Curiosity Thrilled the Cat: Capturing Your Creative, Inspired Moments

Introduction

I just got back from a three-hour trek around my Auckland neighborhood on this phenomenally beautiful Sunday morning and felt compelled to share some ideas. The very inspiration for this blog came about as I passed a young family walking in the opposite direction. The little boy, who must have been about 3 years old, was lagging behind his parents because he was transfixed on something that had captured his attention.

As we approached each other, the father called his son, broke the boy's attention, and he ran to catch up with his parents. In that instant, the boy looked up at me just as we were passing each other and engaged my eyes with the utmost innocent and whimsical look of genuine curiosity. He just kept staring with an ear to ear grin on his face, his little brain processing the image of my face, my hat, shirt, shorts, everything. It all happened in less than a few seconds, but it was a moment that really inspired me jot down some thoughts and write the blog post you're now reading.

The Death and Rebirth of Curiosity
As I carried on walking, I couldn't help but be envious of that pure, unbridled child-like curiosity. Dammit, I was once that curious. We all were! Where did it go? While I do still consider myself a curious adult, an "observer of life," I can see just how easy it is for the modern world and all its trappings to kick the stuffing out of us and make us forget about those little traits that help form our very humanity.

But how do you capture this essence? And what practical value is there to harnessing and nurturing curiosity? Based on my own observations and experiences, I am convinced that curiosity is the spark which ignites creativity and inspiration.

Happy Place
First, cliche as it sounds, I believe it is imperative that each person finds their little "happy place." It can be a physical location such as the beach, the mountains, lake or whatever. Maybe even your local coffee shop has an energy about it which facilitates an open mind. Be social and surround yourself with up-beat, motivated, and positive people who bring out the best in you (avoid energy vampires that complain and moan about every little thing in their lives which only serves to sap your creative drive). Listen to music that evokes positive feelings of well-being and forward momentum.  No matter what trips your trigger, find it and conscientiously go there...regularly.

Capturing Curious, Creative Moments
Second, you MUST capture those curious, creative moments. The vast majority of my ideas flow freely through my mind when I'm actually AWAY from the computer and a bit more connected with nature (out walking, exercising, surfing, whatever). I find most people have lots of ideas, even GREAT ideas, but the problem is they just pop into their minds for a fleeting moment and quickly evaporate the split second something else moves onto their mental radar. In fact, this was my problem too up until several years ago when I decided to implement one simple change in my life: carry pen and paper with me everywhere I go and then capture that internal "soundtrack."

So what should you write down? EVERYTHING! The rule is that there are no rules. If it pops into your mind, write it down. Period. Pay no attention to grammar, spelling, syntax, but get it down on paper! Call it a self-administered psychotherapy session. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• What's on your mind?
• What's eating away at you?
• What's holding you back in life?
• To do lists? Write em down, get em done!
• Figures, schematics, concepts, etc.
• What inspires you?
• What motivates you?
• If you could wake up tomorrow and be doing whatever it is in life you REALLY want to be doing, what would it be?
• What steps are you prepared to take to make it a reality?
• What sacrifices will you make to accomplish what you feel you rightly deserve?
• Let's say you want to launch a new project but don't know where to begin? Start brainstorming. Write down everything in your mind. Every idea, no matter how big or small. What are the challenges, barriers, difficulties? What are your strengths you bring to the table?
• Perhaps you want to write articles for magazines. What topics do you think would have real value to the world? What are your key messages? Bullet point the key headings and then fill in the content underneath each bullet point. Voila, new article.

So maybe you're reading this and thinking, "ah, that's all that psycho-babble mumbo jumbo." Great, no problem. Stop reading this and go back to your cave to wallow in your own self-limiting negativity.  By the way, how is that working for you?


Hacking Through the Hieroglyphics

My brainstorms tamed on paper

Third, so you've got three pages of thoughts, feelings, and ideas scrawled in hieroglyphics on three loose-leaf sheets of paper, now what? While you still have momentum, go onto your computer and create a master file for managing your "content." I personally use Microsoft's One Note program. It's a free form program which allows you to create master headings and tabs which nicely complements the organization of your "diary of a madman." Transcribe that content into your system and then continually add to it each time you come back from your creative place. Over time, you will be amazed at how it all adds up and may even be something you can adapt into a paid presentation or magazine article.

See (or Create) Opportunities Others Miss
You absolutely MUST train your brain to see the opportunities that others miss and then act upon those opportunities. Other times there is no opportunity, but instead you create it out of thin air. For example, I recall going to the supermarket for a liter of milk, bread, and eggs. As I walked by the magazine rack, I saw a diabetes magazine. I picked it up, flipped through the pages, thought it was a good publication, memorized the editor's name and email address from the mast head, went home, sent an introductory email with a story idea, some writing clips, and within an hour had a paid assignment in the pipeline!

