait, more, more clients are good. So I'm coming on the other end of the spectrum as it pertains to space because I focus on one on one in very, very small group training. 

So the problem is, the only way to add people is to add hours for me, and I'm sure a lot of people can understand 5am to 9pm, that's my hours, it's not working nine to five, it's working five to nine. And the problem is that's not a way to run a business. And I'll be the first to say, again, getting back into it, I'm still working way more hours than I should be. 

So it's our capacity, we made some changes in our facility to make a little bit more open space. Because what we want to provide is that we still share one on one connections with people but still have the ability to have kind of a shared group. I want to make sure that they know what my coaching style is. So I can talk to two or three people in a room and still cue them. Now, don't get me wrong, like I love boot camps when it comes to fitting in. And you can, there's dozens of them, if not 1000s of them around depending on where you live. But we do want to have that individualized focus on certain clients that need that extra attention, that extra body awareness coming back from an injury, maybe at a high level of sports performance, something that they need that little extra awareness. 

So when you get to that point, once, once you've lost that personal connection in a personal training business, it's just group fitness. So we need to kind of make sure that when we bring a certain amount of people in and we have some people that just desire more energy, they desire more attention. 

And we need to make sure we don't put too many of those people together. So a lot of it is just manipulating who's in the gym at once. Because everyone who comes in here is being coached by an instructor, it's not an open gym, it's not a bootcamp style fitness facility. So ours really kind of goes a lot on personalities in relationship versus mass, quantity numbers. 

Jeremy Lesniak:

Kristen, you're talking about adding in all three of you, we're talking about adding staff, adding instructors, coaches, et cetera, in a lot of martial arts schools, and I expected what all of you do as well, there's a word of mouth element, that's pretty strong. And that means that there's a virality, to what you do, I would imagine, if you start in a new school, it's probably the first core group is probably the hardest to generate. 

But you get more and then you get more, and you get more because you've gotten more. And one of you refers to it as a great problem to have a Greg, I think you call it a good problem to have it certainly is to be over capacity. But sometimes that can be met with resistance from parents, or sometimes the participants themselves as the wreck, they start to feel whether or not it's accurate, that maybe they're not getting the same quality, the same individualized attention. Can you speak to that?

Kristen Leach:

Yeah, part of our model of teaching is knowing children's names and really giving them that individual attention, even in a class. So our goal in every class is to have seen heard, and connected with each student at least two or three times, and putting them into small groups, and then put back together, our summer camps and our intensives and pop-up weekends, kind of feed that extra thing that some children need so that they're doing something extra, that's maybe a little bit smaller. 

But when we go into a new school, we always have children that have done something else in our programming. And they know what we're doing, what we're doing, how we're doing it. And they're there, the word of mouth, and those families that have connected with us through summer intensives, or three-day vacation camps. They come in and say, oh, this is great, you're gonna love it. And then we work to make sure that that's the same experience they have there early on. And I've been doing this for 20 years. Early on, we had an experience where there were just too many children with not enough. 

Leaders, seeing and hearing and really giving the children a great experience in one on one occasion, we learned really quickly that that was, you know, and then the children will say, I don't feel like I matter here. And again, that happened once and we wanted to make sure that they did feel like they mattered and that their presence was important. And that they were part of a big story but definitely seen. So we just pull them apart a little bit and not shove them all on stage together. But gave them more space and room and we've had to kind of split the programming over the years. 

So like the mothership, our national dance institute in New York City, started with a few 100 children. And within three years that had grown into 1000 Children in Madison Square Garden. And right. And so then what they did, because it's a sporty dance, it's a very like, again, very accessible thing. And it's fun. It's just kids having fun. So it grew so quickly that they just split it apart even in New York City. 

So there are 6000 kids dancing in New York City and 9000 in New Mexico and a little corner of New Hampshire 4000. Also, and then yeah, so yeah, I think it's just important to just step back and look at that and I think I've heard others say it like take the temperature here from your Families, you know, what are your kids saying and surveys? When, you know, exit kinds of interviews, surveys, like what was the greatest experience you had this year with our programming? Or if you could change one thing? What would it be? And here, you know, hearing from them.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah. Thank you. It's almost like I owe you 20 bucks. Because give me the best segue of all time, Myson, you mentioned weekly feedback calls. And that hit me enough that I jotted it down, I wanted to come back to it. So there it is. What does that look like? We'll talk about that for a moment if you would. 

