Fit Pros - Stop Trading Time for Money w/Becky Searls

This paradox , as I view it , is the trust , interaction and communication gap that exists between exercise professionals and our medical community . This podcast is all about closing off that gap by disseminating the latest , most evidence-based and most engaging information in the health sciences and to do that in episode 135, .

I'm very excited to welcome back Becky Searles .

Becky was on our podcast way back when in episode 48 , where she talked about 10 crucial lessons to be a successful fitness professional and this was talking about her transition from being a teacher to getting into the fitness professional and this was talking about her transition from being a teacher to getting into the fitness space and she'll talk a little bit about

this in the episode .

But when I checked back in with Becky about kind of where her career was going and what she was doing , she told me about the recent pivot that she's made to scale what she's doing and I think the most poignant thing that I hope you take out of this conversation is Becky is figuring out a way to no longer trade time for money , which is the traditional

transaction that happens for exercise professionals , and there just exists this linear relationship between the amount of time you spend and the amount of money that you make , and there is no economy of scale in that If you are not spending time in the gym training people , you aren't making money .

And while that is certainly a career that many people in our profession enjoy spending hours on end in the gym training people there are other people or , at certain points in someone's career , they might want to think about a way to disconnect .

Or , at certain points in someone's career , they might want to think about a way to disconnect their physical time spent with their income . And that's what Becky talks about in this conversation .

She's going to take you on her journey from being a frontline exercise professional in a fitness facility to where she's at right now , which is more of a remote coach and a program developer that has essentially scaled herself , and I think that's such an important lesson for everyone that's listening .

How do you scale yourself and disconnect your time spent from the income that you make ? Any information we'd like to share with you from today's episode can be found on the show notes page , that's by going to wellnessparadoxpodcom , forward slash episode 135 . Please enjoy this conversation with Becky Searles Today . We're delighted to welcome back Becky Searles .

Becky , welcome back to the Wellness Paradox . Good to be back . Thanks for having me . I'm super excited to have you back . We were just talking before we went on the air that this is the first time I've had a kind of entrepreneur who's done a follow-up podcast .

I've done a follow-up podcast with researchers and scientists and people that work in organizations , but never someone that's going through their own career journey , and so this is going to be , I think , a neat and also an instructive update for our audience .

So you were back on the podcast way back in episode 48 , where we talked about 10 crucial lessons to be a successful fitness professional , and we'll link up to that in the show notes page so the audience has a chance to reconnect with that .

But just in case our audience might have missed that episode , can you give us a little bit of an idea of your background just to provide some context for our chat ?

But my background actually is in K-12 education , so I was a high school Spanish teacher , then a middle school Spanish teacher , then got a master's degree in TESOL to teach English to speakers of other languages , and we actually moved to Japan in 2019 where I taught English for a year and then , kind of when the world shut down during the pandemic , was when I

had more time and just found myself doing what was really my fitness enthusiast hobby of working out all the time and helping friends work out , and I think it was just because I finally had time and space . I realized I knew I wanted to career change at some point . I just didn't know what .

Yet I realized in that moment this is a career I can get a certification in this . I can basically teach , but teach a new content area fitness and I can do it to a different population instead of K-12 adults in general population , and that turned out to be the best fit for me . I absolutely loved everything about it .

All of the skillset transferred over everything from program planning , basically being curriculum planning , to queuing and client rapport and building relationships with your colleagues , being like communicating with your students and parents and teachers and the community stakeholders and administration . So truly , truly everything transferred .

The only thing that was a little tough , I would say , was kind of that ego hit of having a master's degree , having tenure and then just taking this backseat to be a beginner novice again , which was the topic of our first interview and is really something that I think a lot of people probably would do new , exciting things and maybe a career change , maybe an

encore career . But it's hard when you have maybe sunk cost fallacy and expertise in one area to consider starting over again . But I would really encourage you from like four years down the road that if you're not content in what you're doing and you know you have a skill set that could transfer , well to explore it .

Because my background in teaching , I can't think of anything that could have prepared me better to be a trainer or coach or vice versa . Let's say you've been a trainer and a coach and now you want to get into the academic side of what's behind that and the research . I'm sure it could go the other way as well .

