what does it mean to live life to the fullest train to your potential and perform at your best, leave nothing on the table. That's a non negotiable is that I strive to be better every day because if I'm not on top of my game, how is anybody else gonna follow me down the road? Keep demanding more of yourself to live up to that potential and to stay hungry. Training is progress. You know, when I look at the word training, I think of steps, baby steps to get somewhere that you want to be and that is basically your life journey. That's a mindset in itself man, it's like it's not just about, I know that for you, a lot of that's about the physical, but we're constantly in training, whether it's growing our skill sets, whether it's growing up physical bodies, whether it's growing our relationships whatever and all of that is a training ground and that kind of goes back to the mindset that we just talked about. You underestimate yourself and you don't even start, but then once you start, you often surpass what you thought you could do perform at your best mate. That's that's sort of what life is all about. You don't have the knowledge and have the fitness, the healthy ambition and drive that no matter what comes along.

When that next phone call comes, I can just say yes, I don't have to worry, just go and do it. Hey guys, welcome to this episode of the live transform podcast, I'm your host, Sean Cobra and joining me today is john Latakia, otherwise known as J. L. T. Welcome to the episode mate. Very good, very well. You too bro. Um so this is one of my coaches corner episodes or conversations where I sit down with good coaches in the industry, friends, colleagues that I respect and just have a general conversation with them, shoot the shit. So for anyone listening, it's a little bit of a fly on the wall type of conversation. So J Lt's been kind enough to join us today and we're gonna be going through some F A. Q. S. Um Now when these episodes drop, I'm gonna split these uh going to be about an hour's conversation and I'll split these um conversations up over probably 2 to 3, maybe four segments. But when these episodes drop, it's going to be right smack bang in the middle of the festive season.

So the first episodes actually gonna drop the day before christmas and then the next two episodes will drop between christmas, New Year's And if there's a 4th one, if we get to that, then that will drop right after new years. So um that's what I want to talk about is how people can kind of navigate the festive season and um you know, give him some hints, tips tricks strategies to get them through the festive season, navigate through a fairly, you know, can be a difficult time in people's lives when they go through the festive season and they don't have any strategies. So, um, I'm excited to have a chat to you and dig into all things health and fitness. Where do you want to start on christmas then? Uh, let's start with who you are first? Yeah, well, I mean, I've been doing this now would be 2020, I think I'm losing track of what year it is, but 10 years ago now was when I came back to Gansey, which a lot of your listeners probably have no idea where that is. It's actually a tiny island between England and France is it comes under Britain.

Uh, and I started fitness camps back in 2010 when they were only just becoming a thing, you know, at that point. Group fitness was your body pumps, you know, stuff was going on in the gym and I've always come back and a bit like yourself, you know, I've come from a more of a strength and conditioning background of sports background and my aim has always been how do we marry up the stuff that we know works for athletes and sports people, but bringing into the arena for joe average, which it's a very powerful thing if you can figure it out, but it obviously can be very difficult and, you know, that's, that's been my journey along the way, so much has happened. This is probably the 4th, 4th sort of manifestation of Storm Force fitness. Now, we've got about 100 and 50 members of our group stuff, person training, I've also trained athletes and sports teams along the way, done a lot, myself, kind of individually cycled across Australia, which I know will be a bit of a, did you say site cycle across it, that's normally what I get.

Is that, is that a motor baikal? But you know, I've done a lot of crazy challenges like that, and that's given me, in my opinion anyway, kind of, unique outlook on how to train people, uh you know, where to start from, how we progress people and really, which is something we're gonna get into very much on this podcast, is no one is the same, you know, we all, I think it's coaches, we all want to find that one way to do things like even this question here about christmas, there will be somebody going, all right, this guy is going to tell me that magic christmas plan and they're probably gonna be sadly disappointed, but you know, then that's really what I've discovered is that everybody is very, very different and you have to be willing as a coach to look at things on an individual basis, take what I call the non negotiables and then sort of splay those out, depending what you're dealing with. So, Yeah, that's you know, there's there's been a lot of stuff going on in the 10 years, obviously I met you out in Thailand I did have a gym, I opened a full on jim in our town centre here, and to cut a long story short, the building broke, and I lost a lot of money, and just whether I fuck it, I'm going to go traveling and then decide what happens from there, which is why I spent a bit of time out in Thailand and bali and doing all of that.