Myson Jones:

So we sent a mass text to the parents. And there's a link in that mass text for them to schedule a call with me to just get an update on their kid, how they've been doing, and what the next steps are. And honestly, I like to use it. Tell me. And what I've lately started doing is and I'm glad Kristen has brought this up. I've been listening to the culture code. And some of the things that Kris is talking about are like in that book, belonging, kids want to build like, or trainees or players want to feel like they belong, they're safe. And they have a future together. And what Kris is saying is spot on. 

So we've been trained, changing, and a lot of things will be done because of that. But for the weekly feedback calls, parents just want to hear Tom's advice, and their thoughts. And when it really has been to kind of tie that word-of-mouth marketing into play it has really given me the verbatim knowledge and words to use in our advertising and our marketing that we've gotten the return on. 

So the parent says, I like that you have positive accountability, you don't let them slack off. But you do it in a great way, his other coach, and I'm starting to listen to some more cue words. And those calls are recorded. And they know they recorded too. So I like to go listen back or be a teammate to them. And he uses those exact words to make sure we have the most effective copywriting in our marketing. 

Jeremy Lesniak:

Awesome. Greg, well, thank you for having about six things running through your brain.

Greg Johnson:

I love conversations like this, I have like a million things running through my brain. Well, so again, coming from a little bit of a different way, I think the first of all, I think Youth Fitness, however they take that through dance through martial arts, through basketball through just getting on the parking plane is so big. 

And so like, I only work with a small set of juniors and a lot of it is still on either a one-on-one or I think our biggest Junior Golf fitness class was eight kids. And it's really, it's playtime, it's fun. So like making sure that everyone's on the same page, the fun is being had. But then going back to the original question of potentially getting overloaded in our only marketing for years was just word of mouth. And that was it. Because I didn't know how to market, I'm not going to social media. And I was really, really fortunate enough to have clients that just said how wonderful I was. But the problem is, to this day, I'm still getting people that are coming to look to work for Greg Johnson with Greg Johnson. 

And the issue as we bring on new people or as you bring on new coaches to help, they need to understand and that's where my system started, like, oh, okay, now this makes sense. Because now in our gym, we make sure people are coming to Varimax fitness, they're coming to train a Varimax fitness, they're not coming to train with Greg, they're not coming to train with Kris or other trainers, I'm going on a much overdue long needed vacation next week. And I get to trust all my clients, with my other trainers. 

And they know they're gonna get a very, very similar feeling, we all have similar philosophies, and we might have different methods. And in the best case scenario, some of my clients who really like me, might like them and say, you know, their, their, their schedule works pretty well. Greg, do you mind if I? Oh, no, no, no, please do. I appreciate that. So that's where the systems come into play. And we want to build those coaches up to be our equals that way. Because, again, when people bring in new coaches, new facilitators, you want to make sure that wherever those kids or adults go, they're getting the same feel they're getting the same approach, they still feel part of the same program. And like sometimes it takes saying, well, actually, I know you're a basketball player. 

So, actually has 14 years of experience in basketball, so he may be able to help you with that meniscus issue that we've always been talking about. So giving them makes them be the expert of things that they know, and it allows them to go hey, you know, if I will try a couple of sessions with this other trainer, and they're still in the facility like I haven't lost a client. Ideally, I've maybe gained a couple of extra sessions a week or a month for that situation or maybe say, hey, this other guy that I played basketball with also has a meniscus issue, so he should see Curtis too. 

Jeremy Lesniak:

Today I want to talk about fun. Greg, you use the word fun. And I was saying I was at a class last night and had nothing to do with movement. It's actually firearms. And I was talking with the instructor because as an instructor, I'm constantly evaluating other instructors. What can I pull? How do I learn from what you were doing? And the thing that this gentleman does that is amazing is he always makes it fun, doesn't matter what we're doing or how we're doing. It's fun. And it reinforces something that I've always said to instructors. If you make it fun first, if it's fun, and they learn something, if you can check those two boxes, they will keep coming back. They will keep learning. So I'm going to start with you Christen. What role does fun play in what you do and what you organize and put out? It's the type of it.

