Inside The GC
Episode 1: The Origin Story
Hi, I'm Jake and I'm Charlotte. Welcome to Inside the GC. This podcast has been on the cards for a good few six, nine, nine months in the making and it's just about finding the right time. And the reason why I thought of now is the right time is because we will recreate this podcast basically to help give advice. It's like unchugucoded advice to the everyday mum, the everyday gym goer, someone who maybe competes, someone who doesn't compete, novice, novice of the gym world. Exactly, because there's so much out there. There really is a sea of good advice, misinformation, misinformation, social media doesn't help right and there's so many contrasting opinions. So we just wanted to create this little pod, this space for anyone and everyone to hopefully get some value in some education out of it. And most importantly, sort of fast track you to your goals and not make the mistakes that so many people do. So this episode is going to be origin story about myself and Charlotte, how we go into the industry and how the game change has come to light. And hopefully you guys can take some good bits from it and implement it into your daily life. In the future, we're going to have some guests coming in, we're going to have some guest speakers and there's going to be a topic that we're touching on every single time. So you know what you're searching for when you look close up on Spotify and YouTube. So Charlotte, shall we go? Shall we go? Should we dive in and be ready? I am the interviewer for this little bit. So just a question for Jake to begin with is just like, how did you get into the fitness space? Cool, let's go. Right. So I was 18. So a long time ago now 32 says touching 15 years. When I first sort of did my PT qualification, so a long, long time ago, my original background was football. That's what I identified from was a footballer. And then I lived in Spain at the time. So trying to balance football or try being a professional football player and living in a place that is a holiday destination. And all your friends are PR's, DJs, and everything else in between. Yeah, it's hard to juggle the ball, I guess. So I sort of fell into the fitness industry due to injuries and circumstances. And at the time, I didn't want to stay in Spain because all of my friends still played football. I didn't want to go to England because all my friends played football. And I just wanted to create sort of like a new identity for myself. So I just googled fitness jobs abroad and sort of wanted to go as far away as I could. And then that's when I found a job on a cruise ship and started peeting on cruises in America, which was pretty cool, pretty fun way for young lad to go and travel and get paid for. So that's how it all started for me. And then 15 years later, we're in Milton Keynes and we are where we are. I always say Jake has nine lives because he's literally lived a whole nine lives like I'm not joking. You wait until I die and it's my stories of JW, not my memoirs. But yeah, how about you? So, I mean, mine started fairly young. I've always been into sport like literally from the age of like four, I would say. So I've always been in the kind of, yeah, I'm not even joking. I did gymnastics when I was younger. I then did all of like the school like sports that you do. I got into running when I was like 12. And then the minute, literally the day after I turned 16, I joined a gym. I'm pretty sure it was on my day. Could you have to be 16 to join the gym? Well, when I was like, like, you had to be 16, I think it's a lot younger now. I'm sure it's like 13 or something. But you can only be 16. So literally the day of my birthday I joined a gym. Yeah, I think because I've always been into health and fitness, it's just like kind of something that I've always like went into. I did sports science at uni and nutritional science for my masters. Unfortunately, for me, I was in the diet culture era. So like, I developed an eating disorder. So majority of my fitness journey so far was till up to about 21 was because I was like, misinformed about food and health and training and all that sort of stuff. So that's so common. So 1000 people your age, especially. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because I'm only 25 soon to be 26 in December. Feel a bit sick about that. But we so really sickly, I've been within this fitness space for, I mean, I've been a coach for four years. I got my PT when I was doing my masters. So I did it alongside fitness for about eight, 10 years. But obviously, as you say, like realistically, when you start training, you know, you don't know everything. So yeah, but yeah, like we were saying then I fell into the had an eating disorder. Unfortunately, body dysmorphia. And I think it's going to be really great to have this podcast to speak more about that as well. And like develop a bit more into that too. So yeah, I kind of went from the bad end of a fitness journey to now a really positive good end of the fitness journey. Yeah, which is great. Because you've you've learned all the lessons along the way that you can then help people like yourself and and show people how to get out of those those situations. But I feel like even people your age to the, you know, people, we've got clients in the gym right at that 40, 50, 60 year olds. Yeah. And they come from a different era to us, but the same where it was size zeros, no carbs, no carbs, or four marbs, all that kind of stuff. You open up an okay magazine, you're looking at the latest juice fad or 500 calorie diet, 600 calorie diets, the Atkins