And sure you needed to develop some specific skills that maybe you hadn't developed as a teacher . But those were the easy skills to develop . The foundational skills are things that existed as you went throughout your career .

So that was something I really enjoyed from that podcast and , as Becky said , go back and listen to it , particularly if you're early in your career . I think it's very instructive and we were very intentional about leveraging Becky's article that she wrote , which were the 10 lessons . So , like any good teacher , it is structured almost in a lesson plan format .

Now , when we talked in that podcast , you , like you said , just made the transition to in-facility fitness professional . I believe you're working at an anytime fitness at the time and that was a rewarding experience . And now you've made a transition and we can get into the specific kind of tactical elements of the transition in a second .

But the question I really want to get to first is why did you decide to make a transition out of this brick and mortar in-facility setting ?

So I was actually just talking with a friend who's been , you know , in person and academic , and is now considering starting his own business , and the question I kept proposing was like maybe take a step back and don't don't think of anybody else who is starting a business .

Think about you and what your ideal day is and then how you can build a life around that and that could be starting a business , but it doesn't necessarily have to be so .

For example , some people might really thrive in person working for someone else , and while I was at my gym I did really enjoy that and I think I needed that to learn the new industry and to get in-person experience with a wide variety of clients and really to learn what I , who I wanted to work with , what I enjoyed , and so then I could kind of approach ,

avoid , do more of what I enjoyed and kind of lay off of the stuff that wasn't really feeding me feeding me , and then for me I would say the reason I decided to go independent and create my own business is really kind of that .

First question again to facilitate the life that both me and my husband want to live , which is just less trading time for money and more building that same value for people and helping people , but being able to scale it potentially at the same time as being able to maybe travel or see the world on our schedule without realizing during that travel people aren't

getting that value that they need .

So for us it just made sense to leverage software especially given that he's a software engineer to build an app that could facilitate delivering my programs virtually and hands-free , so that I go from maybe a full week of a very stressful launch prep delivering it at 7 pm on Friday night with a migraine , to oh , that took until Tuesday at 5 pm and I have the

rest of the week to do really content creation , marketing , travel , enjoy my life , do my own workouts , that kind of thing . So for me it was really a matter of the life that I wanted to live and kind of matching my energy with my husband , because he is winding down from his own entrepreneur journey .

He has his own business and has kind of stepped down as CTO of that business and his energy is slowing down in terms of just the hours per week he wants to put into it .

I would say mine's kind of more ramping up , but in terms of like the hours we spend on it , we can still be pretty aligned if we're very intentional about the design of how I do my business .

Maybe they know they're not living their ideal life or they're not having their ideal day over and over again , but they actually don't step back to ask what that would look like , and I think that is such a poignant question because it is going to look very different from one person to the next .

As an example , I really don't have a desire to do a lot of things virtually . I like being in the four walls of my facility , being around my team . I like to sleep in my own bed every night , so I'm not super interested in traveling , and so I think that's such an important question .

And then the other thing that you said and I really want to drill down on this for all the exercise professionals listening getting away from trading time for money , and I think that is one of the fundamental limiting factors in our profession is that as exercise professionals .

We live our life on this hour by hour accounting system , and if you do something productive in that hour , you make money , and that's a good thing .

If you don't do something in that hour on this kind of time-based accounting system that we use , then you're kind of stuck , and what I think you are realizing is there's a way to deliver the same value , if not more value , but disentangle it from the trading time for money , and so I think that's something I'd like you to speak to a little bit more , because

I think that is something that our audience can't hear enough .

But I found even at my gym it was almost like as I got more utilized and there it was like a rich , get richer situation where the more other gym members see you with clients , the more they also want to work with you , but obviously the less availability you have because you're already fully utilized , and that's just its own kind of odd issue and it's almost

like the , the gym members and clients don't do the math of oh yeah , she's , she's busy , I , she can't be with me because she's with them and she only is one human and has probably eight to 12 slots in a day to be with humans and I've I see her with eight to 12 people so she might not have time for me .

Like , somehow that doesn't add up in people's meetings , at least on the client side . I find on the coach side you're like hustling and like , if you're somebody like me , your manager's telling you to make a 60-minute session , 50 minutes , so you have the 10 minutes to turn around and you're like I am not doing that .

