How I'm Starting Over. Back to Fitness Coaching.

I stand in the dark, just the glow from the kettle and the gradual build of boiling water for company. When the water is boiled I make a cup of black tea (with milk) and shuffle some more to go get dressed.

I drink my tea while checking the weather (both on my phone and by going outdoors) and I go over the workout one more time on my iPad. Still in the dark so I don’t wake Zoe.

5:20am – Tea finished, I hop in the car. It’s already packed full of equipment from the night before. It’s an 11 minute drive to the park at this time in the morning. An audiobook I’m listening to plays on the way there.

5:31am – I arrive at the park. It’s dark and cold. The hint of the sun a bare change in shade on the horizon.

I lug the equipment from the boot of my car to a spot in the park that get’s plenty of light from the street lights. I decorate the area with ropes, dumbbells, cones and medicine balls like some strange children’s party.

Setting up gives me the chance to get in the zone and gets me warmed up.

5:45am – I walk back to the car park. Fix an obnoxious-for-this-goddamn-early grin to my face and wait for the first of my bootcamp members to arrive.

—

This was my morning 3 times per week for years.

And while I loved my bootcamp, the idea of going back to these early, cold starts has put me off starting a bootcamp in the town I live in now for nearly 10 years.

What was different back then was that the excitement of running a bootcamp easily overcame the discomfort of getting up early, having permanently wet shoes and everything else that comes with running a bootcamp.

It wasn’t until this year that a new format for returning to fitness coaching planted itself in my head and wouldn’t go away.

Re-Simplifying Fitness With Habits

My idea was to start a men’s-only, small group personal training sessions where fitness meets life coaching. It would be for men who are my age, and most likely dads (and perhaps even self-employed blokes) who just struggle to stay consistent with working out.

Because I’ve noticed a weird thing over the last few years:

The men around me are more knowledgeable than ever about health, nutrition, exercise and even weird obscure things they listened to on a podcast, yet the number of them working out regularly is still the same as 20 years ago.

And when I think about why I’ve been so consistent over the years, it’s not that I’ve learned more about working out or health, it’s because I started with habits and because I’ve made health a value so I make life choices that help make working out and eating well easier.

But habit building is boring. And try as creators might, it’s difficult to make the algorithm want to serve up your helpful reel about the science of habits.

So people around me just continue to be fed all kinds of obscure and not-helpful-unless-you’re-an-athlete health hacks which of course they miserably fail at implementing into their lives.

It’s just leaving people more confused and feeling more defeated as ‘working out’ feels like it’s no longer enough.

I want to create a something were a big part of the value I give is helping people break down what they want to do into small habits they’ll actually stick to.

At the moment I’m calling this thing Dad Club.

My Idea to Get Paid to Start a Business

Towards the end of last year I ran a 2-week container on Bootcamp Ideas called Group Flow where participants designed their own ‘fitness cohort’.

A ‘fitness cohort’ is basically a group of people who you take through a fitness program over a number of weeks. For example: My old bootcamp that ran in 4-week blocks was a fitness cohort.

All this year my wife has been asking me, ‘When are you going to start your sessions for men?’

(Have I mentioned that my wife is amazing?)

And each time, I would remind her of my amazing plan.

‘I’m going run Group Flow again. And instead of just teaching this stuff I’m going to plan and launch my first Dad Club fitness cohort alongside them. It will be SO amazing because they’ll get to see behind-the-scenes. That way I’ll kind of be getting paid to start my new business.’

And then a month would pass. And another.

No Group Flow. No Dad Club.

To be fair, I was going through an existential crisis during this time around the future of what I wanted to do for work so that was eating up a lot of my time.

Nevertheless, early April I set a date for Group Flow begin and started selling spots to it.

A Total Bomb

I added testimonials to my Group Flow sales page. Went through feedback from the last group and added key words to my messaging. Increased the price now the program was out of beta. Wrote my launch email sequence and away I went.

I got crickets.

This isn’t an article about online marketing so I won’t go into detail, but in terms of people signing up it did utterly terrible.

I cancelled the course. Informed the 2 who signed up and watched my plan to get paid to start my business crumble.

It was… sad. I was sad.

But I also had no excuses left to delay starting Dad Club. And perhaps that was the lesson being given to me.

Let go of over-strategising. Just begin.

Rubbing Salt In The Wound

The follow week I was licking my wounds when my wife handed me her phone and said, ‘Look at this.’

It was an Instagram account for a new fitness group in our area focusing on men.

Ugh. Thanks Universe.

Literally, as I’m about to press play, it’s like the movie has already been shown.

And then I pause.

Yes, it kinda sucks that someone else had a similar idea to me, but it’s also a sign that others are seeing this kind of thing is needed in our area.

After a closer look, there is also a difference in how we’re solving this need:

While they’re looking to create a larger thing, I just want to start small with a few guys and go deep.

Enough Strategy, Let’s Just Begin

So, that brings us to the present.

With the problem of ‘how do I start’ rearing up in front of me.

And just like I plan to do with my clients with their fitness and health, let’s chuck out the edge case, fantastical business advice out there and just pick a few small actions I can start with:

1. Define who it is I want to help and how I will help them ✅ Done!

2. Make a list of everyone I know who might fit that category ✅ Done!

3. Reach out to them one at a time

Simple. Scary. But simple.

No need for ads. Or a new social media account. Or even a website.

In the next update of Back to Fitness Coaching I hope to share with you the results of these first steps, good or bad.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you if this resonated at all. Do you have a business idea that you’ve been meaning to start? You can click ‘leave a comment’ to reply directly to this article.