In this episode, Dr. Paul Bedford dives into the generational differences shaping the fitness industry's recruitment and retention strategies, highlighting the impact of younger workers' tendency towards role-hopping and entrepreneurial pursuits. He reflects on how his unique background in nightclubs has influenced his approach to customer and staff experiences, and discusses the potential of older generations in the workforce. The conversation also explores the influence of technology on job roles, offering practical examples and comparisons between Millennial and Gen Z behaviors, while speculating on the future of fitness training and the role of AI in modern workplaces.
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[00:02:06] Dr. Paul Bedford, welcome to the future of fitness.
[00:02:10] Thank you very much.
[00:02:11] How are you?
[00:02:12] I'm doing great.
[00:02:13] I'm doing great.
[00:02:14] This is quite a treat.
[00:02:16] Very intriguing topic that we have to cover today are kind of the generational differences
[00:02:22] and how that affects recruitment, retention, all of the things that we deal with now as operators
[00:02:27] or people within the fitness and health and wellness industry.
[00:02:32] You're awesome, man.
[00:02:33] I've really enjoyed all of our interactions.
[00:02:35] Really engaging, very funny.
[00:02:37] You've given over 200 talks now with an industry that's bananas.
[00:02:41] You're telling me before we started recording about your travel schedule and all the events
[00:02:46] that you go to.
[00:02:47] I want to get into all that.
[00:02:49] The way you and I actually met in person was, I think, after the Los Angeles, it was after
[00:02:58] the event formerly known as HRSA, now Health Fitness Association.
[00:03:04] It was the day after and we just happened to be, we met in the Apple store and we were
[00:03:08] both testing out the new, what's the name of their technology?
[00:03:12] I'll tell you if you want to just come with me now.
[00:03:13] The BRAR set.
[00:03:16] I was sitting there, I was waiting and you're like, hey, are you Eric?
[00:03:19] And I was like, yeah, I know you.
[00:03:21] And then we decided to reconnect after that.
[00:03:24] But I guess let's start with that, man.
[00:03:26] Like what was your take on the AR experience?
[00:03:30] Do you know what?
[00:03:31] I was pretty skeptical going in, completely mind blowing by the actual experience.
[00:03:38] So when you're sitting with the headset on and they're playing video and, you know,
[00:03:44] that I can't remember which animals it were, but let's say they're farm animals.
[00:03:48] And they were like next to me and it felt like I could touch them.
[00:03:51] It was like, wow, this is a whole new way of engaging in being immersed
[00:03:58] in some digital content.
[00:04:01] But came away after it was going.
[00:04:04] But how do you actually use it?
[00:04:06] What would you I couldn't think of use cases for it.
[00:04:08] At the time, you know, I think if you're flying in Apache helicopter,
[00:04:12] it makes 100 percent sense.
[00:04:13] He's like, yeah, all of the headset type thing.
[00:04:17] But day to day, I can't imagine coming on a call with you
[00:04:22] with a headset on or working day to day at the moment with a headset on.
[00:04:27] So I really enjoyed it.
[00:04:29] I was really impressed, but also a little confused.
[00:04:34] I mean, my take was this is like it's very cool.
[00:04:38] Very, very ashamed.
[00:04:39] And we do there is one part where it was like you're on a lake.
[00:04:42] The late it starts raining.
[00:04:44] A grizzly bear comes from your right view to your left view.
[00:04:47] I'm like, oh my God, this is as close as ever want to be to a grizzly bear.
[00:04:50] And, you know, so that was really cool.
[00:04:52] I think the applications for education, for business,
[00:04:55] those kind of things are very evident.
[00:04:57] But obviously the former factor is still a little over stricter.
[00:05:00] It's just heavy and bulky.
[00:05:02] But damn, I mean, it was it was impressive.
[00:05:04] So, you know, Paul, I guess before we get into everything
[00:05:07] that we're going to talk about today with the generational gaps
[00:05:09] and considerations is my question is like, how did you get into this
[00:05:15] niche of the retention guru?
[00:05:17] Like, how did you find this spot that kind of stumble into it?
[00:05:21] Is there something you're like, oh, no, that's a problem I want to solve.
[00:05:23] Give us the background and then that will kind of take table for the rest of our conversation.
[00:05:26] Well, I think it is a problem I wanted to solve, but it wasn't.
[00:05:30] This actual problem, the problem I wanted to solve because I came from a
[00:05:34] trainer background was how do you get people to stick to workouts?
[00:05:39] So it was more about how to if I'm writing someone a great workout,
[00:05:43] how do I make sure that they stick to it more than just six weeks and then disappear?
[00:05:48] So I started studying psychology because I was interested in exercise adherence
[00:05:52] and I end up doing a master's degree in exercise psychology
[00:05:56] and thought I would change the world.
[00:05:58] And then when you start talking to operators, all they were interested in
[00:06:01] was bottom line.
[00:06:02] And so it was like, well, actually the bottom line is driven by how long they stay,
[00:06:07] not how well they adhere to their exercise program.
[00:06:10] And it just sort of evolved out of there.
[00:06:12] So I still have a massive fascination with exercise adherence
[00:06:14] as you probably see from some of the books in the background
[00:06:17] if someone's trying to read the book titles.
[00:06:20] But it's that it's I believe that I think operators can earn more money
[00:06:24] if they provided better experience to their members.
[00:06:27] And I believe that everybody should enjoy some level of physical activity,
[00:06:31] exercise or sport.
[00:06:32] I think there's something out there for at least 80 percent of the population.
[00:06:36] And I suppose I'm just on a quest to try and unlock the mechanisms
[00:06:43] that help people stick to these behaviors that I'd really, really enjoy.
[00:06:48] So many of the people I spend my time, we really enjoy.
[00:06:51] But so many people struggle to make part of their overall lifestyle.
[00:06:55] Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting.
[00:06:57] And I remember when we were talking preparation for this is you came from the nightclub background.
[00:07:03] Yeah. Yeah. So that's different.
[00:07:06] Right. There's only one or two people I know in our industry who came from nightclubs.
[00:07:09] The other one is Vince from Oh My God, I can't remember the name of his company.
[00:07:14] Anyway. Yeah.
[00:07:16] How does that relate?
[00:07:18] It's about managing people and managing experiences.
[00:07:21] So I was involved in nightclubs from quite an early age.
[00:07:23] I was, you know, here we have a different law in terms of drinking.
[00:07:27] So you can go to nightclubs and you can drink at 18.
[00:07:31] And he's actually not that frowned upon if you drink before that age, either.
[00:07:35] So I was involved in nightclubs at 18.
[00:07:37] I was running nightclubs by the time I was 21.
[00:07:40] And we were just trying to.
[00:07:42] And it's like many service businesses.
[00:07:44] You have to find you have to create experiences every single time
[00:07:49] to get people to return because they're not paying and not coming.
[00:07:53] They either don't come and you don't earn anything or you put on an experience
[00:07:58] that's good enough for them to enjoy that night as a one off
[00:08:01] or want to come back again and again.
[00:08:04] But also understand that most nightclubs have a shelf life of about three years
[00:08:10] before they start to taper off and they're replaced by other businesses.
[00:08:14] So I learned a lot about human interaction
[00:08:18] and also about problem solving because when I was doing it,
[00:08:21] which was during the early 19 early mid 1980s,
[00:08:25] if something went wrong, there was nothing nowhere to go to.
[00:08:30] Repair things.
[00:08:31] It was like it's two a.m. in the morning.
[00:08:34] The DJ's decks have stopped working.
[00:08:36] What are you going to do?
[00:08:38] And you had to problem solve.
[00:08:39] So we got really good of problem solving just out of necessity.
[00:08:42] But I think that it was for me, it's always been this drive
[00:08:45] of that human interaction meeting people.
[00:08:47] Well, how do you get regulars?
[00:08:49] How do you create regulars?
[00:08:50] And how do you get people talking about what we were delivering?
[00:08:53] So it attracts more people.
[00:08:55] Yeah, yeah, really interesting.
[00:08:56] And imagine just like delivering a memorable experience,
[00:08:59] something that makes people want to talk about it, come back.
