Carl Hardwick - OPEX, CoachRx, & Simplifying Fitness

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[00:02:13] Now onto the show. All right, we are live. Carl Hardwick. Welcome to the future of fitness, my friend. Thanks, buddy. It's great to be here. It's my first time on. I'm excited. Yeah.

[00:02:25] It's been it's been I was gonna say it's been too long like we've done this before, but it's been too long since we hit this point of my first time being on the show. So I appreciate that. Yeah, it's my pleasure.

[00:02:35] I mean, OPEX has been so instrumental in my career within the fitness industry. And, you know, I got all my education, a lot of my education through OPEX. James was a coach and mentor of mine, the founder of OPEX.

[00:02:49] I still wear the same OPEX t-shirts that I've had for eight or nine years at the gym. And my wife's like secretly trying to retire them, but I refused to let them go. I have the old one is probably good.

[00:03:00] We took the old one to like to find athlete. Remember that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just can't get rid of it. So anyway, we need to send you some new ones, man. Please do. Yeah. My wife would really be appreciative.

[00:03:13] Yeah. I'm not too sure I could wear them in public anymore. I think they have. They might just get up and walk away. Anyway, I'm excited to have OPEX on and you and, you know, I have the

[00:03:22] opportunity to get to know you a little bit over the past few months. And, you know, let's start with this, Carl, just to give some background, maybe give us your background. How did you get to be the CEO of OPEX?

[00:03:33] I know you've been armyed and coaching for a while. I've done a lot of interesting things. So tell us about you and then we'll get into the other stuff. Yeah, for sure, man. I'll be really quick on this.

[00:03:43] I don't know if this is the most interesting part of the conversation, but maybe it'll lay some context. So I'm originally from the Midwest, was born in Chicago and grew up in a place called Kenosha, Wisconsin.

[00:03:53] So spent my childhood there, you know, played played a lot of sports and the whole story of like an athlete, played a lot of sports, tinkered in a lot of things, was always interested in this thing called like, you know, I think now it's called like self-development,

[00:04:09] but just challenging, challenging myself and just wanting to to be better at a bunch of different things and succeeded in a few and failed in a lot. Went off to college, played some college football, played a little bit of pro football, then went into the military,

[00:04:23] spent six years in the military throughout that entire time. You know, college. Well, all the way back to when I was 13, I like this really I was really intrigued with this whole fitness thing. Not the health thing, but this fitness thing, like using

[00:04:38] using challenges in the gym to make myself bigger, stronger, faster and just like learning life lessons. And it's kind of weird to say that as like a, you know, looking back when I was like 13, 14 years old.

[00:04:48] But that was always like a big part of my life back then. And then, you know, I used it. I always used fitness for for and for a means to an end. Right. Like from 13 to like 21, it was always to be the best athlete

[00:05:00] that I can possibly be. Then 22 on, it was like, you know, you know, it was like career specific where it was like, oh, OK, I want to be the best soldier that I can possibly be. And in my brain, I thought the physical aspect

[00:05:13] was like the most important part of that. Learned really quickly that it wasn't. But it was always something that I like tinkered with and had a lot of fun with and just let a lot of other soldiers underneath me against.

[00:05:24] Then, you know, spend six years went to Afghanistan while I was in Afghanistan. I started taking some of Charles Poliquin's online courses like PICP and all that. I was introduced to Charles, gosh, in 2007, 2008. And then that's when I was introduced to James as well.

[00:05:42] So James Fitzgerald, our founder. So I had like had this guy in the back of my mind that I that I met back in 07, 08 and then reconnected with him post Army. Well, that was latter career of the army. And about 2000 and 2013 to the 2013,

[00:06:00] him and I reconnected, went through all of his education. He became an incident mentor of mine. I got out of the military, spun up a bunch of gyms. So we owned three three gyms in the Columbia, South Carolina area,

[00:06:14] then spun up an OPEX gym, OPEX, Columbia in South Carolina. Started doing some mentoring with OPEX. So I'm kind of like speeding through my connection to OPEX fast. I'm missing a lot, but we can we can unpack some of the the smaller things if we need to.

[00:06:28] What's connected with Jim and James Crow or Jim Crowell and James Fitzgerald during that time, Jim had just come on as the I think he was like the director of operations or something like that. And then eventually became the CEO.

[00:06:43] So Jim and I grew a really great working relationship and then eventually a personal relationship, mostly through the OPEX gyms program. So spun up another four OPEX gyms, mentored a lot of gyms. And then eventually found my way to OPEX HQ in 2017 working here.

[00:07:02] So I took the position to be the director of operations, kind of running education, guiding James on some things, working with James, working with Jim, working in the gyms program. And then eventually, I think it was like a year later, became the CEO of OPEX.

[00:07:17] And then 2020 I took over as the CEO of OPEX. So we're just talking about this before we jumped on the call. You asked that I was CEO life resets about CEO life. And I'm like, I don't really feel like a CEO of a company.

[00:07:30] We're just we're a small team of about 15 people. And we all get our hands dirty on a daily basis. And I'm very, very, very, very involved with everything that we do from software to education. So, yeah, man, just grateful, grateful to be here,

[00:07:44] grateful to be having this conversation and grateful to be able to say that, oh, man, I make my career against trying to make people's lives better through fitness. Yeah, that is cool, man. Great outlook and interesting background to what what what position did you play football?