That is a 60-minute session and they're paying like however much a minute . So there's that aspect that's just kind of interesting , even in person . And then I think it's kind of like it goes back to what you were saying about the people don't really ask themselves what they want their ideal day to be .

I think it almost happens because of that , because they get into this hustle cycle and then it's just a burnout waiting to happen and when you're burned out , that's the last time that you can have this like broader 10,000 foot view perspective of like what do I want from life ? Is this it ?

And you never even have the clarity of mind or the calm or the peace to consider that , because that takes time to do that kind of reflection and work and even getting into training . I feel like that took a pandemic for me to be like oh , I don't think I want to do this anymore and I think I want to do this .

And it took them from that point a year to study , to pass the NSCA , cpt and become a trainer , and then it took a couple months to get the job . And then it took a couple months to get the job , and then it took a few months of getting too busy again to realize , oh wait , I'm sort of doing that same thing again .

So if you are younger , I would definitely say that you will benefit from networking and having connections with people who have been in the industry for longer than you , because you're Even though I benefit from that , I'm still what I kind of consider like a quote unquote baby giraffe in this new industry .

I'm just kind of wobbling around trying to figure out how strength and conditioning and training works , and so I really am maybe like a 20 year old when it comes to personal training and only a couple years of experience , and I've done a lot in that time and I think I've benefited from my experience .

But I really I think I've benefited the most from the networking opportunities with people like you through NSCA , through other organizations . Be your mentor . Let me take you under my wing , because they're busy , they have a lot going on Remember that cycle , especially in person .

They're on their own hamster wheel and they're hustling , and it's not that they don't want to help you , but you're going to need to show some initiative and you're going to need to go after that and seek that out for yourself , and if you don't do those things early and often , that will become your norm and you probably won't do those things .

But if , like me , you're like okay , I have to send a CACBT . It's been one month , the conference is here in Orlando , I live here . Why don't I sign up and go and give my business card to every person I meet , ask for their card email . All of them connect with them on LinkedIn and then follow up every six months and see what's going on with them .

You got to do that stuff .

You train one hour and you make one unit of income , whatever that might be and based upon the life that you wanna lead , which I think is so important . We consider how our work and our life integrate with one another . You said this hamster wheel isn't necessarily for me . There are some people it's for .

I know people who've been in the industry for 40 years . They train eight to 10 sessions a day and they couldn't be any happier . But that's not everyone and that wasn't you . So you made this decision to it seems like to disconnect your minute byby-minute effort from your income .

You almost made this attempt , or are making this attempt , to scale and replicate yourself through systems and technology . So let's talk about the actual pivot you made and what you've done on a little bit more of a tactical level .

I was still at my gym , but I knew I was wanting to start my own business and I just kind of had this moment where I realized kind of what I said at the beginning that curriculum planning is program planning and that all of my clients , kind of regardless of what issues they had going on , benefited from getting stronger .

So , I started developing kind of a go-to based on progressive linear periodization program that hit all the major movement patterns and was progressive in nature .

Over time and kind of out of curiosity , I put all of my clients on it and I had in mind their specific unique needs and we would get at those through mobility and warmups and cool downs and different variations and things .

But for the most part everybody was on the same program and at first I doubted myself on that , but then I saw all of their results actually get better and I think it was partly because I had so many reps coaching it . But that was very illuminating to me .

Like , maybe completely personalized , especially if you're getting in the weeds and being inefficient is not necessary all the time . Maybe there really are kind of um , you know , principles that can be replicated for the vast majority of the general population . Of course , if it's out of your scope of practice you need to be referring out .

But as long as they are passing the PAR-Q and your intake questionnaires and surveys , for the most part most people benefit from the same things . So at that point I just kind of thought of , okay , who do I like to work with things ? So at that point . I just kind of thought of , okay , who do I like to work with ?

And for me I've never had a super clear niche of , like you know , perimenopausal women or postpartum or any of that . I've just been much more of the mind that I enjoy working with people who have a growth mindset and for the most part I , since starting my business , have worked with women , but I do have male clients as well .

So I just kind of thought initially of like 20 women in my life who I knew had a growth mindset , who had some interest in fitness . I reached out to all of them and said , hey , I'm thinking of starting my own business and I'm just going to beta test this program for three months , if you're interested in trying it .