[00:09:02] Like all those things you're talking about, you know, it's it actually
[00:09:04] makes quite a bit of sense.
[00:09:05] What was what were some of the big names as far as DJs and bands
[00:09:10] from your when you're doing the nightclubs?
[00:09:12] So the DJs we had playing for so they they they probably less
[00:09:17] well known internationally.
[00:09:18] But we had there was a guy we had a guy called Dave D'Aurel
[00:09:22] who used to DJ for us quite a bit.
[00:09:24] And he had a very successful song track one time called
[00:09:28] Pump Up the Volu which was a real early scratch mix tune.
[00:09:34] But we also had a friend of one of my best friends at the time
[00:09:38] and one of my collaborators, a guy called Andreas Giorgio.
[00:09:41] He just happened to have a cousin whose band was breaking
[00:09:45] at the time called WAM which meant that we had George Michael
[00:09:51] Andrew Ridgely in our clubs on a regular basis asking to do PAs
[00:09:56] because it was a really early part of their career.
[00:09:59] And of course, when they took off just the just the randomness
[00:10:03] of will they be there tonight?
[00:10:05] We'll go just in case they're there really had an impact
[00:10:08] on what was going on for us.
[00:10:11] Yeah, very interesting.
[00:10:12] Well, thanks for that background.
[00:10:13] I think that really sets up table for who you are
[00:10:15] and how you got to where you be.
[00:10:16] And I think let's get into this thing.
[00:10:19] And for people who are listening, we are going to be sharing
[00:10:20] some information via video.
[00:10:24] So if you want to switch over to YouTube, you can go ahead
[00:10:26] and do that at all.
[00:10:27] But either way, we're going to cover a lot of things today.
[00:10:30] So the main topic of all that that I thought was really
[00:10:34] interesting and intrigued me quite a bit was like it seems
[00:10:37] to come up in a lot of my conversations on this podcast
[00:10:39] and outside as podcasts just in life in general.
[00:10:41] I was like, I feel like there's more focus on the generations
[00:10:45] nowadays and like these, you know, there seems to be a lot
[00:10:47] of generations, a lot more than there used to be like Gen X, Y, Z.
[00:10:51] There's millennia.
[00:10:52] It's like every time everyone's talking about new generations
[00:10:54] and they seem to have with the advent and increased speed
[00:10:58] of technology, like there seems to be different expectations.
[00:11:01] There's just to be different viewpoints.
[00:11:03] There's a lot of different things that are going on
[00:11:05] in those generational gaps.
[00:11:06] And that's something that you've been studying.
[00:11:08] So let's get into how that starts to relate for this.
[00:11:11] And maybe we can start wherever you want, but maybe we start with
[00:11:14] like employee retention.
[00:11:16] Like where do you want to go with this?
[00:11:18] So let me start with how it sort of came to my attention.
[00:11:23] So I've obviously been aware of generations,
[00:11:25] but not to the extent that he's now played upon.
[00:11:29] And I think some of what or some of the way that's occurred
[00:11:32] is actually just marketing companies needing to have something
[00:11:36] new to talk about every few years is like,
[00:11:39] oh, if you're not, you know, it's not millennials anymore.
[00:11:42] It's now it's Gen Z and Gen Z are different.
[00:11:44] And so they have new content to talk about all the time
[00:11:47] if you have the different generations.
[00:11:49] Although the generation's always been there.
[00:11:51] I'm the last year of the baby boomers.
[00:11:54] Although if you test me, if you do one
[00:11:57] of these psychological tests, I am a millennial
[00:12:00] because there's obviously some overlap.
[00:12:02] And sometimes I feel it's a little bit too much to label
[00:12:07] that a whole group of people who were born in a 10 year span
[00:12:11] as behaving exactly the same.
[00:12:13] So I accept the labels.
[00:12:17] I recognize some of the characteristics,
[00:12:18] but I don't think it's true of some groups within that,
[00:12:23] which I think is just human nature.
[00:12:27] But I was sitting this day I'm sitting in my office.
[00:12:30] Sometimes I sit in the house.
[00:12:32] I sit in the kitchen and I'm working on presentations
[00:12:35] and I was putting a presentation together
[00:12:38] and I had a number of images
[00:12:39] because I tend to like to use images rather than words.
[00:12:43] And I had an image of the East Bank Club in Chicago,
[00:12:47] one of the nice pulled back ones where you can see
[00:12:50] all the cardio and you can see how massive that club is.
[00:12:54] And my son walked past who's 22, 23
[00:12:58] and went, oh, where's that?
[00:13:00] And I was flicking through the presentation.
[00:13:03] So I thought he meant the East Bank Club.
[00:13:05] So I went back to the East Bank Club,
[00:13:06] went, oh, that's the East Bank Club in Chicago.
[00:13:08] That's where Obama and Luke used to train, blah, blah, blah.
[00:13:11] And he went, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:13:13] He said there was a different picture.
[00:13:14] So I flicked to the next picture
[00:13:16] and it was a picture of a very stylish CrossFit club.
[00:13:21] So it was all matte black, it had orange highlights.
[00:13:23] I naturally think it was called CrossFit Black,
[00:13:25] but it was very stylish.
[00:13:27] I said, where's that?
[00:13:28] And I went, I think that one's in New York.
[00:13:31] And then I just said to him,
[00:13:33] I flicked back to the East Bank Club and went,
[00:13:35] what's wrong with that club?
[00:13:37] Then he went, dad, that's a club for you.
[00:13:39] That's an old man's club.
[00:13:41] And it suddenly, I was like, oh my God.
[00:13:47] People, he's like, he is now starting to think of
[00:13:50] clubs as generational locations.
[00:13:53] And then that made me start thinking about music
[00:13:56] because obviously my nightclub background
[00:13:57] and thinking, actually the music my parents listened to
[00:14:02] wasn't the music that I'd listened to
[00:14:04] and isn't the music my son and even my daughter
[00:14:06] were about nine years apart.
[00:14:08] They listened to very different types of music.
[00:14:10] And it made me think, actually,
[00:14:13] have we got to a point with clubs
[00:14:16] where we have generational clubs
[00:14:17] and there are types of clubs
[00:14:19] that are more attractive to certain generations?
[00:14:22] Sometimes by income, but sometimes just by preference.
[00:14:25] So would someone rather go to a lifetime
[00:14:28] because they want more of the opulence, the relaxation
[00:14:31] and the sort of the splendor compared to someone wanting
[00:14:35] to go to maybe a traditional CrossFit,
[00:14:39] which is chalk and matte black paint and very rough.
[00:14:43] And because it's like that's where we go at our age.
[00:14:47] And so I started looking at that
[00:14:49] and then one of my clients that I was working with said,
[00:14:53] oh, yeah, we've got a problem with member retention.
[00:14:57] But actually if you could solve our staff
[00:14:59] retention problem first,
[00:15:01] we think that would solve our member retention problem.
[00:15:04] And so I started looking at expanding into
[00:15:08] the different motivators and drivers of employment
[00:15:12] as opposed to motivators and driver of exercise.
[00:15:15] Yeah, interesting.
[00:15:16] Well, yeah, let's start with that then.
[00:15:18] Staff retention, what are some of the considerations?
[00:15:22] If you're a Jimmy club owner, right?
[00:15:24] GM, what do you need to start recognizing
[00:15:27] and looking at and able to?
[00:15:29] Because I think that's at least here in the United States,
[00:15:31] that's a big problem across all industries,
[00:15:33] is getting staff retention.
[00:15:35] I have my theories on why that may be,
[00:15:39] but let's hear your take.
[00:15:42] So I think the thing we have to think about again,
[00:15:44] if we start thinking how we think generationally,
[00:15:48] my parents or my father had his own business,
[00:15:51] but he did the same business for his entire life,
[00:15:55] his entire working life.
[00:15:57] And he's now in these late 80s,
[00:15:59] but he would have left school
[00:16:01] and if he could have got a job in a bank,
[00:16:04] he would have been like, he'd have won the lottery
[00:16:06] because people are going, you've got a job in a bank,
[00:16:08] job for life, job security, that's what you want.