[00:07:59] I played receiver. OK. Yeah, it was a slot receiver. I'm like five, 10. I was going to say five, 10 and a half, but I won't I won't add the extra half about five, 10.

[00:08:09] I was pretty fast and I was really strong for my for my size and all of that. And I wasn't the greatest natural football player, but I just worked so freaking hard, man.

[00:08:20] We're just like, you know, I worked harder than anyone to run like a four or five. And there's like guys running four fours next to me that like never did anything. And yeah, I just worked really hard. And that was kind of the position that I landed at.

[00:08:31] So played receiver slash running back for a lot of years. Enjoyed it. Yeah, now I'm coaching and now I'm coaching. I have a 13 year old newly. Yeah, man. Just celebrated Colton as my 13 year old. We just celebrated his 13th birthday the other day.

[00:08:47] And my wife and I just looked at each other on his birthday and we're like, we're the parents of a teenager. That is just but yeah, I've been coaching his his tackle team for I think this is he's going into his fifth year.

[00:08:57] So just having fun with it, man. Yeah, very cool, Carl. So I think it's. It was kind of like, I think it's been about four years since I had James on the podcast, you know, the founder of OPEX and

[00:09:08] maybe give us an update, like in its current iteration, what is OPEX? I know it's evolved quite a bit over the years. Yeah, so we'll start with that. Yeah, so we used to say we're a fitness education company. Now it's it's it's more complicated than that.

[00:09:24] We still we still educate coaches, of course, that's kind of our bread and butter. But we've kind of evolved over the past few years into a technology company. In 2020, we got into building software, so building learning software and building coaching software.

[00:09:40] So now we're a company that educates coaches and we give coaches tools via via these two platforms to be the best coaches that they can possibly be. And we also have a gyms license program. So it's a group of gyms that are, you know, implementing the OPEX method

[00:09:58] as the OPEX methodology is is meant to be implemented like at 100 percent of its capacity. So we have those gyms around the world. So we're doing we're doing a few different things, but it's all pointed at like, hey, we want every individual doing their ideal version of fitness

[00:10:14] and we want coaches leading those individuals and teaching those individuals how to be personally autonomous in their own fitness. So a coach can do that one to one on the floor. A coach can do that through remote coaching. A coach can do that through our platform.

[00:10:27] So we just want to give coaches the tools and the knowledge base to be able to do those things. So that's that's what we're really focused on right now, Eric. And I don't I don't that that hasn't really changed over the past four years.

[00:10:38] We've just become we've just evolved in the way that we're delivering and doing that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there is the coaching industry. I think kind of meat of our conversation today is like, where can it be better? Right.

[00:10:54] What is what is like the state of the industry? I mean, something that Kamai right away when I looked at your guys website was that. Some would probably not get this right, but 90 percent of coaches leave the industry after two years. And that's a problem.

[00:11:11] You know, I've asked a lot of people like on this show, do you think the training and coaching industry has fallen into the gig economy? Right. Where it's something that you just do for a little while and you move on

[00:11:20] kind of like, you know, get your certification, your summer lifeguard. And then it's never going to be a career. Right. So where do you think the state of the coaching industry is right now? And what do you think are some of the significant challenges that face it?

[00:11:32] Yeah, it's challenging for me to like we keep a pulse on like, you know, what's going on, what are people talking about? What are people doing? What are people excited about? What language are others using?

[00:11:42] But we just don't get too caught up in what the industry is doing per se. So I don't I don't want to come out and say like, well, this is the problem. Right. With what everyone else is doing.

[00:11:51] Rather, I'll say this is the problem that we're trying to solve. If that's fair. Sure. The problem that we're trying to solve is everyone has different outcomes. Right. Like we're trying to come up with this like synergistic, clear outcome as to what is the whole point of this?

[00:12:08] What's the point to focus on your own health, your own vitality, your fitness? Why lift those weights? And remind me of like the Bill Parcells things. Why lift all those weights? Why lift weights? Why do aerobic work? Why do anaerobic work? Why challenge yourself physically? Right.

[00:12:23] So we're like asking ourselves those questions and we're trying to clearly give that answer to coaches that we educate and coaches that we have conversations with. So, you know, it's challenging though, right? Because if you ask, if you ask 10 different, let's call it like

[00:12:42] industry experts, they might give you 10 different answers. So it's like, how do we get to a point where we all have a the same or a very similar answer? Right. It's like the at the end of the day,

[00:12:54] it's like this whole fitness thing is a thing because we're fatter, sadder and sicker than we've ever been. Right. We're fatter, sadder and sicker. Now we look at why is that, though? Honestly, I think it's it's I don't want to get into like

[00:13:07] the agricultural stuff and the technological advances because all that stuff is really good. Right. Those are realities. But with those realities, there are some consequences. Right. There's tradeoffs to everything. An example that we chatted through in our last CCP call on Tuesday.