that you can, all those ones that came way before you is even able to remember them. And unfortunately, it's sort of still spread into your era and it's still around today. It's a lot better. I think it's a lot better. Like you see a lot more about, you know, the inclusion of all of the macros and making sure that people are training to be strong and not skinny and all of that sort of stuff. But yeah, there is still still very present in this day and age, which is very sad. But hopefully this this will help. And a lot of other podcasts that, you know, I mean, will help as well. So yeah, I guess the one of the main reasons why we have decided now is the time for this podcast is because in all honesty, we're sick of seeing all the bullshit we we've seen and heard every single problem that that there ever is like we've had over 300 members come into the game changer. I've been doing this for 15 years, not part time, four times. I've trained hundreds of people. So there's not really many problems I haven't seen. And it's still the repetitive same problems that people and mistakes that people are still making. Yeah. So it comes to a point where we're just sick of seeing the bullshit. It's draining. Yeah. Sick of, again, it's not the client's fault. It's never a fault, but it's when you flick open Instagram, what comes up on your algorithm of mine and God knows what comes up on theirs. We're just sick of seeing all of the shit that comes up and it was like, let's set the record straight and help people get to their goals faster because people create their goal. But once they've set it, there's so many more distractions. I want to lose weight. Cool. Well, this is how you lose your ex-spody fat. It's the science behind it. And people think it's the hardest thing. At the same time, they're logging onto Instagram and there's everything from a run club to a to a high rocks to a everything in between is like, what do you do? We'll revert back to original goals. So the main reason, I guess, is to really help people dial in on what they're doing wrong and how we can help provide that with all of our experience. Yeah. Because we have so many conversations with members all the time, real life conversations where you know that there's someone out there that needs that answer. So that's what we really hope that you get from this podcast is that answer that you need because obviously you might not be from millenkins. So unfortunately, can't come to the GC. But obviously for those that are local or even that you're listening from another country, whatever, like hopefully this gives you that answer that you'll actually want in. Because we're just everyday people that, you know, I'm really, really passionate about this space and helping others. And I think that's when you get into the right industry because you actually want to help others to achieve their goals. That's the main, the main point of doing this job. On top of that, where everyday people who suffer with the same, who suffer with people who have suffered. But on top of that, we're very good at what we do. And there's not much we haven't seen that we've helped people with. And if people stop listening to all the noise and start listening to professionals, whether it's a personal training in your town or whoever you're employing to coach you, listen to that professional. But again, that's another topic for another day. Yeah. Because literally talk about that so much. Exactly that. But just give some more background on new Charlotte, people that don't know Charlotte's background. She's from an online space. So back in my day, when I was peting on the floor, online wasn't even a thing. Like Instagram wasn't even around when I was first peting. It's literally Facebook. And you could post in groups to sort of promote what you were doing. And then there was a few PTs as I sort of, you got into it, that would sell PDFs to people around the world, and you'd sell some PDF before the likes of Canva and bits and pieces were made when you can make cool little things and apps. But Charlotte's background, which I'll let you go. Yeah, yeah. So when I became a personal trainer, I did start at a commercial gym. But fortunately for me, I ended up actually going on to the online space because I worked with this brand. And I was online coaching with them for about just over a year. Love it. Like I still love the online communities. As all online coaches will say, like it is very isolating. It can be quite lonely. Like, it's just yourself. So for me, I just wanted to kind of explore. I thought it's driving Lamborghines and living in the guy. Yeah, it is. It is. But fortunately for me, it was maybe two million games from up north. Hey, it could be worse. Yeah, it could be worse. It could be worse. But obviously for myself, like I was quite lucky. A lot of people worked so hard on the floor to get to them being online, whereas I fortunately felt straight into it. And I was, it wasn't myself that I opened up my independent space. I was literally working for a brand who opened up an online platform. So yeah, I was quite lucky. I still did a little bit on the floor, but it wasn't a lot. And it was only when obviously I applied for the GC that I came back onto the floor in like a small group space rather than it being one to one PT. And like I say, I love the online community and I love online coaching a lot. I think it is where a lot of people say the money is because it. Again, that's one of, I've got many fucking pet hates. This is one of my pet hates, but going back to what you just said, you were working personally