[00:16:11] If you're there 10 years,
[00:16:12] you might get up to like an assistant manager,
[00:16:15] if you're there 20 years,
[00:16:16] and by if you're there 30 years,
[00:16:18] you might get branch manager or even higher.
[00:16:21] And those were his, would have been sort of the aspirations.
[00:16:24] Whereas I came, when I came out of school,
[00:16:26] it was actually, I'm going to do this for a while
[00:16:29] and then maybe I'll do something else.
[00:16:31] So then it was already there,
[00:16:33] we're talking about instead of a job for life,
[00:16:34] you might have three different careers.
[00:16:37] My son doesn't even think in terms of jobs,
[00:16:39] he thinks in terms of months,
[00:16:41] what am I going to do between now and Christmas?
[00:16:44] What am I going to do after Christmas for the new year?
[00:16:47] So he's happy to jump around,
[00:16:50] not just from, well, one being employed and unemployed
[00:16:54] because I support him,
[00:16:56] but I'm going to work by trade, he's a qualified bricklayer.
[00:17:00] He's currently working as a carpenter.
[00:17:03] And more recently, he worked for a huge grocery store
[00:17:06] in terms of stock control and management.
[00:17:08] And he was like, he doesn't think about being employed forever.
[00:17:14] And I think when I started working with my client,
[00:17:18] you know, they said most of their staff were students
[00:17:23] and they would stay employed for about six months
[00:17:26] and then move on.
[00:17:27] And they were saying, how do we get them to stay for longer?
[00:17:30] And I said, no, let's flip the problem,
[00:17:31] let's flip it and let's look at it as,
[00:17:34] what can we do with them for six months,
[00:17:36] expecting them to go after that?
[00:17:39] So because if most of them were students
[00:17:41] and they were undergraduates
[00:17:42] and they were looking to get their degrees,
[00:17:45] they were looking to go off and do a career
[00:17:47] in something else completely.
[00:17:49] And so he's like, let's flip this
[00:17:51] because I don't think now, even in older generations,
[00:17:56] people are looking for jobs for life,
[00:17:58] they're not looking for nine to five,
[00:18:01] they're looking for a lot more flexibility,
[00:18:03] yet a lot of owners because we have an often a service
[00:18:06] that needs staff to deliver it on a face-to-face basis.
[00:18:10] There's no remote working.
[00:18:12] People are like, I'm not sure I wanna do that.
[00:18:14] Yeah.
[00:18:16] Yeah.
[00:18:17] And it's something I've talked about
[00:18:19] on this podcast numerous times is I fear that
[00:18:23] from a trainer perspective,
[00:18:25] trainers, coaches, whatever you call them,
[00:18:27] people who work with the clients,
[00:18:30] it's falling into the gig economy, right?
[00:18:32] Where it used to be something like you're talking about,
[00:18:34] it's like maybe 10, maybe even longer ago,
[00:18:38] you get started as a trainer,
[00:18:39] you could work your way up in a health club or into a gym,
[00:18:41] maybe even become a gym owner, right?
[00:18:43] There is this path.
[00:18:45] Now it seems like get a certification,
[00:18:47] maybe do it for a summer or two,
[00:18:49] kind of like lifeguarding here.
[00:18:51] Like what I used to do in high school, right?
[00:18:53] It's like, yeah, just get my lifeguard certification,
[00:18:56] I'll do it for a summer or two,
[00:18:57] make a decent amount of money,
[00:18:58] actually really bad money as a lifeguard.
[00:19:00] But anyway, that's my fear for it.
[00:19:02] So is that something that is real?
[00:19:05] Is that like a real consideration
[00:19:06] from what you've seen in your research?
[00:19:08] Yeah, not just that.
[00:19:10] It's the diversity of how you can work with clients
[00:19:13] has grown since the pandemic,
[00:19:15] because what the pandemic taught
[00:19:16] a lot of the trainers who worked in clubs was,
[00:19:19] I see if the clubs are closed,
[00:19:20] you can generate an income training people online.
[00:19:23] So now you've got trainers
[00:19:25] who are doing their face-to-face work in clubs,
[00:19:28] but might also have some clients online,
[00:19:30] or they might have some prerecorded material
[00:19:32] of like a 10-week program to follow,
[00:19:35] and they're selling that.
[00:19:36] So they now, I think there's been a power shift
[00:19:39] in terms of if you wanted to work as a trainer,
[00:19:41] you had to work in a club
[00:19:43] and you had to follow whatever the club rules were.
[00:19:46] Now it's like, actually if I wanna be a trainer,
[00:19:49] I can pretty much do this outside
[00:19:51] if the climate is appropriate.
[00:19:55] I can do it from home, I might just have one room.
[00:19:58] The evolution of our workouts,
[00:20:02] which I think is really cyclical
[00:20:03] where we're doing many more exercises now based around
[00:20:08] Olympic lifting, kettlebells, band work.
[00:20:11] You can do those in a very small space.
[00:20:14] I don't have to be spending $15,000 on a treadmill
[00:20:18] because I can actually work,
[00:20:20] and people are accepting of that.
[00:20:22] I can't remember the,
[00:20:23] I think it's Gunner who's got this massive gym
[00:20:25] in Hollywood where he trains the stars
[00:20:27] and basically it's a commercial gym,
[00:20:30] but just for one to one.
[00:20:32] Now people are like,
[00:20:33] actually I only need the space of a garage
[00:20:36] that's done out nicely with a few pieces of equipment
[00:20:39] to steal personal training people
[00:20:40] and people see the value of the workout
[00:20:43] as being the thing that's important
[00:20:45] rather than the sort of stages set on.
[00:20:48] So I think the trainers are now
[00:20:50] in a much more diverse way
[00:20:53] of delivering their products and services.
[00:20:55] Yeah, interesting.
[00:20:56] So if it's okay, I want to pull up where you sent me.
[00:20:59] You had a comparison between millennials and Gen Z.
[00:21:02] I feel like that's one of the big generations.
[00:21:04] So I'm going to pull this up to the screen
[00:21:06] and then you can give some insights on this.
[00:21:11] When I think the things to think about are the,
[00:21:17] you know, it's like,
[00:21:18] and I mentioned is like the millennials are job hopping
[00:21:21] where the Gen Zs are role hopping,
[00:21:23] where, you know, even me, I was like job hopping.
[00:21:26] Mine was like through it.
[00:21:27] Like I suppose now I could say I've had three careers.
[00:21:31] I've had a career that was more based on manual labor.
[00:21:35] I've had a career that was in nightclubs and entertainment
[00:21:39] and now I've got one that's more on academia.
[00:21:43] That for my age band is actually quite normal.
[00:21:48] But now you don't get people sticking to things.
[00:21:51] They are, I want to try this for a while.
[00:21:52] I want to try this for a while and they jump around.
[00:21:55] We are seeing, and I see this both with my son and my daughter
[00:21:59] because my daughter falls into what's now called Gen Alpha.
[00:22:02] More face-to-face interactions.
[00:22:04] They want to be with their friends.
[00:22:05] They want to be face-to-face interacting
[00:22:08] rather than digitally interacting.
[00:22:11] And they're very, very conscious about their digital profile.
[00:22:16] So yes, they want to be on TikTok.
[00:22:17] Yes, they want to be creating.
[00:22:20] But they also want to have their anonymity as well.
[00:22:24] It's like when I want to turn that off, I want it turned off.
[00:22:26] And so there's a real...
[00:22:29] I think the millennials was like,
[00:22:31] you've given me Google.
[00:22:33] I accept if you give me Google, I give away my anonymity.
[00:22:38] Whereas I think the next generation is saying,
[00:22:40] well, actually, I still want my anonymity when I want it.
[00:22:45] And just in terms of...
[00:22:47] Like if you look right down the bottom
[00:22:49] where it says brand-driven spending
[00:22:50] rather than bargain-driven spending.
[00:22:53] Brand-driven is like, have I got the latest iPods?
[00:22:57] Have I got the latest thing that is in fashion?