[00:13:24] I gave an example that was like, OK, why are we doing this thing? Why is this fitness thing important? Why do we have to convince people that they should be in like in their foundational belief system, that they should challenge themselves and move their bodies every day

[00:13:35] and nourish their bodies? And what I came to, I was like, hey, guys, we have to realize something. 2000 years ago, we had to move our bodies to survive. Right. So let's give let's let's give a very clear example that's not polarizing, like simple.

[00:13:51] 2000 years ago, someone had to grab two buckets. They had to walk, let's call it five miles to a well. And then they had to fill those buckets. And then they had to yoke carry those buckets five miles back

[00:14:04] to their home so that their family wouldn't die of dehydration. And then they had to go and do something very similar, maybe walk to a market or farm or whatever the case is to feed their family so their family wouldn't die of starvation today.

[00:14:19] Right. And this isn't a bad thing. So I'm not demonizing this. But today we go to Whole Foods or Sprouts or fries, the local grocery store, and we just like grab our food. We pay for it really quick.

[00:14:31] We put it in our cards or we put it in our cars and we drive back home. Or we just pull out our phone and we like order up some Instacart and have it delivered directly to our home. Right.

[00:14:42] So not even getting into like what the what the food is that we're eating in the agriculture advances and that allows us to eat this highly processed and all foods and all that stuff. I'm going to focus more on like the the lack of physical movement

[00:14:56] and what we'll now call exercise. So 2000 years ago, if we didn't do those things and move our bodies, the consequences were dire and right in front of our faces. We would die. Right. Today, what is the consequence of not moving our bodies?

[00:15:12] The consequence of not moving our bodies is metabolic disease, comorbidities, obesity, blah, blah, blah. But that doesn't happen immediately. That happens over a long, long period of time. Right. For some, it's like decades of living in an unhealthy lifestyle and not moving their bodies.

[00:15:29] So the consequences of not moving our bodies 2000 years ago, like we would we would it would be obvious. It's like, what do you mean? Why would I exercise? I need to go out and just like a great book is a book called Exercised by Daniel Lieberman.

[00:15:42] I don't know if you've read that book. I have a great book that kind of gives you a different perspective on what this whole exercise thing is. And his his thing is like we're so exercised about exercise. We just worry about it a lot.

[00:15:55] And the reason is, is because we have to, because I can sit here on Zoom, talk to you. You're 1500 miles away ish, I think. We could have a great conversation. We can hang up. I can walk downstairs, grab some food out of my refrigerator,

[00:16:09] come back here, do some more work, have more conversations. And then before I like I can do that seven days a week and never have to like go out and run, go out and hike a mountain, go down to my garage and lift some weight.

[00:16:21] You know what I mean? Like I don't have to do those things. So that was a very long and drawn out way of saying we need to move our bodies and we need to challenge our bodies every single day because that's what our bodies are meant to do.

[00:16:36] Our bodies are meant to exert energy, right? Our bodies are meant to exert energy and we have no reason to do it. Most people have no reason to do it on a day to day basis. So starting foundationally there, it's like, OK, what is this industry?

[00:16:49] Just looking at exercise specifically, I'm not going to get into nutrition and lifestyle and all that stuff. Exercise specifically, we're here as fitness coaches to bring that conversation to our clients and have that conversation with them where it's like, no, no, no.

[00:17:04] It's not about you losing the last 10 pounds. It's not about you eventually getting a six pack. It's not about you back squatting 450 pounds. Like you need to do this because you're meant to exert energy. So let's start moving our bodies every single day.

[00:17:19] And then once we get there, now let's talk about the more complex and specific stuff. But at the end of the day, it's like the outcome in this industry should just be to get people off the couch, out of their computer chairs

[00:17:30] and moving their bodies and that we can get specific into like what that means. But foundationally, I think everyone would agree with that. So imagine, Eric, if like all of these industry experts were like, that's the aim instead. And we've we fall into this trap as well.

[00:17:45] We used to talk about like performance and serious talk, performance and, you know, rowing a better 5K and all that. We talk about that stuff anymore because that's not the lowest hanging fruit. Imagine a world that everyone just simply move their bodies seven days a week.

[00:18:02] Oh, my God. Like I can't even imagine that world because I think it would be a much different and more vital world, not even from like a physiological physical health standpoint, but as well from like an emotional health and mental health standpoint as well.

[00:18:16] So I don't want to say that that's the problem in the industry, but that's the problem that we're trying to solve. Yeah, I mean, there's an overcomplication. You and I are discussing that. And like what you're talking about is so relevant to me right now, because

[00:18:29] as we're recording this, I'm sitting and looking out my window and they're building a house next door. So there's framers and six days a week. These guys are hustling. Right. And I'm like sitting in my little aquarium here in my office.

[00:18:42] Right. Just like sitting in my computer, like almost like not envious, but in some ways they am. I'm like, I wish I moved that much whole day. Like maybe I should, you know, maybe I need a career change at this point.

