My first job in the health and fitness industry was working as a personal trainer at Gold’s Gym in London, Ontario.
I was your typical on-the-floor personal trainer who spent many hours designing programs, training clients, giving consultations, and doing my best to promote my services in any way that I could.
It was hard work, and it only paid 25 bucks an hour, but as a young (and broke) man in the industry — any money that I could get my hands on was a welcome addition to my life.
I was just getting by every week as far as rent and bills go, I was your typical paycheck-to-paycheck kind of person who felt like he was stuck in a hamster wheel of working really hard but feeling like you’re not going anywhere.
So, in an effort to try and build my brand/reputation, I decided to enter the online world and begin posting tips every day on social media and wrote more comprehensive content in the form of articles on HockeyTraining.com
It wasn’t long before hundreds of people were following me and inquiring about my services on a daily basis without me having to go out and scout them or try to sell them.
They were pre-sold, and they were ready to begin with me immediately.
Every day I posted content that I was passionate about and I did my best to both educate and entertain people along the way.
Then it hit me.
I can sit down and write a Facebook or Instagram post in only about ten minutes (max), and I can write a comprehensive article in typically 1-2 hours.
That was when I first started to realize a financially rewarding way to express my real strengths.
It took 12-Hour workdays at the gym to barely make rent every month, and just a few hours a week of sharing my passion to earn exponentially more than I was currently making.
Simplifying concepts that I’m passionate about, like training and nutrition, and passing along that passion is aligned with my purpose on this planet.
My ability to educate is how I am uniquely designed to add the most value to the world, thus, it’s my unique path to wealth.
Finding Your Purpose
Health and fitness professionals are a passionate group of individuals; I have never met a trainer who just “got into” the business; rather, they are passionate about their own health and wellness and then decided that in order to live their passion they could help others.
You are a passionate trainer, so it’s time to start defining your real purpose on this planet.
The only thing more powerful than passion is passion with direction.
Your purpose is your calling, it’s the highest expression of how you can be of service to others.
Living your true purpose means doing what you love, what you’re most gifted at, what you’re passionate about and what feeds your energy.
It’s the things you’d do even if you weren’t getting paid.
It’s the things you may not even value because they come so naturally to you—yet others are willing to pay you a premium for.
Your real purpose for being in this industry (and on this planet) will have an abundance of all three of those attributes: a gift, a passion, and a driver of economic independence.
A gift, because it’s something that you’re naturally interested in so you have developed a solid skill-set over time.
Passion, because it’s something that excites you rather than bores you.
And a driver for economic independence, because it delivers value that people are willing to pay good money for.
Determining the best ways to express your purpose is not always obvious.
You may think that if you’re a trainer, then your purpose is training people to good health.
But that may not be true.
There could be many things about training clients that you despise, and only some things that you love. There may be areas of training that you’re extremely passionate about, and other areas that you merely tolerate.
For me, I am passionate about health and wellness, but the way in which I express my purpose is through educating others; Not training others.
You’re going to have to ask yourself some tough questions to really identify where you feel you fit best in this world.
- When are you happiest?
- When do you feel most creative?
- What would the perfect day look like in my world?
- What gets me excited to jump out of bed in the morning?
- When do I feel like I am contributing my best qualities to society?
Answering the above questions will begin to take you closer to defining your purpose,
Sometimes, however, even after serious thought this answer to your “purpose” may elude you.
If you find yourself stuck, performing the Strengthsfinder test will point you in the right direction.
Once you have found your purpose, it’s time to give it your full attention because this is how you can grow your business 400% faster than you are right now.
How Online Coaches Can Grow Their Business 400% Faster
Growing your business 400% faster sounds gimmicky, doesn’t it?
Don’t worry, I got to that number through a real equation and not through rah-rah motivational speaking.
You see, there’s a very popular business concept (the Pareto principle) that says 80% of your results comes from 20% of your time and effort.
Right now, 20% of your time and effort produces 80% of your results. Well, what if you spent all of your time on those 20% of activities bringing in most of your results?
You’d grow your business 400% faster, that’s what. Take a look.
| TIME | BUSINESS GROWTH |
| 20% | 80% |
| 20% | 80% |
| 20% | 80% |
| 20% | 80% |
| 20% | 80% |
| TOTAL: 100% | TOTAL: 400% |
To put this another way, if one-fifth of your time and effort delivers 80% of your results, then you need to try to do those activities all the time.
Focus on your strengths.
You’ll spend 5x as much time and effort on your most valuable activities, and in doing so you’ll increase the growth of your business dramatically.
5 x 80% = 400%
It’s a real and literal statement to suggest that you can leverage time your and effort by 4x if you identify your purpose and use that purpose to focus on your strengths.
To create this space in your weekly schedule, you’re going to need to delegate the other 80% of your current tasks as much as possible.
You may even need to hire another person. But the increase in your business will make up for it many times over.
Kevin and I have four employees for this exact reason, they focus on the things that we don’t need to be focusing or spending time on.
This allows us to focus on our unique 20% and has resulted in us being able to create several successful online businesses.
Final Thoughts And Action Plan
If the idea of clearing up 80% of your schedule makes you uncomfortable, good, it’s supposed to feel that way.
In the beginning, you’ll feel like you should be doing something, anything, to keep “busy”.
But don’t.
What you’re doing is waiting for your real purpose to expand to fill the time. This will allow you to be truly productive and NOT “busy”.
And when you’re able to live your purpose and passion 100% of the time, your business growth and revenue will soar to new heights faster than you ever thought was possible.
There’s always something you could be doing, as entrepreneurs we are great at finding unnecessary tasks to accomplish just so we feel like we had a good day.
But if it’s taking you away from your 20%, then it’s not worth it.
So, here’s your action plan:
- Identify your purpose.
- Create space every day in your calendar for this purpose.
- Delegate as many tasks as possible that aren’t within this 20%.
- Stick with the discomfort until it becomes comfortable.
- Live your life the way you want to live and start getting more money for it too.
If you liked this article and want more information on how you can blow up your online business, check out the How To Be A Successful Online Coach course that Kevin and I created to help trainers at any level leverage their expertise to make money online.
Dan Garner