[00:23:01] Whereas the next generation down is like,
[00:23:04] not spending $600 on a pair of headphones
[00:23:08] when actually all I'm doing is listening to it.
[00:23:10] I'll spend 30 bucks on something cheap in Paul from China
[00:23:14] that I can just pop in my ears and it'll be fine.
[00:23:18] I do recognize there is still an awful lot of icon value
[00:23:22] in certain brands,
[00:23:24] but they're just thinking and behaving differently.
[00:23:28] It also means they're buying differently.
[00:23:30] You know, they're buying and going, actually,
[00:23:32] if you can't show me the difference
[00:23:34] or prove to me the difference between one product and another
[00:23:37] and let's think about that as health clubs,
[00:23:40] then I'm gonna buy the cheapest
[00:23:42] because you might have a really swanky-looking club
[00:23:45] that's got everything and I think, but it costs me a lot.
[00:23:49] And over here there's another club
[00:23:51] where actually it's got the things I need,
[00:23:54] but no more, but it's relatively cheap.
[00:23:57] I'm just gonna go there.
[00:23:58] Why am I gonna spend this to get this outcome?
[00:24:01] So they're much more outcome-driven.
[00:24:04] Does it give me the result I want
[00:24:06] rather than does it give me the environment
[00:24:08] I want people to see me in?
[00:24:12] Oh yeah, it's interesting.
[00:24:13] I mean, I think about one of the things
[00:24:16] I've seen here that amazes me in the United States
[00:24:19] is you probably know how it there,
[00:24:20] but are you familiar with the brand Stanley?
[00:24:22] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:24:24] Like mugs like this, they make insulated mugs
[00:24:28] and things like that.
[00:24:29] And all of a sudden, like this is a brand I've known forever.
[00:24:31] It was just something I'd buy at a R&R
[00:24:34] or whatever store you can do your outdoor store.
[00:24:36] But now it's like a fashion statement
[00:24:38] and that the revitalization of this thing
[00:24:41] off of one generation, right, is astounding to me.
[00:24:44] And that was like, that's purely generational.
[00:24:46] Like I look at Stanley like it's utility, right?
[00:24:49] Like if I find something that's not a brand name,
[00:24:51] that's the same thing, but people want that brand.
[00:24:53] So it's really interesting to see this stuff.
[00:24:56] And I think some of that stuff, you know,
[00:24:58] I look at other products and Stanley, I go,
[00:25:00] so here I can't remember.
[00:25:02] So we would refer to anything that's like a box cutter
[00:25:06] as a Stanley knife.
[00:25:10] So the product has become,
[00:25:16] I can't think what it's called,
[00:25:17] it's the generic name for the product here.
[00:25:21] So vacuum cleaners here are called Hoover's
[00:25:23] because Hoover may and everybody calls everything a Hoover.
[00:25:27] And Stanley knife, Stanley is the same,
[00:25:30] but it's also, I think that's the same with,
[00:25:31] is it car, heart, work wear?
[00:25:34] You know, Dr. Martin Boots.
[00:25:35] Dr. Martin Boots when I was young,
[00:25:37] were work wear or what skin is wore?
[00:25:41] And they were cheap.
[00:25:42] And you know, I had a pair and you just wore them.
[00:25:46] Now they're a designer item.
[00:25:48] And it's like people in my generation are going,
[00:25:51] you're paying how much for those?
[00:25:54] You know, I think it's, but a lot of that's to do
[00:25:58] with the ability of communication
[00:26:01] and people being influenced by,
[00:26:04] you know, great stories.
[00:26:07] You know, and there've been some great Stanley stories.
[00:26:10] And I jokingly posted recently,
[00:26:12] you know, you can see a couple back there
[00:26:14] on the other side there.
[00:26:16] There's a couple of water bottles.
[00:26:18] And I get these given to me all the time
[00:26:20] when I'm doing events is like having a spun out.
[00:26:22] I mean, I went somewhere recently
[00:26:24] and they gave me a Stanley mug.
[00:26:27] And I was like, I put the pictures up
[00:26:29] and I went, some of you need to up your game
[00:26:31] in terms of the gifts you're giving away.
[00:26:34] And a lot of people comment is laughed.
[00:26:38] But there's things I think can explode a lot more quickly now,
[00:26:42] but they can be over with quickly as well.
[00:26:45] So it's like very fast peeking them down.
[00:26:47] It's like fashion of the week
[00:26:49] rather than fashion of the month.
[00:26:53] So a couple of things I want to hone in on here.
[00:26:56] I'm looking at this.
[00:26:56] So, you know, millennials versus Gen Z.
[00:26:59] Millennials are collaborative and optimistic.
[00:27:02] Gen Z are independent and realistic.
[00:27:05] So these are behavior or things
[00:27:07] that need to be very much considered in an employment setting.
[00:27:11] So yes, we're like expand on that a little bit.
[00:27:14] OK, so let's take this pull back from fitness
[00:27:17] just for a second and then we'll go into fitness.
[00:27:20] Yes. I once said 100 years ago
[00:27:23] based on where I was born, like location wise,
[00:27:28] based on the family I was born into.
[00:27:31] My options would have been really limited.
[00:27:33] I would have either worked in a factory,
[00:27:35] on a farm or in the military
[00:27:38] because of my family background over the generations.
[00:27:43] The opportunity to expand and do things
[00:27:46] that your parents didn't have an opportunity to do
[00:27:48] has just grown and grown and grown.
[00:27:50] And I think one example of that is with
[00:27:53] and I think we underestimate how powerful.
[00:27:58] I know we all think about how powerful phones are,
[00:28:01] but I've got almost the entire world's education
[00:28:06] at my fingertips now.
[00:28:08] If I want to start a clothing company,
[00:28:12] traditionally, I would need to have gone and worked
[00:28:14] in the fashion industry, worked my way through,
[00:28:18] work found out who the buyers and sellers were,
[00:28:21] who the wholesalers were, where I could get things manufactured.
[00:28:25] And it would take me time and I'd have to work in that industry.
[00:28:30] If I choose now to start a clothing company,
[00:28:34] let's say Guru Paul,
[00:28:36] I just go on YouTube and I go,
[00:28:39] how do you start your own brandy clothing company?
[00:28:42] And there'll be hundreds of videos pointing me at
[00:28:46] how to set it, how to set it up.
[00:28:48] Any of the business back end in terms of the accounts
[00:28:51] and see marketing, hiring,
[00:28:53] I can learn that as well.
[00:28:55] I can also then go,
[00:28:57] they'll say here's the top five suppliers
[00:29:00] that you should go to for leisure wear.
[00:29:02] I don't now need all that historical knowledge
[00:29:05] or those connections.
[00:29:07] I can go straight to the point of teach me how to do this.
[00:29:11] And I think what that has done is with younger people,
[00:29:15] they are much more entrepreneurial.
[00:29:18] They are much more, I'm going to do this for myself.
[00:29:22] Yes, I want a job and yes, I want to work.
[00:29:24] But actually, I want to work for me doing the things that I enjoy,
[00:29:28] which they're sometimes miss-sold in terms of do this
[00:29:32] and you'll only have to passive income.
[00:29:34] You'll never have to work.
[00:29:35] And but they have so much more access
[00:29:39] to actually getting starting a different career
[00:29:42] or starting a different business.
[00:29:43] And I think within the fitness industry,
[00:29:46] how that's manifested self is,
[00:29:48] is that young people coming in and going,
[00:29:49] actually, I don't care about owning my own club.
[00:29:53] I just want to train people until one of the points we made earlier.
[00:29:57] Well, maybe I'll just do it online.
[00:29:58] Maybe I'll just do it in a unit or a small space that I can either rent
[00:30:03] because I can get out of that really easily if I change my mind
[00:30:06] or lease really inexpensive or I can collaboratively work.
[00:30:11] You know, five of us can come together like a co-workspace
[00:30:15] but run our personal training business.
[00:30:17] So I think the mindset is very much,
[00:30:20] I want to do this for me now, not for you and be grateful
[00:30:24] that you give me a salary for doing it.
[00:30:26] So I think being entrepreneurial now is actually
[00:30:30] much more fashionable as the wrong word, but it's much more
[00:30:34] if my son says to his friends, yeah,
[00:30:37] I'm thinking of starting this business.