[00:18:54] Like even, you know, when I own my gym, I feel like I was sitting a lot. So I was always desk work, but I was still moving. Like, you know, it was just it was a different thing. Like I was walking around

[00:19:05] doing a lot of different things. I was just more active. And I think, you know, I call this the coaches journey. I've talked to a lot of people who have been on this show before. And a lot of people personally, too, it's like

[00:19:16] I use my own example to illustrate. When I first started my coaching career was CrossFit. Right. And within like a year, I gobbled up some certifications. Right. I hadn't yet met James. So I was like, I was perfectly content and confident

[00:19:29] in saying that CrossFit plus paleo could solve every problem known to man. Right. People just need a crossfit and eat paleo. That's it. Right. Like so obesity done sickness done nuclear war. Never a concern anymore. Right. All these things I'm like, I could do it.

[00:19:43] And then I started to learn more. And I met James. I started going down these rabbit holes. Met a lot of different other mentors as well. I'm like, I don't know shit. So it was like four or five years of just like me like,

[00:19:51] oh, we got to burn it all down and start over again. Yeah. And then eventually I got to a point where like, you know what? Like people just need to move more. They need to sleep better, meet stronger, like social connections

[00:20:02] and drink water and just eat a little healthier. And that's like a lot of people I've talked to, like Kelly Starratt and Rob Wolfs and people like that. They kind of come back to this whole thing like, no, we just we're just going to move more now.

[00:20:13] Yeah, that's it. You know, so it's like we have this over complication within our industry of that. I mean, when you when I say that over complication, like what is that stir up in your mind? Oh, a lot, man, a lot.

[00:20:27] And I don't want to come off as like, like I am like I get the most jazzed up and excited about like new technologies and ways that we can improve in the way that we're doing things. I don't want to come off as if I'm like

[00:20:40] Stone Age, like always need to do things how we've always done them. I don't think that that's the case. I think we just have to understand our intentions behind things. When when I think about over complication in this industry,

[00:20:52] I think that it's a malalignment and what the North Star is and where we're trying to move people. Because let's be honest, right? Like a lot of over complication and fitness is so that you can pull wool over people's eyes so they pay you money for something.

[00:21:06] Right. It's like, oh, you want the best training program in the world? I'm the only one that can give you that because I have the knowledge that not anyone else has. It's like we talked about before we hit record again, like the knowledge and wisdom thing, right?

[00:21:21] It's like that's what I would call knowledge. Right. Like a new paper comes out and it says that there's an incremental difference in training full body versus upper upper lower splits, even when volume is equated. It's like that's knowledge. Right. It's like, OK, cool. That's pretty insignificant.

[00:21:40] That's not life changing. But what is the wisdom behind that? It's like lift weights or take your body through your muscles, through something that is taking them out of homeostasis, breaking down muscle tissue. And then you're going to be healthier tomorrow. Your muscles might grow bigger.

[00:21:56] You might grow more muscle, whatever the case is. Right. So I think we take a lot of those like those knowledge pieces and we make them really complicated. I think sometimes even we're not doing it intentionally.

[00:22:10] A lot of the times we're doing it to like prove our own worth as a coach and our own knowledge and all that. So I think overcomplication is like cool for people to tinker with, like in the lab.

[00:22:21] But I don't think it works at all when you start to bring that stuff to the market. I'm a huge proponent and believer that people want to do things and hear things that make sense to them. Right. So it's like, how do we say things that connect

[00:22:37] and make sense to someone so that they start moving every single day if that is the North Star. Right. Like you hit it when you were like saying, hey, I'm sitting in this room and I'm looking out the window and I'm seeing those people move.

[00:22:48] And then I went through this thing of like paleo and CrossFit and it's going to solve everything. And then at the end of the day, it burned everything down. It's like, I think people just need to move every single day.

[00:22:59] Right. Like I think I think like when you say that to people, they're going to be like, yeah, that makes sense. Right. That makes sense. It's funny, Eric, I'm putting together. We're starting a a wellness ministry at our church and I'm running the fitness side of it.

[00:23:15] So it's like an eight week workshop slash class slash series where I'm just going to be in front of a room and like teaching the congregation on like what is health and fitness and how can you build autonomy in your own health and fitness?

[00:23:29] And people are excited, man. Like this thing got booked up in like hours. And everyone thought that they were going to get like, oh, what's the fitness program you're giving us? Like you're just going to give us the answer.

[00:23:40] But it's like, no, no, we're going to spend eight weeks and I want to teach you how to do this for yourself. Right. We're not we're going to spend one week. We'll bring everything back to like exercise and blah, blah, blah.

[00:23:50] But we're just one week out of these eight weeks talking about resistance training and aerobic work and all that stuff. But there's so many other things that are going to that you need to understand to realize the importance behind, you know, taking your body through like intentional contractions

[00:24:07] on a daily basis and breathing a little bit heavier than you usually breathe for an amount of time throughout the week and all that. So it's it's it's challenged my mind to like speak to because I'm so used to speaking to coaches

[00:24:19] and like teaching coaches, like here's the message that you need to deliver to your clients. So it was just I was unbelievably grateful for the opportunity to be able like speak directly to 20, 30, 40, 70 year olds. Right. Like filled in a room and just being able to talk about health,

[00:24:36] wellness and fitness for eight weeks. So it's challenged my idea of like simplification and the language that I use and how to convey a message to someone and how to connect that message to that person, their goals, what they're struggling with, what their experiences are and all that.