So that's also helped me on the mindset level, which is something we need to cover. As always, you know, that almost feeling like a failure, wondering what other people are thinking about you, and ultimately just going like, this is my life. I need to decide how it's gonna work and how it's gonna pan out from here, stop blaming things and blaming other people and yeah, decide what the future is gonna look like. So that's pretty much meaning that Shell. Yeah, man, there's a lot of things that you brought up there in that very relevant, um but that's a good point. The first thing I want to start with is, you know, I've spoken to you about this before, and that's why I wanted to get you on this is the coach's corner, was we just talk shit, you know, um, have an honest conversation, and I always say a man, like, any good coach is, you know, we're gonna follow principles, you know, we might use different methods to get person like that person from Point A to point B um, you know, we're going to take slightly different paths, but at the end of the day we work within parameters, this is my left of art, this is my ride of arc and as long as I stick within them, like I follow the principles and the methods that I use need to be applied to the individual as you said, like any fucking good coach man, if somebody asked me a question on nutrition or training or lifestyle or health and wellness, like anything, my answer is always it depends.

Yeah man. Um and I think it's important for people to understand that as coaches, if you've got a fucking good coach and you know, you ask them a question, they're gonna ask you five questions before they can before they can give you any advice because they need to gather the data, they need to gather the information, they need to get an understanding of where you're at right now and where you want to get to so then they can help you fill in or close that gap. Anything to add to that? Yeah, I've had maybe 10, 15 people over my career, almost offended by I send them a form and I just send you my form, that's where the start point, you know, send that back to me. It gives me an idea how to approach the consultation. You know, if I'm speaking, you know, you decide you want to be a my tie fighter. You know, the consultation is going to be vastly different to jilly housewife who comes in, who's six phone overweight and postmenopausal and all that stuff. So I've had a lot of people going or do I really have to fill in this form, you know, my consultation is generally a sort of 60-90 minutes.

I do things like foot scanning and movement assessments and all of this jazz, and I've always found it weird that a lot of people don't want to do that stuff, it's like, you know, you're asking me for things that essentially you want me to help you change your life, but you don't want to fill in a form and it's that alone, sometimes it's like, you know, we talk about red flags in relationships and I'm like, look, if this person doesn't want to fill in a form, are they gonna fill in the nutrition diary, are they gonna, you know, when, when times get busy and the kids are playing up, are they gonna be turning up for their session? And the odds are they're probably not, and that's something you, you know, you have been through as a coach, you you just learned that along the way, you kind of, you almost don't want to admit it because you as a coach, you want to, you know, you want to have 100% success rate and I just realized that's never gonna happen either, But yeah, it's amazing for me how many people are not willing to answer the questions and also how many coaches aren't willing to ask the questions and, you know, a lot of people, admittedly I've done it myself in the past, I've had somebody who comes in quite a powerful personality, maybe a very high up in business and they're like, look, I've got time for this.

I just want to get training, I want to lose weight. Okay, so, okay, so we'll do it your way and inevitably it doesn't work and it falls apart. And I think sometimes as well, there seems to be like a, I don't know if it's a lack of respect for fitness professionals to use a term, but, you know, if you go to an osteo path, you go to a physio, you, you almost expect them to ask you questions and assess and do all these kind of things. And yet when it comes to nutrition and training programs, there's like this mentality that just, just give me, click your fingers, give me that program that works. I'll do it. And you know, I wish it weren't like that because my life would be easier. I'd make a lot more money. It would take me a lot less time, but you know, it just, it just doesn't work like that. So I think that, you know, that's gonna be the foundation for a lot of stuff we're gonna talk about today is what are the right questions, you know, I guess you must know, dan john yes. Yeah, he's unfortunately either I'm used to get a bit of time with him at his house once over in Utah, we had some good conversations and he said one of the biggest mistakes or one of the biggest things people don't seem to understand is that when you look at a I called joe average and athletes, is that an athlete will be crystal clear about point B.