[00:30:38] They don't laugh.
[00:30:40] They just go, have you seen this?
[00:30:41] Have you done that?
[00:30:42] They're all trying to do their own thing for themselves.
[00:30:47] Hey, friends, Eric Malzone here.
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[00:32:12] That's podcastcollective.io.
[00:32:20] Yeah, it's it's I've seen that very much even in just my
[00:32:24] my own nephew now is in his mid 20s
[00:32:26] and he started his first business cleaning solar panels.
[00:32:29] I'm like, huh, it's like, yeah, it's a good cash business.
[00:32:33] And you know, it showed me his website.
[00:32:34] And of course, you know, I tore it apart and, you know,
[00:32:37] told me what things I would change.
[00:32:39] But I didn't see that coming.
[00:32:41] You know, I thought, you know, get a job for a while.
[00:32:44] And that's what I did.
[00:32:44] I got a job for eight or nine years until I figured out,
[00:32:46] you know, kind of what I wanted to do was happy for a salary.
[00:32:49] You know, at the end of the day,
[00:32:51] like this trend would sound alarming to employers, right?
[00:32:54] Like, OK, they're more entrepreneurial there.
[00:32:55] They don't really care about the long term, you know,
[00:32:58] satisfaction of the job.
[00:32:59] Like how do you navigate that?
[00:33:02] Like what do you tell employers to do with that?
[00:33:04] I mean, should they be alarmed
[00:33:06] or is it something that you can work with?
[00:33:08] Look, I don't think.
[00:33:11] They're going to reel people back into I want a job for life.
[00:33:15] I think that's gone unless someone's got a real passion
[00:33:19] and they just want, you know, they're narrow in there.
[00:33:22] I want to do this.
[00:33:23] So going back to the project I did before with one of my clients
[00:33:27] is like, let's flip that.
[00:33:29] If this is what the current generation are looking for,
[00:33:33] let's find ways of making what we offer at the moment
[00:33:36] really attractive to them.
[00:33:38] Now, that might include helping them have a space within the club
[00:33:43] where they can film their own videos.
[00:33:46] You've got your club branding in the background
[00:33:48] or help them with their online business
[00:33:51] because they're going to do it anyway.
[00:33:54] And, you know, so it's almost like having to think, OK,
[00:33:59] not I'm going to give up what I need them to do,
[00:34:02] but I'm going to collaborate with them on what they want
[00:34:05] as long as they collaborate with me on what I want.
[00:34:09] So I think traditionally it's always been you got a job
[00:34:11] and you did as you were told.
[00:34:13] Now it's like, well, I don't even want a job.
[00:34:15] So why would I want to come and work in your club?
[00:34:18] So now it's going to be like, come on, work in the club.
[00:34:21] I'll provide you with an environment where you can film your clips.
[00:34:25] You can do your whether it's your influencer type staff
[00:34:28] or your creating content.
[00:34:31] However, we're going to exclude other people from doing that.
[00:34:33] So you're going to be the only people that can do that here.
[00:34:36] That might be one approach,
[00:34:38] but I think it's also being more flexible in terms of how often
[00:34:42] how people want to be employed because they don't want to work nine to five.
[00:34:47] They want to work, unfortunately, when they want to work.
[00:34:50] But to be fair, that's me as well.
[00:34:53] You know, I work, you know, I'm self-employed, similar to you.
[00:34:57] We work and do the days we want to do and the hours we want to do.
[00:35:00] So to criticise someone who goes,
[00:35:02] actually, I don't want to nine to five would be hypocritical for me
[00:35:05] because not a why.
[00:35:06] But if I'm a club owner, I think what I was at the boutique fitness
[00:35:12] solutions event last year in New York, and I was talking to a lot of
[00:35:15] the owners of the boutiques and they were saying,
[00:35:17] what we wanted is we want to find staff who is passionate
[00:35:20] about our club or our boutique as we are.
[00:35:24] And I'm like, that's never going to happen
[00:35:26] because you it's your boutique, you designed it.
[00:35:30] And they're like, oh, well, what can we do?
[00:35:32] And I went, you've got to be enthusiastic about what they want to do as well
[00:35:37] and collaborate on that.
[00:35:39] Yes, you're going to get some people to just go,
[00:35:41] actually, I just want a job.
[00:35:42] Just give me hours in exchange for money.
[00:35:44] I'll do what you say.
[00:35:45] Because we see that in all of the fast food places.
[00:35:48] There's no creativity in there.
[00:35:50] You do as you're told.
[00:35:52] But a lot of those operations now going, what hours are you available?
[00:35:56] Not these are the hours you're working.
[00:36:00] Yeah.
[00:36:01] You know, anecdotally, you know, when I had my gym,
[00:36:04] my primary gym, the Cross Pacific Coast, you know,
[00:36:07] when I brought in Danny Russell, she was a trainer,
[00:36:10] she was a client and she was a trainer.
[00:36:12] And she became our head coach, very talented, great athlete, great coach.
[00:36:16] And, you know, early on we had a conversation about what she wanted.
[00:36:19] Like, what do you want?
[00:36:20] And then she said something I'd like to own my own gym.
[00:36:22] I'm like, OK, that's great.
[00:36:23] Now, you could either find that as a threat, right?
[00:36:26] Or, you know, we kind of kept that in mind and, you know,
[00:36:30] we kept growing her in the roles and she accepted more responsibility
[00:36:32] and tried to teach her what I could.
[00:36:35] And then eventually she ended up buying my gym
[00:36:37] and we both got what we wanted.
[00:36:39] And it worked out great, right?
[00:36:41] And I think that's, you know, if I'm not saying
[00:36:43] I always did everything right, I did many, many things wrong of managing people.
[00:36:47] But, you know, that was something where like if I open that door
[00:36:50] and had that communication early, like, hey, let me help you get what you want.
[00:36:54] And in turn, you help me grow my business, right?
[00:36:57] And I thought that was a really good clapper.
[00:36:58] I was like, well, a few times, all right.
[00:37:00] So that was, I think that's something that people can, you know,
[00:37:03] I would urge people to just have those conversations early on of just open
[00:37:07] up front, what do you want?
[00:37:08] What are you looking for?
[00:37:09] What's ideal for you?
[00:37:10] And then if you can make that work within your four walls,
[00:37:12] and I think it's a great idea.
[00:37:14] Yeah. And I think, like in this example, also when people start off,
[00:37:18] they have a very idealistic view of what it actually means to own a gym.
[00:37:23] But then when you say, yeah, I'll help you with that.
[00:37:26] Let's go through how you run the disciplinary with someone who's not
[00:37:29] behaving the way you want them to do it.
[00:37:31] Let's talk about how you let someone go.
[00:37:33] And they're like, what?
[00:37:35] You know, that's part of owning a gym if you're going to employ people.
[00:37:38] It's like, no, I just thought you'd be hanging around chatting to my friends,
[00:37:41] drinking smoothies and working out.
[00:37:43] And he's like, no, you don't get to do almost any of that anymore
[00:37:47] because you're running a gym.
[00:37:49] And I think so.
[00:37:50] I do think people come in with these idealistic
[00:37:53] attitudes towards what they think because they don't know what they don't know.
[00:37:58] Whereas now, and I think you can look up a lot of that stuff
[00:38:01] and he comes down is like, oh, my employer told me I had to be on time.
[00:38:05] He's like, well, actually, yeah, that that is part of the deal of getting paid.
[00:38:09] But it's like it is.
[00:38:10] It's about setting those expectations up really early.
[00:38:16] Paul, let's look at this.
[00:38:17] So you send me an image with your son, right?
[00:38:20] That's my son.
[00:38:21] One on the left, one on the right.
[00:38:22] Maybe describe it to people or listen.
[00:38:23] Yeah.
[00:38:24] So the context is my son.
[00:38:27] Yeah, I think in these pictures, it was about 18, 19.
[00:38:32] And part of my day, usually between four and five, which is called
[00:38:37] the gold now for sunlight, I he'd say, can you take some pictures of me?