And almost all of them said yes , and I think that's a hard thing to do . It was you know , I have the privilege of both . I had the gym job and I have my partner and our savings but I decided I couldn't .

I personally didn't feel great about charging for something that I wasn't sure what it was yet and I really wanted to get clear on what the offering was . So I got clear on that .

I got a ton of feedback from them and then three months later , launched , and already I would say that was the first point that I went from , let's say , like however many clients at the gym to the same number of clients in my own program , but instead of like this number of programs , one program for all of them and then I could tweak as needed .

That already was wildly mind blowing as to how efficient that was Then . Now , with the app , it's literally designed in such a way that people self-service , find it and sign themselves up and have a series of onboarding emails to get started .

So literally sometimes I check the number of subscribers and just realize , oh okay , there's X number of new subscribers and I literally had no more work . Every single new person is zero more work , which could not be more different than the experience of complete one-to-one personalization .

And it's also a different offering , which is something I had to come around to and recognize . There are times and people and places and phases in life for one-on-one personalization , in person especially .

And then there are times when maybe they've done that and it's a year or two later and life has shifted , schedules have shifted and they really just need a program and they need some accountability and they want to do it on their own and they actually kind of don't want you messing with them too much , and that's OK too .

So I'm kind of leaning into that side now and really enjoying that tradeoff of the time and money and realizing , wow , I can really optimize these programs . I can get better and better at program planning . Wow , I can really optimize these programs . I can get better and better at program planning .

I can get better and better at getting the feedback and adjusting to the needs and making this product better . But each person that signs up , it's not this whole stack of extra work on top .

You need to find like-minded individuals that are willing to go on that crusade with you , and that's exactly what I found at the MRF Institute . The team over at the MRF Institute creates educational content for fitness and wellness professionals who are serious about becoming a part of our healthcare continuum .

Getting on the healthcare continuum is all about leveling up our skills to be looked at as that valued resource provider . The wellness paradox is certainly an avenue for you to do that , but we need many different levers to pull if we're going to get there , and the MRF Institute is definitely one of those levers .

You can go to their website , mrfinstituteorg , to find all kinds of great , informative , free , informational content and if you choose to engage with any of their paid content , they've created a coupon code specifically for Wellness Paradox listeners .

You can enter in WP2022 , that's WP , and then the number 2022 to the website at checkout to receive a 15% discount on your purchase . I highly recommend you go check out mrfinstituteorg . Now back to today's episode . Yeah , in business we call that economies of scale .

You now have economies of scale and , presuming that most people listening will not have a significant other that can develop an app for them , I really want to , which kudos to you for marrying right , because that's an important one .

And for those of you that aren't able to see the video , becky has an amazing podcast set up , which he also credits her husband for helping her develop as well . So he's doing some good work , becky .

The two things that I really want to drill down on from what you said and then have you speak on the second one a little bit more is first , you said something which I feel is kind of the black box secret of the exercise profession .

It's that you don't need a tremendous amount of individualization for the average individual that's going to begin an exercise program . I think we like to interject complexity into our program design to somehow make ourselves seem more valuable when in effect , we just kind of create inefficiencies and in many cases we don't drive greater outcomes .

So I think no one wants to say that out loud , but I appreciate that you did , because it's true in my experience For the person who's a sedentary to minimally active individual they will all benefit from getting stronger . They will all benefit from moving more .

Sure , if they've got a medical or orthopedic issue , you have to accommodate for it , but most people respond to most forms of exercise in a relatively consistent manner . So kudos to you for realizing that element .

The other thing that you did and this is where you get the gold star from me as someone who started my own business and tried a bunch of things and failed is that you beta tested this first . You kind of asked yourself , almost taking from the technology world , what's kind of my minimal , viable product that I can try ? I'm going to give it away for free ?

But it really wasn't free , because what you got paid was all the feedback that you needed to iterate it and then make it a valuable product and service that people would buy . So just talk for a second on your decision to do that beta test and what you learned from it broadly .

because you'll know right away if it's valuable or not . When you go from beta to launching , you'll know if they convert , whether or not they found value in it and along the way you'll also be able to tweak your product . Like one thing I um in my beta test learned myself and then kind of like ran it by my people and they all wanted it was .