Kristen Leach:

It's absolutely the top of it, um, fun. Silly. lightheartedness, encouragement, joy, like joy is really, really important. Not just happy, but joyful. made my heart so happy. This past summer, I asked children, ``What did you learn today? And a kid said, I learned that hard work is fun. And it blew my mind. Because this isn't what we want more than anything is for people, everybody, please everybody to understand that. The harder I work and the more I pursue excellence in my job in my relationships, and in just getting up making my bed in the morning, you know, keeping consistency and routine that you can feel really good and you can make it fun and funny. So what Greg was saying about systems and having things kind of in place. 

What happened was 40 some odd years ago, Jonathan was that New York City ballet's premiere dancer, and if you don't know, Google shocked him as he was an amazing ballet dancer. And his children were getting into some trouble in school and you know, talking about trouble in school whatever. And he went into school and said I want to teach a dance class to the boys. Boys need to understand that dance is athletic. And there's, there's a great way there's lots of things you can learn. I'm sorry, my neighbor's about to knock on my door, my dog is gonna bark.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Do we want to get that we can switch over to somebody else? 

Greg Johnson:

You should always say. 

Kristen Leach:

I like such a hot topic too. So basically, what he wanted, he wanted children to understand that. That is the discipline of dance and sports, anything athletic that can be applied to school and, and, and life. And he was teaching in a way for many years, he was teaching in a way that he thought was obvious. And teachers came along next to him and said, you have a methodology. This is actually a method of teaching that is brilliant. And it includes humor, and fun and joy and hilarity and silly voices and noises and and, you know, just stupid lyrics and songs even. And he's and he was kind of confused by that. Like, doesn't everybody know how to teach like this? And they don't, not everybody does. 

But employing that method and teaching it throughout? Like you're saying to your point, Greg, any of my teaching staff can have a wacky Wednesday where all the teachers move around and everybody gets somebody different. And the kids are like, she's just like you are but different. And it's been a very similar class, there's consistency in it. And they will consistently say that it was fun. The little boy that I had last year we plucked him out. 

He was in school suspension, some serious like just anger issues. The principal knew he needed to move. And so she got him out of ISS and brought him to me. And we had dance class and he was focused. He was completely engaged. And at the end of the class came up to me and said, That was so fun. And he's not an ISS anymore. He's gotten scholarships to go and do great things here. But it was fun. Yeah, it's so important. It's so important to weave hard work. into it. And they're sweating. And they're like, breathing heavily, their faces are red. And they're like, this is so awesome. Yeah, so yeah, it's important, so important.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Nice. Where does fun fit in?

Myson Jones:

If I chop up, you let me know, and I'm gonna give them a phone because I'm enjoying this too much to let it interfere with the conversation. So I would say, I agree with Greg and Chris in the fun, and I kind of like to add a slash serious to it because, so we're trainees, I'm a weird coach, I scream at the top of my lungs. Sometimes I coach as hard as I can. And we make sure that there is a fulfilling nature to it because I've burned out before in other sports, especially basketball. And it's just not fun to compete when you're burned out mentally and physically. So I made sure that there is a fun and fulfilling component to it as well. And you know, most kids aren't going to the NBA or to play college basketball. 

So what can we pull from this aside from just getting a scholarship, so try to make it fun to where we can teach things that are intangibles that they would love to have off the court or parents to love the kids that have off the court as well. But I will say they, I think it kind of goes as a synonym to hard work in that fun slash series is important too because we do have certain trainees who want to play in college, we do have trainees, one's going to the NBA one plays a couple plays high major division one. And they need that serious nature to do so like Kristen said to a small group that segments certain groups here's the fun group, here's the fun series group. 

And if anybody's in this kind of serious, serious category, those are the ones where we have to talk to them and try to just lighten the mood up and say you can still pursue excellence but have fun while you're doing it. And delight in that journey. So I think it's everything, I think it is the foundation, and we joke and say fundamentals so that we kind of capitalize the fun and the fundamentals to make sure it's always, and then we start with that. 

Jeremy Lesniak:

One of the things that I've said often to school owners is if it's not fun, they don't come back, you don't get the opportunity to work with them, you don't get the opportunity to better them, help them, et cetera. And, you know, I'm not sure enough about what each of you does. But something that comes out of martial arts quite often is we have a tradition, we have these lineages, we have these oftentimes codified sets of movements that are of importance. And sometimes the instructional styles will prioritize those, it's got to be done this way. It's got to be done right. And fun kind of trickles down on the priority list. And in the modern era, we have a bit of a battle going on. 