[00:24:51] So I don't think I think the answer is simple at the end of the day, but I think that the complicated part is connecting people to the simple answers. Yeah, well, I don't think so. I didn't answer your question. I don't think overcomplication is helpful. Right. Right. Right.

[00:25:07] Well, I mean, that's I think that's been a thing, you know, I've said on this numerous times or just in general, but we tend to overcomplicate things to, I guess, prove the necessity of our roles and justify

[00:25:20] the price that we charge when really if we were just more authentic and open and just helping people go along the path of more movement, more health, better relationships, that thing like that. But it's a hard thing to package up and monetize. And that's the challenge. Right.

[00:25:34] Much easier to sell a six week challenge. I can tell you that right now. Yeah. It's much easier to sell six week challenge than like a three year journey. Well, going back to intentions, we had a good conversation with a group of coaches on this as well.

[00:25:49] So where we stand, those were like, you need to teach your clients everything you know that like that should be your goal. We tell coaches that they look at us with this blank stare. Like, what do you mean?

[00:26:00] If I teach the client everything that I know, why will they need? And I'm like, exactly right. Like if you actually want to have impact, you need to teach people to be autonomous in their own health and fitness. And they're just like, well, that's that's that sounds great,

[00:26:17] but I'm going to be out of a job. And I'm like, OK, let's look at it this way. Right. Like what is what is your average length of stay for every client that you coach? And usually it's blank stare. And I'm like, OK, it's probably about 13 months

[00:26:31] if you're doing a really good job. Like your average client is with you for around 13 months. And then I ask the question, how long do you think it will take you to teach a client everything that you know so that they can be autonomous in their health,

[00:26:44] wellness and fitness? Like, I don't know. And I'm like, let's say it's about two years. Imagine if when and when anyone comes to you and they're like, hey, Eric, like, man, I don't know what the heck I'm doing. I feel sick. I have no energy.

[00:26:59] I'm fatter than I used to be. And I don't like the way I look or feel and blah, blah, blah. Imagine if instead it was like, oh, I'm going to turn this thing around for you in six weeks if you're just like, hey,

[00:27:09] you know what I do is, you know, my my the intention, my outcome is to teach you everything that I know and essentially hold your hand for an amount of time and then allow you to go out in the world and do this thing

[00:27:22] for the rest of your life and also teach your family, your neighbors, your friends, everything that we built here together. I think they would be at least intrigued with that. Right. And then they're like, well, what does that look like?

[00:27:35] It's like, OK, well, I think that this is going to take us about two years based on where you're at. And they're like, that seems like a pretty long time. Well, in that time, I'm still coaching you. I'm giving you, you know, nutrition programs, fitness programs,

[00:27:51] lifestyle programs, the whole nine. But there's like this consultation process that's going along with this, where I'm teaching you how to do the I'm telling you the why's behind it. I'm understanding what your problems are and I'm connecting

[00:28:04] what I'm giving you to what you want your outcomes to be. Right. And they're just like, OK, right. Then you sign that client up and you sign them up for, let's say it's a 12 to 24 month contract. And you're just like, this is our defined outcome.

[00:28:18] That client would have left in about 13 months if you're doing a good job anyway. But now you're setting some like awesome expectations up up front. And you're actually going to have an impact on their lives because most people that leave in 13 months, you're just feeding them

[00:28:33] program designs and you're giving them like macros or nutrition plans. And then they're just like, I'm kind of disengaged. I'm going to go and do something else in 13 months. But they didn't learn anything, right? They learned like what they learned, how to perform the movements

[00:28:46] that you gave them and so on and so forth. But they didn't like learn anything foundationally. So if we really want to have impact, I'm a huge believer that we have to teach people how to do it on their own.

[00:28:55] And I don't think that that's going to kill the profession. Right. There's eight billion people in the world. Right. It's like there's plenty of people that need health and fitness. So I don't think we're going to teach people out of out of our own jobs and professions.

[00:29:08] And when that client sits down with you at month 16 and they're like, hey, Eric, man, like I'm firing you today, but I love you and you really changed my life and you had a drastic impact on me.

[00:29:22] And I can't wait to share all this with like my friends, families, kids, blah, blah, blah. It's like that that would be a really good feeling. Right. I don't know, like speak for everyone listening, but I think for me, that would be a really good feeling.

[00:29:34] Like I would feel I would feel really good about that client firing me because now they can go out and do it on their own versus an email saying, hey, man, with my contract up, I think I'm going to kind of cut loose here

[00:29:46] and go do this other thing. Right. So I know it's like perspective and I'm like I'm kind of known as like the optimist. But I think I think if we approached it in that way, I think the coach would be more satisfied and fulfilled

[00:29:58] and what they're doing and what they're teaching their clients. And I think we would actually have an impact on what's going on. And then the last point on that, Eric, would be going back to like the technological advances and all that.

[00:30:09] Like if we looked at like a chart, an X, Y axis chart and we're like, OK, on the vertical axis, there was like it was like health outcomes. Right. And then on the horizontal axis, it was like years. Right. So it's like 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020.

[00:30:27] And we like had this idea of like, OK, what were technological advances from the 1980s all the way, the all the way to the 2020s? If we like put that as a dotted line, it would be going up like that.