[00:38:41] Can you take some pictures of me?
[00:38:42] And I'll be like every day I'll be like, come on, Jay, I've got things to do.
[00:38:46] And the picture on the right, the shoes that he's wearing cost
[00:38:52] I'm going to do it in pounds because I know it in pounds.
[00:38:55] They're Alice, the Alexander McQueen shoes.
[00:38:56] They cost 350 pounds.
[00:38:58] The jeans were from some local shop.
[00:39:01] They cost almost nothing.
[00:39:02] And I think the top is also Alexander McQueen and was close to 400 pounds.
[00:39:07] They were sent to him in the post by a company saying,
[00:39:13] would you wear these in an urban setting and send us the pictures
[00:39:19] and you can keep the clothes?
[00:39:22] And so we were getting boxes coming through the door,
[00:39:26] you know, DHL and UPS every day from people who was just saying,
[00:39:32] as long as we can have the pictures, we'll send you these clothes to wear.
[00:39:36] But we want you wearing them.
[00:39:38] They give a little outline of what they wanted some.
[00:39:41] And it's like, what he would do, he'd wear the clothes.
[00:39:43] If we tuck the labels out of the way
[00:39:47] and then he'd sell the clothes afterwards.
[00:39:49] And some months he was earning three, four thousand dollars,
[00:39:52] the equivalent of from the clothes that he'd been sent,
[00:39:56] then selling them online.
[00:39:58] And I said to him at one point, Jay, you need to get a job.
[00:40:01] He said, I've got one.
[00:40:03] He said, my job is to wear the clothes.
[00:40:04] People send me.
[00:40:06] And I was just like, I looked at him.
[00:40:07] Yeah, why would you go and do it?
[00:40:11] You know, at the time he just trained to be a bricklayer.
[00:40:13] Why would you get up early, go and work on a site, get dirty?
[00:40:18] You know, here, wet, cold, build a wall when you could.
[00:40:24] And it's not the same money.
[00:40:25] He would have a lot more money bricklaying.
[00:40:27] But when he can actually just like play games on his in his Xbox
[00:40:30] or his PS all day long and then take some pictures
[00:40:34] and then send them off.
[00:40:35] And his attitude, you know, he's moved on from that.
[00:40:38] But it's like we I think I'm going to say is me
[00:40:41] because it might not be true for you.
[00:40:43] I think of jobs and careers and ways of earning money
[00:40:46] in a very different way than he thinks about jobs, careers
[00:40:49] and earning money.
[00:40:51] Now, he's thinking about earning money now.
[00:40:53] I mean, I said to him, what are you going to do for a job?
[00:40:56] He said, Daddy, guys, I don't want a job for for life.
[00:40:58] I don't even want a job for the summer.
[00:41:01] He was just working because I want to work out how I can earn money now.
[00:41:04] And while he was doing that, you know, he's living at home.
[00:41:08] He's got almost no financial commitments and he's earning,
[00:41:11] you know, three thousand dollars a month working one hour a day.
[00:41:16] He is very much of the gig economy.
[00:41:18] And he's thinking, actually, I can do that for a while,
[00:41:21] but I can also move on from that.
[00:41:23] And so I think the way he thinks about generating income
[00:41:27] is very different.
[00:41:29] Now, there's another picture there somewhere of the
[00:41:32] I'm just a Mr. Beast.
[00:41:35] I might say there's a picture of Mr. Beast.
[00:41:38] And I was doing an event there he is, Jimmy.
[00:41:41] I was doing an event of about to a group of club owners and managers.
[00:41:46] And I said to everybody stand up.
[00:41:49] I said, I'm going to show you this picture
[00:41:51] if you know who this picture is, stay standing.
[00:41:54] So I put the picture up.
[00:41:56] The managers who are all in their 20s and early 30s
[00:41:59] all stayed standing, all the owners sat down.
[00:42:03] And I said, you know, this is Mr.
[00:42:05] Beast, I said to the group, I said, who is this?
[00:42:07] And they went, well, it's Mr. Beast.
[00:42:08] I said, what does he do?
[00:42:09] And they went, he gives away his money.
[00:42:12] And they said he owns, he's the biggest YouTuber.
[00:42:15] And like almost none of the owners knew who he was.
[00:42:19] Straight away, it was like split.
[00:42:21] And then I said, OK, stay standing
[00:42:24] if you've ever tried drop drop shipping.
[00:42:27] And a few of them sat down, but again, they stayed.
[00:42:31] And I said, try tell me if you've ever tried being a creator
[00:42:34] and they stayed standing because what we're seeing is people are trying
[00:42:39] things because there's this every now and again, there's a unicorn.
[00:42:43] I'm going to say Jim Shark is a unicorn.
[00:42:45] It may or may not be technically.
[00:42:47] But he's like Jim Shark guy starts making shirts in his bedroom
[00:42:51] because he's into bodybuilding.
[00:42:53] They catch on.
[00:42:54] They get trendy, grows the business now.
[00:42:56] He's a billionaire and everybody goes, right.
[00:43:00] So if I start making T shirts and work out gear in my garage,
[00:43:05] I could be a billionaire too.
[00:43:08] And so they'll try that for a while
[00:43:10] using all the things I talked about earlier and they'll try it.
[00:43:13] And then they'll realize actually, actually it's not working for me.
[00:43:17] I need to try something else.
[00:43:18] So they'll try drop shipping.
[00:43:19] They're willing to try lots of different things really, really quickly.
[00:43:23] And just as a way of generating income, but also because there's a nice.
[00:43:28] It's not a myth, but I do think a lot of people are being misled into thinking
[00:43:33] you can have passive income.
[00:43:36] You know, if you just buy these four properties,
[00:43:38] you can generate this amount of revenue every month
[00:43:41] and then you've got passive income and you don't have to go to work anymore.
[00:43:45] Now, but you had to work to get the money in the first place to buy the properties.
[00:43:49] So there's there's bits of a story that get missed out.
[00:43:52] But, you know, this was a clear example of owners and managers generationally,
[00:43:58] you know, consuming different content, thinking about things in different ways,
[00:44:03] which I suppose really leads me on to the picture of my niece because
[00:44:08] my niece by training is a dancer and singer.
[00:44:11] And she does like what would be equivalent Broadway shows and things like that.
[00:44:16] And I said to her, Maya, if you were going for a job interview in a health club,
[00:44:22] how would you go about preparing for it?
[00:44:25] Because she's used to preparing for auditions and she's thinking of it as an audit.
[00:44:29] And she said to me, he always is like an audition.
[00:44:31] And I went, yeah, but it's for a job where you work behind the front desk
[00:44:35] of a health club rather than as a performer.
[00:44:38] And she went, OK, first of all, she said, I'd go on chat GPT
[00:44:42] and I'd ask you seven questions.
[00:44:43] What are the most common questions that you're going to get asked in a job interview?
[00:44:48] She said, then I'd ask them to get.
[00:44:49] She'd ask it to give me what are the seven answers that go with those seven questions?
[00:44:56] And then she said, then I'd ask them to come up with three scenarios
[00:44:58] that might be presented to me in a health club environment
[00:45:03] at a job interview for a front of house person.
[00:45:06] And she's had a way for that kind of she had not read through that
[00:45:09] as if it was a script or as if it was something I was trying to learn.
[00:45:13] And she goes, no, think about where my life experiences fit in.
[00:45:17] And then I'm sitting there just thinking and I don't mean this to Roggertzly,
[00:45:22] but just because of the way she gets pigeonholed.
[00:45:24] But you just got out that the whole HR department
[00:45:27] just got out thought by a 23 year old dancer.
[00:45:30] Her way of thinking about solving the problem
[00:45:32] is so different than the way I would have traditionally done it.
[00:45:37] You know, I'd have been like nervous and hoped that I could answer.
[00:45:41] You know, I'd addressed appropriately and thought, oh, I hope they liked me.
[00:45:44] And maybe I get the question right.
[00:45:46] Hers is like, no, the answer's out there.
[00:45:49] I just got going and find it.