You know, the guys, you deal with petty and I want to win UFC title. Boom. End of story, There's nothing else to it. You know, even like a runner, there'll be, I want to get my 10-K time down to 34 minutes 20 because that's the county record, Whatever it might be. They know point be strange with athletes is a very rarely know their.8, but they don't understand their movement dysfunction. They don't understand how strong they are, how strong they should be and so on. So the questions are very different and the assessments are very different. Whereas if we're talking to julie housewife, She's crystal clear about.8. She's Fed up crying every day. She hates us. Yeah, but she's got no idea about point being. She doesn't know how good she can feel because she's never been there. She doesn't know How, how Lean should I be. Should I look like a fitness model? You know, I hear 10% body fat is that, is that good for women? You know, they literally have no clue where they're going with it, which again, if you don't know point B then how are you ever going to write a successful program?

So again, that all comes under this arc of what are the questions, what are the right questions? Because you get those wrong and you're pissing up the wrong tree to start with? Yeah, 100% man. Um one of Dan John's quotes that has really stuck with me is if it's important, do it every day. And another thing that ties into what you just said there is, you know, if you're going to put the fucking time and effort into climbing up a mountain, make sure you're climbing the right fucking mountain. Yeah, there's so many good quotes about that. Like uh one of the friends, his quote is uh it's about, he actually wrote, they did a movie about the compass and how your personal compass. You know, again, you know this better than anybody from some experiences and the forces. If your compasses out by one degree in, you know, if you walk 10 m, you're, you're not really, of course you walk 100 m, you're not really of course, but you do that for 10 miles 100 kilometers, then all of a sudden you're like, oh shit, you know, we are miles away from where we need to be. And then unfortunately it then takes, it's almost more effort to then backtrack.

Uh, and so, you know, we talk about, even in terms of technique, you know, they say that it takes 300 perfect repetitions to learn a movement and ingrained in your brain, but it takes 500 to undo a bad one. So again, this is unfortunately, I know people have said this about me and you before, we're almost a bit bit stoic and a bit regimented and I know it comes across that way, but ultimately, in the long run we get a lot more done, we get stuff done a lot faster. You know, my mom used to say more haste, less speed and that's the problem. Uh, you know, for a lot of people in all sorts of whether it is a nutritional training, they want to get to the, they want to get to the end before they've taken the first few steps, and that's why it doesn't work. Yeah, and that's why they find themselves in this like perpetual fucking cycle where, you know, they take a couple steps forward, then take a couple steps back and a year later, they're still doing the same fucking thing and they're no better off than what they were or potentially even worse off than what they were just getting worse and worse.

Like now with, you know, with social media and everything, you're just constantly exposed to the pro in sports terms, it's the professionals, it's the keep coming back to the fighting, that's what you're doing, people see what the pros are doing. It. It's you know, Tiger for instance, you can, you turn up there for your holiday and you see what the pros to do is I'm gonna do that. It's like you have no idea, you have no idea the basics that they have drilled a billion times before. You know, you're exposed to that looks on social media, you're exposed to the fitness models. And unfortunately the way these algorithms and things work, the more popular someone is because they're a celebrity or whatever, the more they're going to be shown. So you start to believe that that is the way things have done. That is what I should be doing and that, You know, we talk, I talked to a lot of people in finance and one of the things in finances, they talk about opportunity costs as well. You know, in other words, advice if I invest 10 grand in this, the stock, this particular stock or share whatever you wanna call it.

I obviously then can't invest that 100 in share be. And this is what happens with social media is you might finally go, oh this copes knows what he's talking about and start following this program and five minutes you pay for that. They get going five minutes later, oh john toxins to know what he's talking about as well and Dave's got a good program. And as soon as you commit to one thing you're exposed to this massive opportunity, cost of what you're not doing. And then, you know, the term we use at the moment is foam. Oh, you know that fear of missing out. And then people actually now that I'm past the sort of initial phase of codes program, they got results and you know, things that are slowing a little bit as they do on any program. Then the opportunity could see costs always seems to get higher. So I'm not really do, I'm not really getting those great results anymore. I'll move on to this and move on to this and move on to this and you know, as tight as we just said about you're not asking the right questions at the right times. And that's the thing. The questions do change along the way, which is for me that's another important thing is you you don't just ask five questions.