Some might term it, you know, fun versus tradition or quality. And there we go. All right, we got five for a moment, we'll be down to four again. Appreciate it. And I would rather see I've been on record to say this, I've been quite firm that, you know, sometimes you have to make a compromise, sometimes you have to let something go. Because if it means if you draw that hard line, if fun isn't the priority, and they leave, you're not into it. How do you help them? How do you get somebody better at anything if they're not there?

Kristen Leach:

So if I might tag on to that? I think in any business or educational model, you have to look at what is the objective. What is the objective? What is your finish line? What is your goal? And if it is, if it's to have fun, you know, that's one thing, if it is to get this move, perfected? That’s another thing. 

Can you blend the two things through your method of teaching the perfected? The answer is yes. But what is the objective, if your objective is retention, then you better figure out how to get the two together. In the case of performance. We're going to put kids in front of hundreds of people. And we're going to do that and make sure they do not fail. So we make a promise to them that they're going to feel built up and excited about what they're about to do and they're going to tackle Something that they never thought they could do. 

And then we get them to that. So they know what the objective is. We know what the objective is, and we agree that that's the objective. And then we work overtime to get there. So yeah, I know it is hard. I mean, I'm also taught speaking from a dance education program in schools and not ballet school. Right? That right? And so that's where, like, you're talking about myosin, you're talking about like, the serious. The people that have the feet, or they have the chops, the talent, they want this really structured thing that's going to take them somewhere. Still, I think it's important, as you said, to layer some things and what is objective and try to meet it.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Greg, from what I understand hearing conversations with personal trainers, you end up with a Western notable chunk of people who are fairly high functioning, and they come in and they want to be, they want everything, they want linear progress, they want to make sure they're putting weight on week after. And, you know, you're trying to keep them safe, you're doing a lot of different things. How do you make it fun? While you're navigating all those other things? 

Greg Johnson:

Yeah, I got news for you. The fitness industry is a train wreck. Like it is kind of fun to like to get to talk with other industries. And I would encourage anybody to go outside your industry or go to events that don't involve your industry. But I want to start by jumping back on something that my son said, burnout is real in every industry. And if it's not fun for you, as a coach, it's really hard to make fun of your clients or your students. 

So at some point, sometimes you do need to make sure that you are taking care of yourself so that you can enjoy what you're doing. I mentioned that to Jeremy earlier, sometimes we just get into these things, because it's our passion. But we don't really know the ins and outs of what to do. When it comes to fitness that I'm, I am very foundational and very traditional. And when it comes to training, there are certain things that the human body should be able to do: a hinge just squat, a horizontal push and pull a rotation. That's great. 

Now, on the other side of it, there are hundreds of ways to do every one of those movements. And I always kind of bring it to the point of if I have an hour with somebody, like somewhere in that half hour that I'm going to sneak in everything that they need. But the rest of that is fair game to make it as fun as possible. And you also have to remember, parents and adults, want to have fun you could sit there with your clipboard and focus on okay, we're doing three sets of 12 reps with 85% of your max of this, that's all fine, and dandy. 

But if they're not kind of like, entertained, like, excited about it, then you need to make sure that they are in other ways, a lot of things that I was mining for my kids, for random reasons I decided to throw into my adult programming. And they were like, “This is amazing”. Like I love this, you had the challenge you had, we have different games like gamifying type of things like that. And all of a sudden, they're challenging each other. They're like, hey, like, I remember Mike was here two weeks ago, and he got 24 reps of this, this, and this, what's the on now and these people don't even know each other. 

So it's just like, adding in like this is a whole nother aspect of it. But adding things like the technology side of things, or the numbers side of things or the charts. Like there's, we have a heart rate monitor system that we use in everyone's constantly looking at the board, who has the most maps, who has the most points, they don't even know these people, they just know I want to be in the top 10. So it's like adding a little bit of something to their training. 

So my job as a coach is to Yeah, it's great to have fun. But what good is fun as severe if you're not losing weight when you're trying to lose weight if you're not getting stronger when you're trying to get stronger? So there's the bounce thereof am I giving them enough of what they need and enough of what they want to where they're getting the results they want? Enjoying it while they are there. They're here. And also hopefully talking about a little bit when they leave here to the other. The other one thing that I kind of bring up when we talk about this stuff with fun is I work with golfers when if you've got if you guys have ever played youth sports, Golf was probably not one of the top sports. 