[00:45:51] And so I think, you know, we are going to say we are going to say me
[00:45:57] as a 60 year old man does not think about the use of technology
[00:46:01] and the way I get answers is the same way as my 23 year old niece does.
[00:46:08] And we wonder why we can't connect.
[00:46:12] But we wonder why we can't connect with our staff.
[00:46:16] When they're thinking like this and we're thinking like that.
[00:46:21] Well, the what's going on right now in chat,
[00:46:24] GPT or just generated AI.
[00:46:27] What it reminds me of is like back in the day
[00:46:31] when calculators were starting being used in schools, right?
[00:46:35] And everyone said, no, you can't use a calculator on a test.
[00:46:38] And all of a sudden overnight, everyone's like, well, this is stupid
[00:46:41] because calculators are here to stay.
[00:46:43] So let people use calculators on the test.
[00:46:45] And that fundamentally changed everything.
[00:46:47] It's like, OK, well, now I can use like, OK, now just became another tool.
[00:46:52] And I think right now we're in the point where people are really fighting, right?
[00:46:56] Like, OK, you know, you can use it or it's, you know, is it original content
[00:47:00] if it's if you use chat, GPT or generated AI?
[00:47:03] Like, pretty soon, we're just going to have to let that go
[00:47:06] because we're not going to win that fight.
[00:47:08] Like, you know, how do how I don't know how it's going to work.
[00:47:10] But things like homework or tests and things like that.
[00:47:13] I'd be like, you know what, like giving someone a writing assignment.
[00:47:16] Yeah. In a college setting, they're going to use generative AI at some point, right?
[00:47:21] Either to do a first edition or to do the editing or to do, you know, citations,
[00:47:26] like all these things that we just have to somehow find a way that it's now
[00:47:29] just a tool we use and it's adopted because that's how and how to use
[00:47:33] creative problem solving that we have this tool in order to optimize
[00:47:37] the end result. So it's really it's a fascinating time that we're living
[00:47:41] in. I never thought I would see this, but it's all yeah.
[00:47:44] No, no. Interesting and weirder, I think as we go.
[00:47:47] Yeah. There was a film, I think it's called The Curate, The Create,
[00:47:51] the the creator, which was on, you know, on the movie's recent
[00:47:53] a while ago, and it's the battle of those who don't want AI
[00:47:58] and robots and those who don't necessarily do, but are more
[00:48:02] I just found it really fascinating because of the twist in the story
[00:48:06] towards the end. And I was like, actually, that's the way we need to think about it.
[00:48:10] How do we work with this?
[00:48:12] Because the genie is not going back in the ball and things are, you know,
[00:48:17] I'm using AI. I'm using AI in my own business, not to the extent
[00:48:20] that big businesses are using it, but I'm using it, you know, to
[00:48:26] make my content more available in a wider range of formats.
[00:48:31] So it's still my content. It's still me.
[00:48:34] But actually, instead of having one format, I can have it in nine
[00:48:39] formats.
[00:48:42] Right.
[00:48:43] Right. And that and that's just
[00:48:47] that's just to get started, right?
[00:48:49] Like that's kind of the bare minimum that you can use it for.
[00:48:52] And people are starting to figure it out.
[00:48:53] And even like, you know, people say like, well, an AI prompter is
[00:48:56] a job or an occupation that can really start to be something people train for.
[00:49:01] I think that's got a shelf life.
[00:49:03] Yeah. It's only we're only going to need AI prompters for a couple of years.
[00:49:06] And then it's going to become so good and so easy to use.
[00:49:10] And I actually, I was listening to an interview I was on recently with
[00:49:14] Mo and Matthew and I'm like, I said something in that interview
[00:49:17] and I listened to it a month later when it came out.
[00:49:19] And like, you know, I completely changed my mind for what I said 30 days ago
[00:49:22] on that recording, because now it's things are starting to move so quickly.
[00:49:26] I'm like, that that's the struggle.
[00:49:27] Like I refrain from saying things about AI because by the time
[00:49:30] a recording comes out, man, it's like, well, I changed my mind already
[00:49:33] because something new happened.
[00:49:34] So anyway, it's it's one of those things that
[00:49:39] I just excited to see where it goes, but also very cautiously.
[00:49:43] Where we go.
[00:49:45] Yeah, if we could there's another
[00:49:45] signature we can go back home way.
[00:49:50] Yeah, right. Right.
[00:49:51] Well, I bought a little bit in the video.
[00:49:53] So hopefully that works.
[00:49:54] OK, so let's talk about this.
[00:49:56] We have a slide here.
[00:49:57] It's first best first job ever.
[00:49:59] Fitness 24 seven like give us some insights.
[00:50:01] But OK, so I've mentioned them a little bit in this in this conversation.
[00:50:07] So fitness 24 seven are a high volume, low cost operator based out of Sweden.
[00:50:15] They have clubs in five countries that have nearly 300 locations,
[00:50:20] but they're very much low staff model and low cost.
[00:50:25] And you know, it was them that said to me, look, we do have staff,
[00:50:28] but they're mainly students.
[00:50:29] They work part time.
[00:50:31] How do we retain them?
[00:50:33] And so we came up with this idea and I wish I'd I wish I'd originated that
[00:50:37] title actually comes from somewhere else.
[00:50:39] I've read it and it was like, OK, why don't we say to them
[00:50:42] if you come and work here on a part time basis,
[00:50:47] we will teach you life skills that will help you when you graduate
[00:50:52] and throughout your life to get the jobs you want
[00:50:55] and to actually make life easier for you.
[00:50:57] And so we built into that decision making
[00:51:04] training, conflict resolution training,
[00:51:07] T building activities, communication skills.
[00:51:10] And our concept was if you can train that over one or two days
[00:51:15] before someone starts as well as the things they need to do to learn
[00:51:19] to do the job. So it's like, can you if you're on site?
[00:51:23] And a member says I've had problems with my billing.
[00:51:25] Can you rectify that?
[00:51:27] So there was the actual processes they need to learn as well.
[00:51:30] But actually, they could then go away once you know,
[00:51:34] they could work for six months, develop these extra skills,
[00:51:38] be useful to the business.
[00:51:40] And then if they moved on, it's actually quite easy to replace them
[00:51:44] if we're training people in exactly the same format.
[00:51:47] So like a McDonald's or like a Chick-fil-A.
[00:51:51] This is how you make this.
[00:51:52] This is how you do this.
[00:51:53] It's a very process driven.
[00:51:56] But then they could go and do their job interview for whatever
[00:51:59] they studied for.
[00:52:01] And when the interviewer was saying, so what would you do in this situation?
[00:52:05] So when I was working at Fitness 24-7, these are the problems we had.
[00:52:09] And this is what I had to do to solve them.
[00:52:11] And so it was like, let's collaborate in a way where
[00:52:15] you're going to give me six months and I'm going to give you skills
[00:52:18] that you wouldn't get just from doing your academic studies.
[00:52:24] Yeah, I love that. I love it.
[00:52:26] There's something I want to ask you about.
[00:52:28] It's not really what on our agenda, but it's come out this week
[00:52:31] or the last few weeks and I've seen it on LinkedIn.
[00:52:34] It's going to stop sharing for now.
[00:52:35] But we talk about the younger generations a lot.
[00:52:38] Yeah. And I feel like there is a...
[00:52:43] What about the older generations?
[00:52:45] Right? Like now we're starting to see people are living longer.
[00:52:48] You know, they're having to get back to work, maybe in their 60s
[00:52:50] or 70s or older.
[00:52:53] And sometimes they're just not that welcome back in the industry.
[00:52:56] So when you look at, like, let's say the over 65 generation,
[00:53:01] like how are they being addressed or treated within the fitness industry workplace?
[00:53:07] I think the majority of owners and operators don't address them at all.
[00:53:12] It's like, I don't even think they think about having someone of that age
[00:53:16] in their clubs yet.
[00:53:18] Those people generally have enough life experiences and life skills
[00:53:22] that they can do all of the things I've just described
[00:53:25] in what we're training staff to do.
[00:53:27] They've had long enough to do conflict resolution.
[00:53:30] They know often they're willing to work the hours
[00:53:33] because they often don't have the commitments outside of work
[00:53:36] that younger people have.