Unchained Fingertips of Fury
A few years back, I was up late working on my PhD and had the TV on in the background. An infomercial for some gimmick ab blaster machine came on the air and, in that instant, I just snapped and went on a writing binge about how egregiously misleading the advertising was. This sent me down another series of mental rabbit holes which, after a couple hours, I had about 10 pages of a hand-written brainstorm. I took some photos of the screen and before I knew it, I had all the content I needed for both a new consumer health/advocacy presentation and article!

Operate From a Locus of Passion
More recently, after months of seeing those annoying Ab Circle Pro commercials, I finally threw in the towel and decided to do something about it.  I literally took the company to task on their marketing claims and wrote a scathing 15-page expose in less than 48 hours. I did final edits, HTML formatting, and had it up on my website within a week (read it here). Since I released it in June, it went viral and has had countless thousands of views from all over the world, with all feedback being amazingly positive. Point is, this was the product of an inspired moment I conscientiously decided to capture and act upon. I could have done nothing and continued to spout off about how stupid and useless I believe the product is, but instead it was far more productive (and personally therapeutic) to harness that energy and direct it into something constructive that has value for the world.

Final Thoughts
In closing, I am convinced everyone has an innate curiosity which can spawn creative moments, but unfortunately most people are too beaten down by the tedium of daily life to take action. The expression "the neurons that fire together wire together" is all too true. You can "train your brain" to do nothing each time you have creative moments or you can harness them and use them to propel you forward in life. The choice is yours.

Considerations for a longer (and successful) career in the fitness industry

WRS: The idea for my initial post on the career "life span" of the personal trainer came about as a passing comment during dinner with a friend last week.  Interestingly, it has really whipped up some healthy discussion across the industry around the world.  I've received quite a bit of feedback, most of it a nod of approval that, yes, we can do more to improve the quality and integrity of the personal training profession on a global scale.

I have come to know Wendy Sweet (RGN/ B.PhEd/ MSpLS) during my time in New Zealand and respect what she's done for personal training in this country.  She is the founder and developer of Les Mills personal training in NZ. She is a fitness industry consultant and educator and the recipient of the 2009 Fitness NZ Award for the Most Outstanding Contribution to the NZ Fitness Industry. 

After reading my blog post, she sent me an email with some keen observations on how things might be improved upon, not just in NZ but in other parts of the world as well. The following comments by Wendy are in reference to the relatively short career lifespan of the personal trainer.

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The key factors I have found over the past 15 years with the proliferation of club-based PT programmes which rely on high numbers of trainers paying fees each month to the club, are as follows:

Inadequate attention to the role and training of a PT Manager in health clubs.
Many of these managers are recruited because they have proven themselves as great trainers. What they lack however, is the training to become great leaders, motivators and performance-driven managers. To do this, they need to first and foremost, understand fully the issues surrounding effective PT management and they need to have the tools to ‘do the job’. Only then will they be able to grow the teams of trainers and more importantly keep Trainers long-term (3+ years).

New Trainers who are transitioning into their role and don’t know how to focus on the ‘retention’ of clients.
Basically these Trainers are being given client ‘leads’ at point-of-membership sale as the clubs are recruiting new members into ‘boot-camp’ programmes or 6-12 week weight loss programmes and the new Trainers are not being taught how to up-sell these group clients into one-on-one clients AFTER they have completed their group sessions. I have seen this as the major problem for Trainers working in large clubs where the club has a fixed intake of Trainers every 2-3 months. Many clubs have become so focused on recruiting ‘new’ trainers that they fail to manage and up-skill existing Trainers into being able to self-generate a client base long-term.

Trainers who are too young and too inexperienced and therefore don’t have the ‘life-skills’ in order to manage and mentor their clients into longer-term goals.
This was my personal observation a number of years ago whilst managing PT’s and it has also now come up in my masters research. Basically, young inexperienced Trainers reach the full extent of their knowledge and advice to clients at around the 9-12 month mark. They don’t know how to progress their regular clients into other areas such as doing a multi-sport event or doing something ‘different’ with their fitness goals. The client becomes bored and moves on and if the Trainer hasn’t up-skilled then the Trainer has nothing ‘new’ to offer their client. Most of my research participants found that the longer the client was with them, the more the Trainer had become the client’s ‘Life-Coach’.