[00:30:39] Like tech, like wearables, that amount of data we're able to pull. It's astounding. It's awesome. I love it. But we have to look at health outcomes, health outcomes are doing this, dude. Like objectively, they're doing they're going down. Right.

[00:30:54] So I believe that the missing link is connection to technology, connection to what people are trying to accomplish in this whole like health and fitness thing. I just don't think that the more technologically advanced and the more nuance we get and wearable data is going to have.

[00:31:11] Well, who cares? What I think it's not having a positive impact on health outcomes of the United States specifically. Yeah. Yeah. Well said, man. And it's hard to argue with, you know, I I want to talk about technology, too, because

[00:31:25] Coach RX actually don't know a ton about it. I know it's been around for a bit. You and I talked it. I think it was connected health and fitness. We we connected earlier this year and you're showing me a little bit about it.

[00:31:34] But why did you guys start that? Like what was the impetus for Coach RX? I mean, give it tell us like, you know how what what it does now. Yeah, for sure. So Coach RX just set set a context. So Coach RX is our platform that coaches

[00:31:51] can design training programs, scale their businesses inside of and most importantly, coach their clients and have this impact. Kind of the reason why we we created this thing or built this thing. Quick story. So Casey Jenks. So Casey is I don't know if you know Casey.

[00:32:08] I think he was on this podcast earlier when it was FitBot. OK, awesome. Yeah. So we were deeply involved with Casey as he was developing FitBot. He was an OPEX remote coaching client, actually. So Casey, developer, really smart dude, started getting program designs from OPEX

[00:32:26] and he was getting them through like emails and Excel docs. And he's just like, bro, like there has to be a better way to do this. This is like 2014, 2015. He's like, there has to be a better way to do this.

[00:32:38] So he started creating this platform called FitBot, which was just like there was there was very few platforms like it, if any, at that time, especially for the way that our coaches coach. So we worked really closely with FitBot.

[00:32:52] James actually invested in the company and they just had a great amount of success. So like all of our CCP students, like we had a great partnership with them. We said they all were we're doing the OPEX method and coaching their clients through individual design in FitBot,

[00:33:07] which eventually turned into True Coach. I think that was like 2018, 2019. They rebranded a true coach. Casey sold the company in 2020. So just around the COVID time, he exited. So with that exit, obviously, you know, the investment was over. You know, we got paid out in that investment,

[00:33:27] but we had no more connections with them. So with that loss of connection also came a loss of influence on the road map. So it's not like we're like in the back end saying like, you need to do this or you need to do that.

[00:33:40] But they took our our thoughts and advice and all that and they implemented them. So it was like a beneficial, it was a beneficial relationship on both sides. So 2020 they sold. And that's about the time that is the time that that I took over here at OPEX

[00:33:55] and the position I'm in now. And it was a no brainer to me. I'm like, guys, we need to put time, energy and resources into building our own platform. Dude, I had no experience in that, like zero experience. But I'm like, yeah, how hard could it be?

[00:34:09] So so we built it. So that was in we started development in, let's call it June, July. And we launched like three or four months later. So we turned there around pretty quick. So we created out of necessity, like we needed something. So we created it.

[00:34:28] We launched it internally to our coaches only. Gosh, bless our coaches hearts. They stuck with us. It wasn't very good when we first launched it. But hey, we took took a lot of advice and we refined and made it better.

[00:34:40] And I will confidently say it's the best coaching platform for one to one coaching in the world right now. So we developed it. We went live public outside of just CCP coaches about eight months after we did the initial launch.

[00:34:57] I was like, I need to bring Casey on. The dude is unbelievably intelligent and he has experience and he's way smarter than me in this stuff. So we brought Casey on middle last year. So Casey's now our CTO. So we're building this thing.

[00:35:11] We're putting a lot of time, energy, effort, resources into into CoachRx. And I just I love to like I think we can leverage technology to become better coaches. So that's that's what we're standing against with with CoachRx. We have some really cool things launching.

[00:35:27] When will this go live? This like late spring, early. Yeah, late spring. OK. So we'll probably be live with this by this time. But we would have already announced it. But we've been working on AI like very aggressively in the in the background

[00:35:44] over the past year and a half, well, since last November 2022. And we're about to launch. We're about to launch our coaching assistant, which is called RXBOT inside of CoachRx. And this thing is pretty cool, man. So it's built on about three million characters of OPEX fitness principles.

[00:36:03] So we built our own knowledge base. And this thing is looking at our knowledge base and designing training programs based on our principles. And it's taking so if I'm coaching you and CoachRx, I'm going to assess you. I'm going to consult with you.

[00:36:16] I'm going to put goals and priorities and struck your structural balance table from all the metrics and blah, blah, blah. All that stuff is going to be inside of this. So RXBOT is personalizing this program based on this foundational knowledge of the OPEX knowledge base,

[00:36:30] as well as looking at all of your inputs. Right. This is Eric, his age. He needs to work on this in the contraction continuum. He needs to be doing this, not doing that. His goals are this and it's building automated programs based off of that.

[00:36:45] So we're we're in like the late testing phases with this. So we'll be launching in the next few weeks. And we're unbelievably excited about it. But the and it's just going to save the coach so much time,

[00:36:57] so much time because it was important for us to build this natively. So not only are the programs going to be designed, but it's just a button click and all this stuff is just going to get pushed to your client's calendar and end up in their app.