When you're playing soccer, there are games, there's this kind of thing with golf, you're just sitting in line hitting a ball. And if you're into golf fitness, this is the most boring thing in the world. So my job when I work with golfers is I need to make golf fitness fun. But the reality is I'm just helping develop athletes. I'm running, jumping, hopping, skipping, throwing, and oh, by the way, that rotation might actually help you hit the ball farther. So it's like it's getting like stuff that and that's why Golf was losing hundreds of kids 1000s of kids a year because it's boring. So like you want to make sure that your programming doesn't become so boring and so regimented, and so fine, too, that people leave. I played competitive football for 14 years.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Able to draw a box around what you just said for the last 10 seconds, and just make a soundboard out of it. And I think just hammer that, please continue.

Greg Johnson:

Yeah, when I stopped playing football, the last thing I wanted to do was back squats, heavy deadlifts, and bench presses. I was over it, I was exhausted. And my fitness just kind of went like this for years, because I had no idea what I wanted to do, I'd gain weight, lose weight, try cardio. And then now I've redeveloped that to where now I've built that back into my personal workouts, and I enjoy it. But it's not the end all be all of my workouts. So it's just like it's finding what it is as you go through clients. 

Especially if you're working with kids and kids start getting older, their ideas of their bodies are going to change. I constantly have 14-year-olds in here flexing their muscles in the mirror. Oh, my guess I know I get it. Good for you. Now let's keep going. So I'll let them do that. Because it's fun. I'll also threaten to put it on social media, but you never know. But it's just a constant balance of kind of, like you were saying, like all the traditional foundational stuff. But it is okay to introduce some of the modern-era things and you can that you get to have that balance for sure. 

Jeremy Lesniak:

So we're gonna kind of bookend we started this conversation with, you know, what have you learned this year that really made a difference for you? Let's open that up even wider. What's the best piece of advice? It's probably something that you hear in the back of your head. Time and time again, you're like, I can't forget this. I can't forget this, that you're telling yourself, maybe you're telling your staff, maybe you're telling the students, the kids, the clients? What is that bit that has really been your, compass, as you've built? What are you doing Myson?

Myson Jones:

Open, you didn't start with me? He did. I would say, kind of go back to what we just talked about: what fun finds satisfaction in the work that we're putting in. You know, I think that's why someone said this. And when I was talking to them, they said, you know, you're helping people graduate to the next degree. And I thought, okay, it plays on the Hoops University name for the business. But it really is about graduating to that next area of fulfillment as we strive and honestly grind or sculpt however we want to say it to the next level to whatever brain chemistry it is that we're going for, like Kristin said, whatever objective that we have. 

So I think having satisfaction as we sweat on the poor as we do that next. Next, we go over the same choreography that we've done for the last three hours. My wife is watching Dancing with the Stars right now. And it's like, I'm amazed watching this thing, seeing these people, seeing how the stars are working only for one week and how many hours they put into it. And I know what it's like to be burned out from running sprints and playing basketball and just needing something that's novel and new. 

So I would say find satisfaction in the work that we're putting in, as we strive for that. Excellent. I think that wraps everything up from a philosophical and physiological level for us for what I would say is the best advice that I have received.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Well said because you can't have satisfaction without knowing what the goal is. Right? To piggyback on what you said, Kris, I'll save you for last. Greg, how about you? What's the best thing you've heard? 

Greg Johnson:

The biggest thing, the biggest thing I've learned over what feels like decades like I used to think I was in the fitness business. And then I thought, well, we're not really in the fitness business. We're in the customer service business. And then I would know again like as I'm trying to coach, other coaches, we're in the relationships business, we're in the business of developing relationships. 

You could have all the knowledge in the world, but if you can't connect with someone on a deeper level, because when someone first comes into my studio, they may say, Yeah, I want to lose weight. Yeah, I want to get stronger but until I start to understand why they want to lose weight and why they want to get stronger, I'll have a harder time training them. So when I say developing relationships, it starts when you first meet that person and you learn as much about them as possible even though it may have nothing to do with their fitness goals. And when you talk with them, you know their dog's name, you know, how their parents are doing, you know, what truly truly drives them, what makes them them. We are absolutely in a relationship business. And I think that's literally how I built the business that I have because I've had the opportunity to connect with so many people. 