Finally, the BIGGEST issue, is that if new Trainers can’t SELL, they don’t make any money and leave.
So it is the responsibility of the education institutions as well as the clubs to educate Trainers on how to up-sell sessions and retain clients. Many of the large clubs have devised varied business models to recruit new Trainers, and don’t have the right people to teach Trainers a process similar to what I have devised and called the ‘The five R’s of PT’:

1.    Develop the RELATIONSHIP first and foremost by having a great first training session...it’s the only session that counts in order to progress to the next stage....

2.    Devise processes to RETAIN your clients and evaluate their progress for at least 6-12 weeks (this means excellent programming and interaction/ communication with clients), so that you can achieve the third ‘R’ =

3.    RESULTS (many new trainers also don’t have the knowledge to get results with their clients because they are recruited straight from certification programmes that aren’t teaching them how to get results with clients, but that’s another story!)

4.    REFERRALS – you can’t get referrals without all of the above.....

5.    REVENUE – and the final thing I focus on with new trainers is that they will NEVER reach and sustain any revenue into the long term, if they don’t pay attention to numbers 1-4!!

Improving the Integrity of Health and Fitness Training, Education, and Certification in the United States

I received the following email response from a friend and esteemed colleague Fabio Comana, MA, MS, Exercise Physiologist and spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise. With his permission, I am reposting his comments here. I thought he raised an important point regarding the "weeding out" of the fly-by-night personal trainer certifications from the market.  This is less about so-called "patch protection" and more about enhancing the integrity of the health/fitness industry. I have underscored a couple of eyebrow raising points below.

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Good to hear from you and read your blog. I agree 100% with your suggestions and would like to add some points. 

• In 2003, the initiative for NCCA accreditation was driven out of the existence of over 70 different fitness certification agencies in the US alone.  IHRSA’s initiative was implemented in Jan 2006 and to date only 12 have achieved NCCA accreditation.  The good news is that over a dozen other "certifications" have become CEC providers, no longer offering a certification, but a bunch of kettlebell certifications have entered the market instead.

• On the career point, we find the lifespan to be longer with women and with older fitness professionals.  Females and older trainers invest more into professional development, willing to spend $15-25 / CEC, usually attending conferences where it is most expensive. Younger trainers, males in particular, do not make that same investment and hence fizzle out faster.  I can speculate key reasons (ego, arrogance, lack of vision and planning, etc.).  

• I would love to see a study / survey to investigate this further. I am trying to have our IT department track recertification (renewal) differences between male/female and younger/older trainers.

Career "Life Span" of the Personal Trainer

I was having dinner with a personal training colleague the other day when the conversation fell on the topic of the average professional "life span" of a personal trainer. We anecdotally observed that most trainers in the industry last anywhere from 1 to 3 years and then drop it for something else altogether. This prompted the question -- why so short?

What are the reasons personal trainers decide to bail on what is arguably one of the healthiest professions. As we discussed/analyzed the topic some more, we came to the conclusion that, for many, it's just viewed as an expendable J.O.B. instead of a career path. Something to do until a better J.O.B. comes along. If this is the case, then why? I don't have a definitive answer, but in my 20 years in the health/fitness industry, I have seen a lot of so-called certifying bodies/agencies/organizations pop up in the shadow of the main players ACE, ACSM, and NSCA. In 1998, I did a consulting project, part of which looked at the number of certifying organizations in the US. Much to my dismay, there were quite a few questionable companies selling personal trainer certifications not even worth the paper upon which they were printed. Though there appears to be more scrutiny these days on the part of employers who ask for legitimate credentials, there are still plenty of opportunists looking to make a buck off of certifications. Therefore, the barriers to entry are lower, making it easier to enter the industry. A prospective trainer might conclude, "oh well, if I don't like it, I can just walk away from it. Not much invested. So what? Disposable J.O.B.

Other factors may be related to the reality that personal training is actually hard work whilst on the floor and the paper shuffle afterward (the business side of things) tacks on yet more time to an already busy schedule.  In the early 90s, I recall working from 1 to 10 pm four to five days per week with most of those hours filled with hands-on client sessions.  While I loved what I did and made a healthy income in the process, I started to feel the stress cracks (especially so given I was simultaneously juggling university classes).  Nowadays, trainers are growing more savvy and minimizing the time-for-money trade-off by creating multiple income streams, but there are still lots of trainers in the trenches trading time for money...and in time will either evolve and adapt or burn out.

I have also seen a surge in personal training academies around the world, some excellent, some good, some ok, and others abysmally pathetic, run by charismatic sociopaths with nothing more than a well-orchestrated marketing plan and a unilateral goal of making money off selling personal trainer qualifications. End result? Same as an easily acquired personal trainer certification. Spend several thousand for an academy, get a certification or eligibility for registration, and voila, a new job all within one calendar year. Don't get me wrong, it's not my intention to slam certification or academies.  Quite the opposite, I'm merely just pointing out that it's considerably less time and financial investment than four years at university.