[00:37:08] So when we were going to initially launch, because we wanted to like, well, that was mostly me under the hurry. Right. And against against that bad judgment, we we we didn't because it was like, OK, a chat bot, maybe this this this.

[00:37:21] But it was always important to me to say like, OK, this thing needs to end up on the calendar to actually be helpful for the coach, because they can go to chat, GPT and Gemini

[00:37:30] and the million other AI platforms that are being launched today to do that stuff. So it was really important that this was built on our knowledge base, use client data and ended up on the client calendar. So we're working on that about the launch that.

[00:37:41] But the reason why we're doing that is not so that a coach can like use AI to like coach their client and then they can go and like drink a Mai Tai on the beach. The one when we launched this and the language around this is.

[00:37:56] Allow artificial intelligence to do the to do the stuff that you would have done anyway. Right. And hey, it might be able to actually do it better than you. Right. I know that's like controversial for a lot of coaches because they're so connected to their program design.

[00:38:10] Let it do those things so that you can spend more time building a relationship with your client. Right. So don't don't like save that time to go off and do something else that has nothing to do with coaches. Coaching reallocate the time that artificial intelligence gives you back

[00:38:28] to more connect with your client, connect them to their outcomes, the program design, the lifestyle design, the nutrition design, all that stuff. And I believe wholeheartedly that that is going to improve your your business metrics. Right. Like retention, your compliance percentages,

[00:38:46] how many touch points per week you have with that client, which we track very granularly and coach directs as well. We just think that communication thing is so important. So we want to not automate Eric, but like give you a program design assistant

[00:39:02] so that you can reallocate that time to other places. And communication is just like bread and butter. I believe for coaches, you have to communicate with your people. You have to communicate with them to say, hey, you're doing this because of X, Y, Z.

[00:39:14] You need to communicate via education, all of those things. So we're really excited about that right now. Yeah. Amazing, man. I mean, I couldn't agree more that it's it's it's it's a really good direction going because. You know, I look at my own career and

[00:39:31] programming took so much time, man, and it was not, you know, for the amount of time that goes into it, given the amount of impact that it has on the client's results, it's really not. It doesn't it doesn't add up, right? It just doesn't like I would spend.

[00:39:45] And here's the thing, right? I would spend it turned out just being like an hour. It would start with like an hour on Sunday morning. Right. And then it turned into like all day. It was like, you know, from, you know, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

[00:39:56] and then I'm like, then you go into Monday and you're like, I just never even got a break. Right. So even just from like the and then your and your client and then your clients like, oh, well, I'm going to miss this week

[00:40:07] or I'm going to do Monday. You're like, oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. For real. Yeah. My kid's sick. I can't make it in this weekend. Oh, God. Yes. So it's it's more those things where it's not as much as we'd love

[00:40:17] to think that our program design is the difference maker. It does help. But the relationships and the environment in the community that we provide to people is really what keeps them around and get some gain of results.

[00:40:28] So I think it's people need to I think coaches need to kind of just pump the brakes sometimes and just separate yourself from the program design. It's not who you are as a coach. It's just one component.

[00:40:38] And it's all the thing that takes up the most time with the least amount of ROI into the actual client results. That's just my opinion. But curious to get your thoughts on that. Yeah, I totally agree.

[00:40:47] And as we walk through like the business part of CCP on our calls, I always start with this statement that's like, guys, we because the biggest question that we get, it's like, how much do I charge? Right. It's like, how much do I charge?

[00:41:02] How do I make a living off of this thing? How do I how do I create something that people want? Right. And I always go back to the statement of like your value is uniquely determined by the things that you uniquely provide.

[00:41:15] Right. If me and Eric are giving the exact same product in the exact same way, using the exact same language, the customer is going to look at what who's cheaper. Right. Because if the customer thinks that they're getting the exact same value,

[00:41:31] they're going to say, OK, how can I pay as little as possible for that? So with that being said, I think that's just like general, like, you know, any anyone with any amount of business action, we're like, yeah, that's generally correct. So assuming that's generally correct.

[00:41:47] I think that we could also say that. Very few clients uniquely value great program design. I think all program design should be principally sound, right? Like do do things that are principally sound, but a so I don't want to say like program design doesn't matter, right?

[00:42:07] Like we teach a lot of program design. So obviously, we believe like principally sound program design is important. But is the juice worth the squeeze, right? To make every design that you create the like in your own brain, the best thing that you've ever created. No, right.

[00:42:23] Because the client doesn't know the difference between the greatest program design in the world and a principally sound program. They don't know the difference. Right. There's no difference between that. I've never seen a coach that said,

[00:42:35] I am able to keep all of my clients for an average of 36 months because I give them the best program design possible. Like, I just don't see that. I don't hear that. It's usually I'm able to keep my clients around because we have a great relationship.

[00:42:48] I'm able to keep my clients around because they always know what they're aiming for. And I'm always giving them the thing that's going to get them there. Right. It's more it's more so that. So I completely agree that program design can't be our unique value proposition.

