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Introduction
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I had a conversation last night with an individual who was a
strength and conditioning coach who was finishing up his rotation
over the summer at a baseball facility and he wanted to know what
he should do next.
He paid for his consultation call, he was on the phone, he was
asking me questions, I was answering and then he asked me,
“So, Rhadi, what do you think I should do next?”
I paused for a second because the conversation was about the
supraspinatus, the infraspinatus, the transverse plane, generating ground forces, the most efficient way to swing and then get to first base, etc.,. And then out of the blue, he asked me a Dr. Phil type of question.
Now don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t bother me and I take these
type of questions often, but I just wasn’t ready for the change-up.
I paused and I said, “Bro. I dunno.”
He said, “You don’t know. What in the hell does that mean. I didn’t pay you for you to get on here and tell me that you don’t know.”
I responded, “Yes you did. Because my job is to be honest with you and not to lie to you. My job isn’t to push you down a career path that you don’t want nor is it so provide you with some advice that you don’t have the capacity to perform. And furthermore. How can I tell you what to do and I don’t know what it is that YOU want to do? How about we start with that?!? What do you WANT to do?”
He said, “Well obviously I want to coach.”
I said, “Where? High School? College? Olympic Sports? Personal
Coaching? Life Coaching with a health and wellness component? What kind of coach? And most importantly how much money do you want to make?”
He said, I just want to be a strength coach. I don’t care about the
money.
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Quite Admirable and
Quite Stupid
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Fortunately and on some days, unfortunately, I drive a car. And it doesn’t matter if I care about money or not. Guess what? My car does. My car wants to be insured, if wants to be fed with gas and it wants to be kept in good conditioned. And my son, he enjoys drinking soy milk. He absolutely loves Vanilla Soy Milk with a hint of Hazelnut coffee creamer and I enjoy Whole Bean Starbucks coffee.
Now, I’m not big on money, but the people at the grocery store…
those bastards will not let me walk out of there without paying.
They’re a bunch of money hungry bastards!!! And because of them, I really have to pay attention to money. Otherwise, I would just
walk around and not care about money. But unfortunately things
don’t work like that.
I told this young chap that it is important for him to think about helping others, but the one mistake that a lot of us personal trainers and strength coach make is that we forget sometimes to take care of ourselves.
For instance. We workout our clients, but we skip a day of working out.
We give our clients nutritional advice that we don’t follow.
And we give and give and give. And that’s great. We are in the
GIVING BUSINESS. But the one thing that we cannot forget is that
there is a time to reap and a time to sow.
And with that I really had to “coach” him on the business side of
Strength and Conditioning and Personal Training.
This dude had all the technical knowledge necessary and he
graduated from college and also had his Masters Degree and was just finishing up a rotation in the MLB (Major League Baseball). But what he didn’t know was how his passion was going to support him and how he was going to support his passion.
I was like this guy when I graduated, finished my Olympic pursuits and entered the coaching arena full-time. I partnered with a cool dude who told me that I had to “pay my dues” before I could get paid.
I thought that was right. Hell, at least it sounds good. The only problem is that while I was “paying dues” my wife wanted me to “pay the mortgage” and the “car note” and “the insurance” and everything else that my partner was paying in his home while I was influenced to “pay dues”.
I soon found out that paying dues meant, “You make 1,000 a month,
while I make $20,000 a month and then I’ll tell you when you
deserve to make more.”
Which is cool. In hindsight I can see why that was the right thing to say and do. I could see how and why you would want to tell someone like me that and try to program me with that bullsh–. It’s because they feel like they “own” and industry or a place. But there’s enough “space” and “money” here for everybody.
And because I know this, that is why I want to tell you what other people won’t and share with you what was kept from me and what people never told that young man I was on the phone with last night when they were telling him that he needed to take this class and that class and do this rotation and “pay his dues”.
Your “due paying” is up.
NOW ITS TIME FOR YOU TO GET PAID!
Let me show you how. Hell, you deserve it
—> http://rhadi.com/trainingbiz/

Take care,
Rhadi Ferguson, CSCS
2004 Olympian
The Personal Trainer’s Trainer
P.S. I don’t want you to suffer like I did. You don’t have to.
You’ve done all the hard work. Now its time to learn what you have
to do in order to get paid
–> http://rhadi.com/trainingbiz/