Some trainers think they're going to make the big bucks overnight, but once they get into it, they realize a new certification or qualification is not the only requisite to be a successful trainer. Wages will clearly vary depending on if you're an independent contractor or a paid employee. There are people skills, working within a team, putting the personal in personal training, etc. I think you can teach people so much in this department, but after that, you have to run with it and develop your interpersonal communication skills. If you don't have them, you're going to struggle.

While I genuinely believe that most trainers are into this industry for the purpose of helping others improve their lives, I'm sure nobody will doubt some personal trainers are only into it for the money. While they might do ok with this, the vast majority will sink if it's their only motivator. When I tell people I've logged 2 decades in the business, it usually raises and eyebrow and begs the question, "what keeps you going?" In short, I have three criteria by which I judge everything I do: 1) first and foremost, it must be a passion. Anything less and I won't pour my heart and soul into it; 2) It must be fun. If not, then I won't be smiling, and nothing is more effective people repellent than a frown; and 3) it must be creative. Doing the same boring menial task day after day is like being one amongst the living dead. Creativity keeps the mind refreshed and excited to develop and evolve both personally and professionally.  Bottom line: money has its place but newer research in the area of eudaimonia clearly shows that people who do work for intrinsic satisfaction are much happier and last longer in their professions than those chasing a dollar.

Another factor is what I call the PMS, or Personal Mission Statement. What is your guiding light, your professional compass that keeps you on track? As a medical exercise guy, my PMS is to use exercise as a form of medicine to help people with health problems improve their lives. So no matter what I do, my work MUST serve the PMS and abide by my three commandments. If not, then I'm not being true to myself.

Bringing all this back to the "life span" of the personal trainer, in my own subjective observation, I believe would-be trainers should have a higher bar to jump over, more to lose which should theoretically weed out those who are not serious, or perhaps make sure they have a clear expectation of the challenges ahead (i.e., training is hard work, especially when learning the ropes).  The barriers to entry should be demanding and force people to do the hard yards so they place higher value on their investment in the industry. Though I personally have university degrees in the areas of nutrition and exercise physiology, I am not of the school of thought that everyone should have a four-year degree in order to be a trainer. In all fairness, I have seen plenty of well-educated, qualified trainers with excellent theoretical book knowledge, yet shockingly piss poor people skills and, accordingly, did not make good trainers.

I don't think we should go back to the early days where any gym monkey with 22-inch biceps should be allowed to personal train (or give nutritional advice, but that's another article), but I would very much like to see a greater degree of screening in the industry and not a low barrier to entry where anyone that passes a personal trainer exam can waltz right into a job. Much in the same way you'd expect your tax accountant, plumber, or lawyer to have invested in their education, so too should fitness professionals have invested time and money so they have something to lose. By no means are these comments intended to sound elitist or a slight against the existing industry infrastructure.  Quite the opposite, it is my hope that this (as one of many factors) would increase the number of fitness industry "long-stayers" and possibly enhance the caliber of certified fitness trainers.

I have a number of friends who have survived and thrived in the industry, namely Carl Hammington in Wellington, New Zealand (www.hfd.co.nz). He's young, driven, a degree in exercise science, thirsty for ongoing information, quick to get involved in new projects, and possesses a genuine desire to learn more and more to help his clients get the most from their workouts.

Michelle Barbera is another friend of mine and is the owner of Fit Vixen in Margate, New Jersey.  When I was last back in NJ for a visit, we spoke at length about the industry in the region and how many trainers are still stuck in the outdated "rep-counting" mode.  Maybe some clients are into that, but with the popularity of boot camps and other outdoor exercise regimens, the public is now seeking out non-gym based workouts which offer both fun and variety.  The thing that really impressed me about Michelle was her enthusiasm for her career and, naturally, for helping people improve their lives. 

In both cases, each has logged a fair bit of time in the industry and I can say with relative confidence that neither will be jumping ship any time soon!

In closing, while the fitness industry is larger than ever before, I'm not prepared to say this is a clear indication of its "health."  In fact, it might be a sign that it's out of shape and needs some trimming down.  Sadly, some members of the public I have personally spoken to view personal trainers the same way they view a waiter or bartender:  common and expendable, a temp job for university students, etc. This is unfortunate but perhaps a symptom of the oversaturation of the industry with "certified personal trainers", so much so that the title no longer evokes respect the way it did even a short decade ago.  While certification, registration, and/or a personal training course are clearly steps in the right direction, with the short "life span" of the fitness professional, we may be missing the mark.

What are your thoughts on the industry as a whole?  Does anyone have stats on the actual drop out rate from the industry in different countries?