Overcome Fear And Create Your Dream Life

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life

Jonathan Goodman is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, speaker and one of the most influential and well-respected guys in the fitness industry. He is the founder of the Personal Trainer Development Center (the PTDC) and the Online Trainer Academy. He has sold tens of thousands of copies of his books including non-fiction, children, and the first-ever textbook for online fitness trainers. He writes about personal training, online training, and enjoys philosophizing and experimenting with new media. Through The Personal Trainer Development Center Jon helps fitness trainers leverage their expertise to stop trading time for money. He loves fitness, hates bad socks and considers himself to be a key lime pie connoisseur.

In this episode we’ll be discussing how he creates businesses and books from a place of fascination and curiosity. Jon discusses a concept that he calls “the ignorance quotient,” and how it’s key in not being paralyzed by fear. He also shares the fastest, most logical way to replace your income and get to your “freedom number.”

Key Points From This Episode:

• Jon shares his background and how he got into entrepreneurship in the first place.
• Hear how Jon gravitates toward doing stuff that is highly engaging with him.
• Learn what Jon refers to as the ignorance quotient.
• Find out how to find that level of where you have enough information but not too much.
• Listen as Jon tells us how personal training forced him to be entrepreneurial.
• Understand the pros and cons of starting a gym versus scaling online.
• Discover how creating content is what gets Jon excited in the morning.
• Jon tells us about his first book, Ignite the Fire, that he wrote at the age of 24 years.
• Hear how Jon promoted his book, Ignite The Fire, through activation.
• Learn how Jon uses mutual relationships to get noticed by highly respected entrepreneurs.
• Find out how Jon optimizes his life to make it more efficient.
• Listen as Jon tells us how he has tried to master his writing.
• Discover how pen and paper is something Jon is very passionate about.
• Hear more about what Jon has defined as the freedom number.
• Learn to look at what skills you have and what’s the highest yield.
• Find out how to figure out what your skill is.
• Understand what failure means to Jon and how he gets past it.
• Hear Jon talk about how he shut down a membership site that didn’t fit his model.
• Learn how it affected Jon’s business and about his other revenue streams.
• Find out how a certification for online personal trainers is Jon’s biggest revenue stream.
• Discover the biggest mistake that Jon sees up and coming online trainers make.
• Understand how to try a bunch of things but ultimately focus on the main things.
• Hear what social media platforms Jon uses in his business.
• Understand more about Jon’s books and how well they sell.
• Discover why Jon’s wife is the person who has had the most profound impact on his life.
• Find out what’s on the horizon for Jon.
• And much more!

Tweetables:

“Fear is simply an irrational response to the unknown.” — @jon_ptdc

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[0:07:38].1]

“The first step to fixing any problem is defining a problem.” — @jon_ptdc

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[0:25:39].1]

“We have way too many solutions and we have way too few good questions.” — @jon_ptdc

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[0:30:20].1]

“The beautiful thing about working online is you can build the perfect model for you in your life.” — @jon_ptdc

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[0:38:46].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Jonathan Goodman – http://www.jonathangoodman.ca/

Online Trainer Academy – http://onlinetraineracademy.theptdc.com

Jonathan on Twitter – https://twitter.com/jon_ptdc

Jon’s Book, Ignite the Fire – https://www.amazon.com/Ignite-Fire-Building-Successful-Personal/dp/1505787610/

Jon’s Book, Personal Trainer Pocketbook – https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Trainer-Pocketbook-Reference-Questions/dp/1505839793/

Body and Soul Fitness Toronto – http://www.bodyandsoul.ca/

Dan Demsky – https://unboundmerino.com/

James Altucher – http://www.jamesaltucher.com/

Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/

Audible – http://www.audible.com/

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 016

“JG: The first step is to get yourself to what I call free, I mean this free number right? With the buzz word but get yourself to the point where you’re free because once you’re at that freedom number then you can breathe and then your mind can relax and I think that’s the really beautiful tipping point. When you know that you’re taken care of and your people that you love are taken care of, you can fail and that’s - I mean, freedom is providing yourself the opportunity to fail. Like you can fail forward, you can do all these things that business guru’s tell you to do. Try and don’t care if you fail and fail, it makes you stronger. Well that’s nice if you know that failing won’t crush you.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:40.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:01:03.6] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes you are destined for more and that failing your way to an inspired life is the only way to get there. Today we’re learning from Jonathan Goodman, Jon’s a bestselling author, entrepreneur, speaker and one of the most influential and well-respected guys in the fitness industry.

Jon loves fitness, hates bad socks and considers himself to be a key lime pie connoisseur. I actually consider myself to be a strawberry cheesecake connoisseur so we’ve got to compare notes but he is the creator of the Personal Trainer Development Center where he helps fitness trainers leverage their expertise to stop trading time for money.

We’ll be discussing how he creates businesses and books from a place of fascination and curiosity. His concept of what he calls “the ignorance quotient” and how it’s actually the key to taking action and not being paralyzed by fear and the fastest most logical way to replace your income if you are currently employed and trying to get to what Jon coins the freedom number.

But first, if you’d like to stay up to date on all fail on podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:19.2] RN: Hello and welcome to The Fail On podcast, I am sitting down today with Mr. Jon Goodman, he has been nice enough to host us in his office here in Toronto so welcome to the show Jon.

[0:02:29.5] JG: Thanks for making the trip.

[0:02:30.8] RN: Thanks for putting us up in your office right now. Just a little context, what part of Toronto is this? Just so they have an idea?