Here's the perfect program that will work for five years. It doesn't work like that. Yeah, these are, these are the questions I'm going to ask now and this is the direction I'm going to take you in right now. But in four weeks time, six weeks time, eight weeks time I'm gonna ask some fucking different questions. So we're going to figure out where your new baseline is and then we're going to adjust, it gets harder and harder now because people are so busy. It's almost like I swear people feel like we're pestering them, Like just give me the workout and I'll do them, it doesn't work like that, I wanted to work like that. But um yeah, really, anybody listening to this is like, you have to keep questioning yourself, you have to keep questioning the program and as you say, a good coach will, in some ways do that for you, but ultimately the answers will come from you. So let your coach do their job. That's probably the message. Yeah man, there's and this fucking ties back into the very first thing that we're talking about about, you know, you sending that that form over to your clients, like if they're not going to fill out the fucking consultation form properly, like if they're not going to give you that information right there and then like what's going to make them give you the information to the questions that you're asking as you go through the program, it's not going to happen, so I send my potential clients if they want to work with me, they want to do online coaching.

I send them through my questionnaire if they don't fucking reply to the answers, I don't take them on, you know, So I put it back on to them, I'm like well if you can't even commit to replying to this fucking email, then you're not going to give me the information, you're not going to tell me what's going on in your life. So then I can guide you to, you know, figure out the answers for yourself, um, and provide the advice and guidance for where you're at right now and what you need to do to move you in the right direction, to either move you in the right direction or maintain where you're at or fucking stop yourself from sabotaging yourself and taking those three steps backwards. Yeah, I've got a great friend over here, Dax more. He's been a very good mentor to me in a great coaching. He said once, you know, I realized the attitude or one of the attitude I need to take is I'm not putting in more effort than you are. And that's the thing I have with clients. You know, a lot of people don't realize, you know, where every monday morning I sit down, I go through my mind clients, my real life clients, as I call them, but what do we need in this program?

Okay. We love you look at your nutrition. You know, I'm not putting in all of that effort and thinking about what I need to give you if you're not even willing to like you said, answer these questions or fill in the little diary and the amount of times I have to chase people and say, how did how did this we go? Like there's nothing you put nothing on on the software. I literally working with. Oh yeah, sorry. I was just kind of forgot, Yeah, I did. I did that work out, but I didn't do that one. I'm like, you know, I'm not sitting down for an hour. Even if you're paying me, there comes a point, you know, all right, Maybe a privileges and there's a more advanced coach and you've got more clients. You can just go, look, I've had enough and I don't care about your money, but I want to work with people and without going too much on track. You know, if there's any newer coaches listening to this, I think that's an important business thing as well. It's like, don't be afraid to fire clients because in the long run it will work in your favor because you will get known for almost like everybody you work with, you get great results. You know, you don't have these tire kickers who are then going to go, oh, did john's program?

It doesn't work. And I didn't lose weight, john's program. That's 100% man. And that's that self selection bias as well. And you know, like, yes, I sent through some questions that we want to talk about to give people some advice through the festive season. But dude, this is a fucking important conversation. That's what this whole segment is about, is like giving people this information like this is what we're looking at as coaches, you know, and if you are a new trainer and new coach like, yeah, you need to fucking put in the time and the effort and you need to take everyone on board so that you can figure out, you know the jigsaw puzzle of a fucking human being and every single person's individual needs and responses and all that type of stuff, but then as you get better at your craft then you can start refining it and then you can start building your niche and this is where you know like you said man you you fucking you start um kind of screening your clients before you take them on and that's important man because then you actually know that I mean when I first started I was charging like 300 bucks or I think it was like 200 bucks for three months or something like that man was cheap as fuck when I first started my online coaching um it's three times the amount of that now um you know and that's and that wiggles people out that you know again they remove themselves from that once they find out the price.