I felt really overwhelmed trying to do four week programs . I would have kind of like I'd film and then get it all together and then launch it , and then I'd almost have like a hangover week of stress recovery and then I'd be like , oh no , now I'm like a week behind .

So the next week four would come up before I was really ready for it and literally by the second month of the beta test I developed something I call like a grace week and thought , okay , this is going to be a program where you get four weeks of programming , but there's a grace week in there and that's as much for me as it is for them .

But it has worked on so many levels for all of us because life happens to people and their in-laws come into town or their kid gets sick or they get sick or any number of things , and they just need an extra week to get all four weeks of their workouts in .

And it is physiological that way , but it's also more the mental , emotional , because when people feel behind they're more likely to give up . And then what that translates to in business is attrition and churn and you're losing clients but you're also stressed and hustling and burning out .

So why do that to yourself when you could add something in that makes it more sustainable , which kind of gets to ? I think we talked initially about this interview also being a little bit like how to build a sustainable business and how it's kind of like building a sustainable fitness routine .

I do think there's a ton of parallels there that you can think about .

That if you don't beta test , you kind of don't give yourself space to find those things and you just kind of think like , okay , I know let's go and you're more like a bull in a China shop , just like barreling through and like this will happen , and then maybe it won't happen for you or for them , and then a year later you're going to wish you beta tested

when all of your clients have like fallen off , where for me , all of my clients pretty much stayed and converted , and then they stayed for over a year and now they've converted to the app , which is not something I expected at all , but I think it is in large part due to the fact that they got to shape the product because of their feedback and they have a

lot of ownership in it and they know that their needs were taken into account .

I mean , certainly , tenacity and work ethic are critically important , and we certainly know that . But the ability to pressure , test things , to learn . I love your idea of a grace week .

That's the ultimate value in a business , when you can create something that is valuable for the customer and valuable for you at the same time and you're not having to make that trade-off .

And you probably would have been a little hesitant to do that if you were actually charging for the program , because then in your mind I know in my mind it would have been oh man , people are going to think I'm just lazy and I don't want to do the extra programming , but because you weren't charging , to your point , you opened up that space to have that

conversation . Yeah , so , man , there's so many good lessons in this podcast and I really don't want any of them to be lost . But I also don't want us to talk for the next three hours .

So , as we kind of move towards the end here , if you could take some of the things that you've learned on this journey , and maybe the most recent part of this journey , we'll refer everyone back to episode 48 for them to hear the first part of this journey and maybe the most recent part of this journey .

We'll refer everyone back to episode 48 for them to hear the first part of this journey . But from kind of the time we cut the mic in that episode to now , what are maybe the top two or three valuable lessons that you would like the audience to take away from your journey since we did episode 48 ?

And I've always been really big on that as somebody coming from education and kind of the growth mindset and knowing that the looking back and the gratitude and appreciation and reflection is like the launch back and the gratitude and appreciation and reflection is like the launch pad into the goal setting and the dreaming and the planning .

And you can only dream and plan and goal set so much and then it really doesn't amount to anything unless you start taking action . And it's only once you've taken action that you can look back and see how far you've come .

So that's something almost every program , especially before the app , when I was very , very hands-on with the beta testers , every single program , I would encourage them to look back and reflect and think about what went well in the last program where they might want to focus looking ahead , because life is always shifting .

It's almost like the only constant is change and if you are a growth oriented person like me , it can be tricky to feel like you've progressed enough because you're kind of like relentlessly striving and trying to become better and better all the time .

But I think that the more you look back and kind of keep in mind I have a quote here that I came across at some point in the last year that I keep thinking about . It's a quote from Bill Gates that most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years .

And I feel that way when I look back at my journey , like , do I want to be further ? Of course , will I get further ?

Yes , like it's already kind of amazing to consider that four years ago I was a teacher and in that time managed to not only career change but get a couple years of experience in person , start my own business , make all of these contacts and build a network and start my own business and develop a minimal , viable product and have it sustain long enough to develop

software for it and scale it . And that's like when I shift my focus from how far I would like to be to how far I've come , it feels amazing .