[0:02:37.9] JG: Yeah, absolutely, this is just west of Toronto, it’s kind of like the border of what’s called Mimico Topico, right on the water. Toronto has got this incredible water front, it’s like a U shape so we’re on the lake and we’re looking across the water at the city, it’s the best place to be.

[0:02:52.2] RN: No, I always loved Toronto, I’ve come probably three or four times this past year and actually the weather’s usually like, I know it’s April now. Weather’s usually better than this.

[0:03:03.0] JG: Yeah. I mean, this is…

[0:03:05.1] RN: This is the guy that spends every winter outside of Toronto.

[0:03:06.1] JG: Right. I was just telling you before we started recording that this is the first year that I’ve been back in six years. I haven’t spent a winter here in a long time so I don’t know what winter is like anymore.

I haven’t put on hockey skates in six years. I picked up a hockey puck yesterday and I was like “yeah, this is what this thing looks like.”

[0:03:21.7] RN: So funny because I was out with some friends last night for dinner and it’s just so different because everybody’s talking about like hockey, because everybody grows up playing hockey, where I’m from in Georgia it’s like baseball or soccer. It’s just so different because hockey’s not even a thing in Georgia.

Although it did have the Atlanta Thrashers for a hot minute.

[0:03:40.6] JG: Yeah, that was unfortunate.

[0:03:44.3] RN: Yeah man, just to hop in to it, why don’t you go through some of your background and what got you into entrepreneurship in the first place?

[0:03:50.9] JG: Sure, I guess if I looked back, I was always kind of an entrepreneur, I never actually worked for anybody else but I studied kinesiology in a university like excess science. I was a personal trainer in a university from years two to four at the university gym and then when I graduated, the goal was always to go into medicine to be honest.

I was like, “I’ll take a couple of years and be a personal trainer full time” and I obviously never went to medicine. I was a personal trainer so I worked for myself. I mean, the best trainers are entrepreneurs, we got to develop our own business.

I kind of hit a point at like 23 years old where I was making as much as I could make as a trainer in Toronto, I was referring my overflow clients to other people, I was managing a group of 10 trainers at that point.

[0:04:25.1] RN: Where were you training people? You don’t have your own gym right?

[0:04:27.1] JG: No, I was training out of a gym called Body and Soul Fitness in Toronto.

[0:04:30.4] RN: It’s your own business, they just…

[0:04:31.5] JG: It wasn’t my business.

[0:04:32.9] RN: Got you, so you were working for them.

[0:04:34.3] JG: I was a contractor for them.

[0:04:35.1] RN: Got it.

[0:04:35.6] JG: I just decided that I needed to figure out a way to make money when I’m not on my feet and wrote a book for trainers at 24 years old and started a website at 25 and now we’re here somehow.

[0:04:46.7] RN: I can relate man, I grew up playing tennis and played tennis in university and then coached afterwards and it’s just like you said, you’re on your feet all day, you have to be enthusiastic, super engaged, it’s taxing work. People don’t feel like tennis coach or a personal trainer, you just stand there.

It’s a lot of mental and physical work actually.

[0:05:05.4] JG: Yeah.

[0:05:05.9] RN: Yeah, along those lines, what made you kind of have the entrepreneurship itch to actually try to scale that into doing something else?

[0:05:15.1] JG: That’s a good question. Hindsight is 20/20 right? I don’t’ really know, I guess if I looked back and I was just kind of making it up as I went, I was very fortunate I graduated that free.

I was able to have a lot of success early on and put a lot of money in the bank early on so I could fail and not really have a lot of risk. I never really knew what an entrepreneur was, like this is before like being an entrepreneur was sexy right? I never knew what it was, I’m from a family where every adult I ever knew was a doctor, a lawyer or accountant, business man, teacher, whatever.

I don’t know. I felt like writing a book so I wrote a book. Then I was like “well, crap, I need to figure out a way to promote this book” so I started a website and then the website just started to grow so I was like, “well this is fun.”

That’s kind of what I do now to be honest. I just chase things that are fun and interesting. I mean, there’s some strategy involved obviously but for the most part, it’s whatever is highly engaging with me. I mean, I think – there’s not that much to it, I wish that there was like a masterplan that I could like, “you see, I had all of this balls in my cord and I organized them strategically”. No.

I just kind of piled – I just produced stuff and piled stuff because it was fun.

[0:06:29.4] RN: It’s an important lesson right? Because I think a lot of people get paralyzed by thinking they have to have that masterplan when in reality, you just put one foot in front of the other and actually do something right? Take the first step.

[0:06:41.1] JG: I’ve got this concept that I play around with a lot that I call the ignorance quotient and I don’t know where it is exactly, I haven’t been able to quantify it yet but I feel like one of the plagues today in society is that we know too much, that we have access to too much information and it paralyzes us always thinking that we need to know more before we do something.

I’m of the belief that there was probably a point where you need to know enough about something and then just so you don’t really screw up right? Anything beyond that is actually a disservice.

[0:07:11.5] RN: How do you find that level of where you know you have enough information but not too much where you’re stuck.

[0:07:17.6] JG: I think you find that level, again, I haven’t been able to quantify this, I’d actually love to quantify it somehow.

[0:07:22.2] RN: it would be so cool, yeah.

[0:07:23.9] JG: I believe that that level is somewhere between knowing what action to take next, like being able to basically map out a trajectory but also being...