And now introducing these these new players to my team is that's my big point is, hey, when you come into the gym gym, don't just set up your A client go like say hi to someone, ask them how their kids doing because like our that we have kids that we're only seeing a chunk of the year because they could be going to school that could be in golf tournaments. So I want to make sure I connect with them. So that way when they come back to town, they're coming back to me because they know me, they know what we do. And they know we're here for them, whether in town, out of town or in different places. So it's just relationships. 

Jeremy Lesniak:

Well said, Kristen. 

Kristen Leach:

Could not agree more great and nice and amazing. Like, oh, my words. Also, I wanted to say that I like you people, I think you're really fun. If you ever feel burnt out, and you're like, Oh, I got to just do something completely crazy and different. I will come and give you a dance class, you will have a great time in your stuff. But honestly, I was getting I've been teaching a long, long time. And I was getting burned out on creating movement, and I needed some repetitive strikes. So I took up running. And I'm running my fifth marathon at the end of this month to do a Marine Corps. My daughter is a crossfit coach. 

So just got me back squatting stuff. It's really great fun, but it has definitely broadened my relationships with my students. So I can talk to the Cross Country kids about running in relation to mine. And as soon as I started running, my friends got me into triathlons. So then I had to get on a bike and a wetsuit and just do things that scared me. And it changed up my game. And it definitely took me out of feeling burnt out from doing one thing and it made my relationships really strong with my students, no matter what age they were. I think too, if I'm going to ask them to be excellent and give their very best work. I better bring it to you. 

No matter what's going on in my life, and what's of concern, I need to drop it at the door, we know this, but you drop it at the door and you go in and give your excellent work to them. Because like Greg said, and my son was also saying, we're not growing like I'm not growing dancers. I'm growing as a human. 

You're not growing golfers you're growing humans, you're not growing basketball players or martial artists, we're helping grow people and you're meeting them wherever they are. If they're 30 years old, and they want to take up whatever they want to take up, you're meeting them where they are and getting them to another level like my son was saying and what an incredibly rewarding life we get to have doing that. It's really really awesome and when we kind of go into classes and interactions with our clients that way they know it they know it and they feel built up as a result.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Sure do. I want to thank all of you for coming on for doing this. This has been awesome. Let's go around starting back up with you Kristen. If people want to get a hold of you or learn more about NHDI.

Kristen Leach:

Who wants to take dance class? 

Myson Jones:

I do and look I'm big on following up and credibility so like look if you can teach me how to dance it can be even zoom I'm gonna make you drive all the way to Greenville. I’m for it.

Kristen Leach:

Easy with my eyes closed upside down underwater I can do it. Now, you can get me at nhdi.org. Look, I'm wearing my shirt. But you can also kristen@nhdi org. But it's really fun to be like if you look up, you can YouTube it too and see some pretty cool interviews with kids.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Nice. 

Kristen Leach:

Thank you for having me.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Oh, of course. Greg. How can they find you?

Greg Johnson:

Yeah, easiest would be on Instagram @Johnson.fit or I think I'm still on Facebook, maybe MySpace.

Jeremy Lesniak:

No one uses MySpace. If anyone if anyone contacts you on MySpace I want them to, I want you to tell me.

Greg Johnson:

But my gym is Varimax fitness. I'll throw up the shirt as well, because it's a weird spelling var i Varimax fitness.com. And, by all means hit me up on social media, I have the great, great opportunity to present all over the country and train other coaches. 

So I'll be in Washington, DC, Las Vegas, and hopefully San Francisco as well. So if you're in the industry, come hit me up.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Myson.

Myson Jones:

Instagram, @mysonjonesmy and not your biological son, but mysonjones. If you Google that, or go to Instagram, you can find me. And I've enjoyed it. It's been an honor. So thank you for allowing me to be a part of this conversation.

Jeremy Lesniak:

This has been a lot of fun and I have no doubt that whatever amount of time we put on this, we could have filled it so out, maybe based on some feedback, I can get you all back and we can we can have some more focused conversation but I appreciate you all for being here folks listening or watching, you know, check out what they've got going on. If there's at all any relevance to what you're doing individually, please find a way to support them. And that's it.