And then I think about oh my goodness , if I give this a 10 year runway , where could it be , especially now that I have economies of scale and it isn't one-to-one trading time and money and it can really actually become exponential instead of linear , and it's growth that , I think , is the biggest thing .

That sticks with me and makes me really excited because I think almost like your your comment I agree with you , by the way about like the week five . I had to really get out of my head about like it's like delivering less value for the same amount . I got out of my head a lot when people loved that grace week so much .

It's probably the number one thing I get positive feedback on is the grace week , which I find funny .

But I also just think about how something that maybe to me felt a little bit ethically not as good as fully individualized , personalized one-on-one trading time for money One , to many felt a little like a shortcut or like a not ethically negative thing , but just I wasn't sure about it .

And now that I see how it could be exponential economies of scale helping more and more people I almost look back and reflect and have gratitude for the fact that I wanted more out of my life , but it's now also has the potential to help more lives .

So being a little bit selfish myself is actually going to be rather selfless in the long term in terms of how much I can actually reach and help other people . So that's something , too , almost like the cliche that we all throw around of self-care isn't selfish . I think that can be true in business too .

You can be a little bit selfish if it means you're not going to burn out and you're going to help more people .

I think so many of us can myopically just barrel through life thinking about things only one way and this is the way it's done . This is the way it's always been done .

It's the way it's always going to be done , but these perspective shifts that you've been able to make , I think , have opened up so many opportunities for you , and I am excited to see what happens when we have you back in another two years to do the next episode and another two years after that to do the next episode .

Hopefully , by that point , you won't be too famous and we won't be able to get you on the podcast . Becky , where can people go if they want to find out more about you and all the great work you're doing ?

Because I am very much a I like to think more from like that biopsychosocial perspective of health and wellbeing and I , while I very much love strength training and it's my bread and butter , I know it's only one piece of the puzzle of health and well-being and self-care . So betterwithbeckycom .

And then , like I said , that'll have the information for the app which is Build With Becky . And then on Instagram I'm just at Becky Joy B-E-C-K-Y-J-O-Y .

You could tell us what to do if we don't have a name that starts with the letter B , because now I'm not entirely sure how I could possibly expand my brand starting with the letter M , but we'll- I'll muster up with Mike . You are also a marketing savant at the same time . Wow , you are also a marketing savant at the same time .

Becky , before I let you go , you answered the question I'm about to ask you way back in episode 48 . But , being a growth-oriented individual , your perspective grows and it changes .

So I'm going to ask you the question again that I consider the wellness paradox to be the trust , interaction and communication gap that exists between exercise professionals and our medical community . Based on present day , Becky , what do you think is the single most important first step to closing off that gap for exercise professionals ?

And I think that that is so important because there's something about kind of that alpha dog exercise professional that you mentioned , where we tend to be a little bit given to dogma and dogmatic ideological , like this is the way views and that's not the way and that's wrong and whatever .

But really like , maybe just become your , your one little thing that you do , do that really well .

And then when things seem like quote unquote weird to you my husband has called me on this a lot lately Whenever you say that's weird or that person's weird or that idea is weird , maybe that's not , maybe that's something for you to look back at yourself and be curious about why you think that's weird .

There's probably something valid to that and you're being judgmental and projecting weirdness onto that because there's something in you that is causing that thought .

So staying open and being curious and maybe also realizing this is your little scope and realizing you probably if you have a very strong dogmatic ideological opinion about something , it may not be in your scope and maybe you should go educate yourself or even refer out or something .

I think just keeping that conversation going since we're kind of the front lines as the trainers and medical professionals thank goodness are there for when things get acute or chronic or are outside of our scope we have to keep that line of communication open .

And maybe a little bit of that Bill Gates quote too , like we maybe overestimate what we know right now in this year and underestimate what will be possible in the next 10 years . Like I think of something like GLP-1s and how that's going to change the entire face of both industries .

Really I can't imagine in 10 years probably a lot of the judgment or shame that's around that will completely morph and be utilized as a different tool in some capacity . So just staying open , curious , keeping the conversation going would be my biggest takeaway .

Forward slash episode 135 . Please be on the lookout for our next episode when it drops in two weeks , and don't forget to subscribe through your favorite podcast platform Until we chat again next . Please be well .