But then I know the people who are paying the price and they are filling out the questionnaire and you know are doing everything that I ask of them, I know that they're invested and I know that they're going to put in the time and effort um anything to add to that, I mean there's two sides to that coin for the coaches and the clients is like in in business terms. It's like they call it the velvet rope around your business. Like you know when you go to a nightclub it's they literally have like a velvet rope around it. And you know if your V. I. P. You're allowed to be on the rope and it's it's a way of having standards is like this, you know, if you're not wearing the right shoes, you're not coming in and that's from a business point of view, that's that's very important for you to to maintain standards. Um And I think you know if from a client side, if you are serious about getting results, it's a thing of going where you're kind of desired behaviors are required behaviors because then you know that will get, that should give the client confidence in the these guys have standards.

These guys expect this of me and therefore I can be confident that I will get results. You know, if you're just picking picking a coach because they got their abs out on instagram and things like that. You know, it's it literally means nothing in terms of results you're gonna get. So yeah, it's definitely definitely two sides to that coin and it's something like I said, I I ignored it as a younger naive coach because you literally you run your business on the wallet and pulse mentality. Uh this guy has got money, he's breathing and he moves, therefore I'll take him on as a client and you have to, man, that's how you learn. Yeah, that's how you learn. You don't do it. I think it's just stop doing it as soon as you can. Yeah. Yeah. And that's another good point that you just made them as well. Um you know, sometimes I'll get my online clients that will, you know, touch base with me a couple days before we've got a scheduled call and they're like, hey, I don't want to check in this week because you haven't been training, I've been eating shit, my sleep's been off blah blah blah.

I'm like, no, that's bullshit. I'm like, that's when my fucking job starts when shit is not going well. You know, if you get one of these fucking programs from an influencer or someone who doesn't really know what the fuck they're talking about or don't really care about you as a client. Like they're not going to be able to help you when the stars don't align, Like it's all, it's easy to fucking coach when things are going well right? But our job starts when life gets in the way man. Yeah, for sure. Like, I mean this was something, you know, we were talking about the mistakes people make and I think when it comes to the approach we're going to take. I say there's like three ways of doing this. You can take a gold based approach. You can take a process based approach and you can take an identity based approach. And for me, the problem we have these days is most people have a goal based approach in the Oh I see, I see. Coves on the internet and he's got a six pack, I want to look like that. Great. That's a good start. But then what it does to me that that kind of creates like this massive gap black.

I'm here, I should be here. I can't be happy until I get to that goal and there's no understanding of what's happening in between. There's no management process or so on. So there you go. Okay, well what about if I pay copes for a program and that will get me kind of through those steps. I now have that process in place. The problem with that is like you said then what happens when the conditions changed and this is something that happens massively in january. You know, we write first week of january, I might, you can still be off work. I'm just gonna train twice a day and eat cabbage and do all this sort of stuff and then once we get into work again and those stresses and the kids are back at school and I got to do the school run as soon as the environment changes. Now that magic process doesn't work. Do you have a way to navigate around it again? It's an old army term, you know, no plan survives contact with the enemy because everything looks good on paper. So the third approaches that I like to try and instill in people and this relates back to who you choose the coaches, the value based approach where you you understand who you want to be.

You understand how you want to live. You understand what to do on a daily basis. And you then it means every minute of the day, every incident that comes up, every problem you come up against you put it up against your values. And that's how you can then make the correct decision. And really that's the big secret to getting results is I can walk into a pub and I know what I'm trying to achieve and I can go, ok, I can have a couple of points Because I understand my values. I understand that I want to get up at 7:00 tomorrow morning and train. Whereas somebody who walks in a pub is like, oh, I've got my fitness plan, but I have I have no frame of reference for what to do in a pub. I have no frame of reference of what to do when I'm stressed. And that comes back to that clarity. Exactly. But this and and dude, like man, we we've literally fucking gone full circle and this is why we asked those questions in that original fucking email that we send to people is because I guarantee you they're not asking themselves those questions like almost every client that I've sent, that email they write back.

And I'm like, I've never actually thought about this stuff. It's like all right, well, you know, now we're giving you clarity. I'm guiding you to figure out your own fucking answers. So then, you know, you can provide that information to me so then I can put you in the right direction. And that rounds out the first installment of an 80 minute chat that I had with my make J. L. T. Of Storm Force Fitness. Uh Stay tuned for the next episode where we're gonna be diving into hints, tips and strategies to navigate through the festive season. Have very merry christmas guys, I will chat to you soon Peace.