[00:43:04] Like we need to understand it right. Like we need to understand what we're doing to create principally sound programs. But if it's our unique value proposition, I don't think that we're going to go too far unless you're working with the point zero zero one percent

[00:43:18] or if you're working with an Olympic athlete. That's like, hey, man, I need to be refined, reverse engineered every four years. I need to I need to crush right different. But most of them aren't working with those individuals.

[00:43:29] Yeah. And what I found in program design is we all get biased towards our own proclivities, like things movements that we like. Right. Situations we've trained through. Like it's just a human bias on it. And I mean, I've spent so much time like in years.

[00:43:44] James is my coach, of course, you can understand, right? I would put together just a 12 week template, right? A split like and just have everything measured out perfectly throughout the dosages and timing. Everything is just perfect. Right. I'm just like, oh, this is beautiful.

[00:44:00] And then what happens, like half of it doesn't get done. Someone's traveling. Right. It's like you like you just ended up being a, you know, it's not a waste of time. It's not wasted time, but it's just not the best use of time.

[00:44:11] So I think that's really cool. And when yeah, when you guys you said it in some time, maybe in like the spring, you're playing on launch that we're going to do a launch webinar slash reveal here April 20 something like 24th, 25th, something like that. So awesome.

[00:44:28] Yeah. By the time this goes, that'll be live right on. Last question was asked is like, what's what's one of the biggest challenges you're facing right now? I see you of OPEX. Oh, one of the biggest challenges.

[00:44:42] I'm going to repeat the question so I can think about this for a second. Man, this is why I love this question. Yeah, I don't feel bad with the silence. I'm going to take I'm going to take some time. Really? I think about this.

[00:44:56] I'll try to keep it under 30 seconds from take some time here. OK, I got it. Biggest challenge. And this is such an internal thing that that's become like more of an external thing with our people.

[00:45:07] The biggest challenge is getting people to understand why they do what they do. Man, I think that's so important, right? Like across the board in that transcends fitness, right? Like I talk to my kids about this stuff.

[00:45:19] It's like have have an intent and have a reason as to why you're doing what you're doing, right? It's like you don't have to know exactly what the outcome is going to be, but have a reason as to why you're doing what you're doing.

[00:45:32] That's that's the biggest challenge is to because I just believe that. So like deeply in my soul and we do a lot of education, right? So a lot of our education, it's like it's it's honestly trying

[00:45:44] to convince people of something that you believe, to be honest with you. Right. It's like, you know, we have beliefs and convictions that we that we believe are, you know, just just deeply rooted in that like wisdom and truth and to get people to see it for themselves

[00:46:00] is a really is a is a is a really challenging thing. But it's unbelievable when the light bulb goes off for people, not that we have the answers for everyone, but for them to be able to come up with the answers for themselves.

[00:46:12] So we talk about this thing like PVMVP, like what is your purpose? What are what are what is your vision? Why are you doing what you're doing? What is your mission? Right. What are your values?

[00:46:26] That's when I start to get a little like, oh, what does that even mean? What are your values and what are your principles? Like when we start to when we have those conversations with coaches, man, like it's the most challenging conversation,

[00:46:37] but it's the best thing to see, like coaches setting in their final projects when they're finally done with this thing and to read through those and just see the growth. Right. So I think that's the most challenging thing. Why the heck are we doing what we're doing?

[00:46:50] Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's you know, I think people who have been involved or engaged with OPEC, so it's very strongly built on principles. Right. And one of the things that I think I've used a couple of hundred times

[00:47:01] with clients and friends and myself is I don't know if you guys still use it as a Demartini value assessment. Yeah. Like that that was very eye opening for me of understanding like what are my values really?

[00:47:12] And how do you look at your values and how other people value sets and how you looked at it from a non-judgmental way and how that really gives incredible insights into why people do what they do.

[00:47:24] So there's a lot of real, real cool nuggets I've gotten out of OPEC. But man, Carl, very excited for what you guys have coming down the pipe. I'm fired up to check it out. And I think that that AI tools exactly what the industry needs.

[00:47:37] I think you guys are nailing it. So very cool stuff. If people want to get a hold of you personally, or if there's anywhere online you like them to go, let them have it. Yeah, I'll keep it personally.

[00:47:50] I'm not that engaged and involved on social media, but but our team is. So at OPEC's fitness at Coach RX, I believe it's Coach RX. That app is our Instagram handle. I should know that top of my head.

[00:48:02] Those are places where you can connect with OPEC's and Coach RX with me personally. I'm going to give you my Instagram handle. You guys don't want to follow me. I put like family stuff on there every three months.

[00:48:12] But personally, like if you guys are, you know, want to want to dig into something or you have a question that that we weren't able to get to, feel free to email me at Carl at OPEC's Fit.com. So we'll keep it old school.

[00:48:25] We'll go email instead of social media. Yeah, I love it. Some people even give away their phone numbers here, which I think is classic. Well, Carl, thanks so much, man. Really, really happy that we got this chance to catch up and chat on the podcast.

[00:48:36] And like I said, excited for what you guys are doing. So yeah, thanks for coming on, ladies and gentlemen. Carl Hardwick. Awesome. Thanks, Eric. Appreciate it, buddy. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Feminists.

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