for this huge brand. So the guys that ran the brands who Charlotte worked for their huge, like huge in the fitness space, like those guys have been ages, been around, I used to follow them and watch all their YouTube and stuff. So these guys have their credibility is through the roof where one of my fucking pet hates that many is when you look at it, it's like, well, does a PT want to go on to the floor and do 30, 40, 50 hour weeks and craft your balls off to earn your stripes and earn your right and earn your money, which is what PT should be doing. But the easy option is, well, I've got a big following, I'm really good looking and I might be have a discount code from my protein or whatever, I'll go on my on my social media and I'm going to sell programs. First of all, most of the money even qualified, they're just telling them because at the end of the day, you know, you buy your eyes and sex sells, everyone looks good. So you buy because they look great. And yeah, they are the ones that are living in Dubai and driver. Well, I actually found out. I've got mates who do that. I've got guys, I've got five friends of mine living to buy between my baron and to buy it and they run really successful online platforms and they are earning massive, like crazy skills of money. And again, not all of them are like qualified. Three of them are in two of them are just fitness models that are. Yeah. Well, they did actually find out you don't need to have your practical for like joining you do your PT and you do your theory and your practical. You don't have to have to do the practical. Apparently like that. I know that's what annoys there's no company body. That's like doing your driving test. Yes, just doing the theory. It's doing the theory. Oh, yeah, I played a few PlayStation games as well as a kid. Yeah, I know I'm doing like you fucking joking. I know. Like when I did mine, mine was like a three year thing, right? We had to be case studies. We had to like do hours. I had to go to like Virgin Active, get them to like tick off my hours and I had to go and teach a TRX class and apply his class. I had to do all these other bolt-ons. I had to teach your god knows what else I have to do spinning. I was doing all those qualifications. I had to get it ticked off so I could learn how to deal with people. And I had to have real case studies about the nutrition and training people so you can split business plans so you could deliver actually show that you can deliver what you're trying to do. But now six weeks online without even seeing a person sometimes it's like mental 40 hour cost. Stop it. Crash course. No, no, no, no. I can't believe that. Well, I don't actually know but I'm sure like it's you don't you can get it pretty quickly. Madness. Yeah, you get it pretty quickly. And that's the problem. I love this industry but I fucking hate this industry at the same time sometimes because of the misinformation or the fluff around. Yeah. And a lot of people most of the time learn from what they see online and a lot of what's online is misinformed. And that's why it's really difficult to as a an everyday person who goes to the gym to actually know what is right from wrong because you're just listening to an abundance of information and like you say fluff that you see on the internet and you get dragged from pillar to post wondering like what's what's this? Oh, it's this. Oh no, actually I should do this. No, I should do that. When a client comes to you and says can you fix my diet, Charlotte? And you spend hours and then they see something they see a kind of what does Instagram. You spent 24, 48 hours building them a real plan down to the gram. Yeah. And then they see some bloke with abs who's doing a kind of a diet and eating. They're like, oh, I'll do that. Chickens and livers and goat testicles. And they're going to do that instead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, which is you. The person knows who we're talking about. But yeah, so this is why we've like created this, then you guys can actually, I mean, it's kind of us saying, you know, there is stuff out there that should be listened to and there's stuff out there that definitely should not be listened to. But the first question for Jake on my list of questions is how did this all start? So what is the origin behind the GC? Cool. So the game changer. Yeah. So we'll flash back quickly to lived in Spain, playing football in Spain, went cruise ship, personal training for a couple years, came back to Spain, opened up her fitness retreat was was one of the first things I did out there, where I'd have women come and stay in a villa for like a week. There'd be fitness, workshops, nutrition, yoga, hikes, that kind of stuff for like a week, have some fun in the sun, training, so forth, and then and sort of go like finish a little basically. So I did that for a couple of years, and then I moved back to the UK, just sort of was again always looking for like my next challenge. I knew I didn't just want to be that PT who had a field diary of 45 hours a week. So always wanted to do a bit more or find my next challenge. And I guess I felt a bit lost and know where who I should be. I guess that's the truth. I didn't know who I wanted to be. So I was just flitting between countries. That's America that a second time went to South Beach, sorry, went to Miami, West Palm Beach and PT out there, private family for a couple of years as well. And then eventually came back to Spain. And then that's where I met my partner, Ali, and I was peting in Gibraltar. Cool little life was what I mean about nine