[00:53:39] You know, they're like, well, what hours do you want me to work?
[00:53:41] Can you be in at five? Yeah, fine.
[00:53:43] You know, it's not as big a deal because he's actually,
[00:53:46] well, actually I'm getting up at 4.30 because I can't sleep anyway.
[00:53:49] I might as well come to work and be finished by 9.
[00:53:52] And then I've earned some money and I've got the rest of my day.
[00:53:54] I think they are very underutilised.
[00:53:57] But I do think if we go back to that concept of generational club,
[00:54:01] there are clubs where older people would fit in and clubs where they wouldn't.
[00:54:06] You know, you don't want someone there as almost like the token older person
[00:54:11] who everybody's like, oh, you know, they're having to still work.
[00:54:16] You know, will be nice to you want them to genuinely add value
[00:54:20] to the experience more than just someone standing and meeting a greeting
[00:54:24] going, you know, welcome to Walmart today or thank you for coming to home base.
[00:54:29] You want them to actually be adding things.
[00:54:32] And but I don't think a lot of operators think like that
[00:54:34] because they're thinking they cost too much.
[00:54:37] They won't want to do the work.
[00:54:39] Yeah. If you look in places like YMCA's and JCC's,
[00:54:43] there's lots of those people doing that on a voluntary basis.
[00:54:45] They're not even asking for money.
[00:54:47] They're saying, make use of me.
[00:54:50] Make me make my day feel of value and I will contribute to what you're doing.
[00:54:55] So I think the commercial side is missing out on a huge amount of people
[00:55:01] that would really, really help.
[00:55:03] And you know, and a lot of those people also would be really good managers
[00:55:06] because they know how to manage or they've managed other types of businesses.
[00:55:10] But I think that I think those are the issues.
[00:55:12] I think it's we don't think they'll work the hours.
[00:55:14] They don't think they work for the money.
[00:55:16] And we're thinking about doing really basic roles
[00:55:19] where actually they could probably do some of the more, more senior roles easily.
[00:55:25] Yeah. Yeah. Really interesting.
[00:55:26] I agree. You know, in the last few minutes that we have here,
[00:55:29] this is probably a whole nother podcast episode.
[00:55:33] But technology is role in staffing moving forward.
[00:55:38] Right. And you know, there's a lot of concerns in a lot of different areas,
[00:55:42] a lot of different verticals about technology taking over jobs.
[00:55:47] So it's hard to talk about staffing in the future,
[00:55:49] staffing with their industry without talking about like,
[00:55:51] well, what will tell what will technology take over?
[00:55:54] What will it replace? What will it augment?
[00:55:56] So when you look at like maybe in the next three years,
[00:55:59] because I feel like that's the only fear of time horizon we can really talk about.
[00:56:02] Where do you see where are you concerned for jobs within the industry
[00:56:06] and staffing and where do you think new opportunities may arise?
[00:56:09] I think my biggest concern in terms of roles at the moment would be in personal training,
[00:56:16] because now with things like chat, GPT, you know,
[00:56:19] if we've got AI systems that can detect cancer better than oncologists can,
[00:56:28] you know, and we've got systems now that can probably write an exercise program
[00:56:31] as good as the best exercise program writers in the world.
[00:56:34] And that will only continue to evolve.
[00:56:36] What's the role of the personal trainer?
[00:56:38] Will the trainers role still be the writing the program side?
[00:56:44] Or will it just be the facilitating of that program?
[00:56:47] I was fortunate to work for an NFL team when I was very young
[00:56:53] and new to the industry as a volunteer,
[00:56:56] as an assistant strength conditioning coach.
[00:56:58] But my role was take the program from the head coach every morning
[00:57:02] with the athlete's name on it and just make sure they did that workout.
[00:57:06] Now, that role has evolved much over the years,
[00:57:09] but I think it's actually going to go back to being that there'll be a
[00:57:13] based on all the biometrics that are coming back in and all the biomarkers.
[00:57:18] This is the workout for that athlete today.
[00:57:20] And I think the same will be for personal trainers.
[00:57:22] And I think where they'll have to reskill is actually in
[00:57:26] making the work out and experience rather than counting reps
[00:57:33] and writing the actual program.
[00:57:35] So I think it's going to be much more of the how do I motivate
[00:57:39] and infuse that person while spotting and more than just standing there,
[00:57:44] which I sometimes see a lot of, you know, just counting.
[00:57:48] I don't need you to stand next to me and count.
[00:57:50] I'm going to pay for someone who can actually
[00:57:53] for like make the program that's been designed for me fulfilled.
[00:57:57] I think in other areas of the business,
[00:57:59] I think front of house will actually stay stronger or get stronger
[00:58:03] because it's when technology fails, we're going to go to a person.
[00:58:07] You know, there's a lot of call centres were started by businesses
[00:58:10] who thought actually if there's something, you know, people were there.
[00:58:14] We're putting a chat bar and then that allowed to the question.
[00:58:17] And when it could not answer the question, people found the call centre
[00:58:21] and the number of calls that go to the call centre doubled
[00:58:24] because the chat got in the way of solving the problem.
[00:58:27] And I think that's where the human elements going to be in the process.
[00:58:31] Yeah, yeah, I would agree with you.
[00:58:33] I think the personal training coaching
[00:58:37] is going to have to change quite a bit.
[00:58:39] And my prediction is that great coaches will be able to handle more and more clients.
[00:58:44] And I think one's ability to essentially the fundamental life coaching, right?
[00:58:49] Relational understanding, empathy, like, you know, guidance,
[00:58:52] inspiration, motivation, all those things are very human.
[00:58:55] And I don't always like this term, but those who have a brand, right?
[00:59:00] That are a trusted brand within the industry.
[00:59:02] People know them. They know what they stand for.
[00:59:05] I think that'll be really critical.
[00:59:06] And those people instead of being a work with, you know, maybe 20 clients,
[00:59:10] you know, a technology advancement program.
[00:59:12] Because the hardest thing about training and I did it for so many years
[00:59:14] is, you know, spend my entire Sunday is programming, right?
[00:59:17] Writing programs and that's going to be taken care of.
[00:59:20] And that's very time consuming.
[00:59:21] So now you can start to work more and more clients doing those interpersonal things
[00:59:24] because, man, like anyone who's written programs know if I'm writing you a six week
[00:59:28] program, Paul, and then I write it and it's all set.
[00:59:32] I finish it's beautiful.
[00:59:34] Like, it's great.
[00:59:35] I'm ready. This is exactly what Paul needs.
[00:59:37] Then on Wednesday, you call me like, oh, I forgot to tell you I'm going on vacation.
[00:59:41] Yeah. Oh, geez, man.
[00:59:42] You know, I pulled my back and everything's thrown around.
[00:59:45] All that we don't have to worry about that as trainers and coaches anymore.
[00:59:48] It'll just augment, right?
[00:59:49] It'll just change.
[00:59:51] Yeah, I think you will be.
[00:59:52] So again, I think you'll be.
[00:59:54] It's a dinosaur.
[00:59:55] I think it'll be all about the training and the training.
[00:59:58] Hold on.
[00:59:59] Can wrap things up.
[00:59:59] Our trainers will be less about the anatomy and physiology
[01:00:04] and more about interpersonal skills, like you said, life coaching and like.
[01:00:08] Yeah. Yeah.
[01:00:09] So give us an idea like over, you know, Q3, Q4,
[01:00:13] where can people find Dr. Paul Bedford?
[01:00:16] Where are you going to be in real person in real life?
[01:00:19] As the kids say now, IRL.
[01:00:21] Where can they find you?
[01:00:22] Awesome. Well, I've thoroughly enjoyed it.
[01:00:25] I've enjoyed all of our, you know, limited number of conversations so far.
[01:00:30] And thank you for doing this.
[01:00:31] I look forward to having you back on about a year.
[01:00:34] Maybe we could do this regularly.
[01:00:35] And yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Paul Bedford.
[01:00:40] Hey, wait, don't leave yet.
[01:00:42] This is your host, Eric Malzone.
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