lives by the way. Yeah. I was peting in Gibraltar, living in Spain, which was awesome. And then again, diary was full 40, 50 hour weeks. Life was good. Villar on a golf course, you know, my own swimming pool, everything was wicked. And then Ali decided that she wanted to move and move back to Milken's to sort of start a family. I didn't even know where Milken's was to be honest before I came here. So she brought me here, gave me the grand tour. This is MK1. This is the, this is the shopping center. This is the escape. Very nice. Okay. Cool. This is the MK1 stadium. Just needed to know how far it was from London and airport, half an hour. It was like, yeah, no problem. I can make it work. And then move back here. I think that must have been about, yeah, seven years, six, six or seven, no, six years, six years ago, moved here. Went into a pure gym again, sort of coming from Gibraltar, which had like four gyms in it with about seven PTs in each one. Everything was fine. Come into this huge pure gym, like, wow, there's like 20 squat racks and there's three leg presses and the huge, amazing gym. But that was sort of like doggy dog. Weird. Just to completely different was what I've ever been into. Again, sort of going around, just walking the floor, doing all the things you had to do as a PT, which people don't do these days. Yeah. But again, because I had quite a lot of experience, I could easily go and pick up clients. Went from there, eventually fell from the, well, moved from the pure gym to D.W. that it was at the time, which is by the stage of an M.K.1. And again, I put up my diary there as working there, but always knew that I wanted to do something other than I didn't know what it was. Am I just going to be a PT that PTs 40, 50 hours a week, checking in and checking out and having that revolving door of clients? Yes, I'm getting results. Yeah. There's a little bit fulfillment, but if you have me at six o'clock in the morning, the person has an six o'clock at night is going to get a different version of me, because I've been there for 12 hours. I've burned out and knackered. And it's a Thursday, and I've done God knows that many hours by then, right? And then I sort of just got sick of working under that brand. And although you're self-employed, I just thought, again, there needs to be something else. And Ali got pregnant at the time, planned. And I just wanted or knew that there had to be something else. And I knew of this small group model, didn't know how to run it. Went and met Oli March on for the first time, who sort of sat me down and sort of showed me. I just said to him that I can't be changing my time for money anymore. And I've been following this guy for a long time, had an amazing brand at the time, let alone now, under this new thought where that is caught. I think that's sort of the avenue I want to go down. I didn't want it to be about me. I didn't want to quit Jake's gym. I didn't want to be Jake Wilkins. I didn't want to be that. And he just helped me sort of set it up, left fitness first and got my first ever gym, which is one of my clients, I'll convert it to Barnes. Best decision I ever made. I was obviously terrified to leave that commercial space because I was so used to seeing people all day long. If you needed a client, you could go and get one if you walked the floor and sort of did the work. So being in an isolated, converted chicken shed, essentially, it was in the middle of nowhere where just had my loyal clients coming in. It was a big jump. I'm so glad that Ali pushed me and my landlord, but my client at the time was going to do this to get out because it just makes you, when you're comfortable, you get complacent. And when you're uncomfortable, that's when you grow. So it's like training, right? When there's resistance, that's when muscles grow. And that's how the game changer first, very started. The first iteration was in there, didn't want to be Jake Wilkins, the PT, created this brand, the game changer, took a while to come up with a name and the concept. But from the very beginning, and this is a mistake that a lot of coaches make is I knew then, because I spent a lot of time with it, who I wanted to be, who I wanted to service, what my methodology was, what I believed in, and the vision, the vision was always there. I created the goal, created the vision, and the little roadblocks along the way. So I always had something to aim for, didn't want to go into CrossFit space, didn't want to go into training bodybuilders, didn't want to go into training super obese people. I knew the clientele that I wanted, the people that I enjoy training, the ones that get good transformations that lights me up, and makes me want to come to work every day. And I could see the endpoint, I could see what I wanted to create. And that was all written down on like most people doing a business plan on a back of a fag packet, as they call it, or a napkin at a restaurant. But that's how the first one ever started there. And then I think it was in for like a year and a half. And then that's when the dreaded COVID hit, which was experienced with one, right? But that was the origin of in this most condensed version I can give you. Okay, cool. From me being footballer to the game changer, volume 1.0. Nice. And so obviously when COVID did happen, what, how did that affect you? Like, how was that a challenge for you? Did you just, you know, most people would probably give up then, hey, so what happened with you? Yeah, I've been asked this question a few times on like other podcasts and stuff as well. I didn't know anything else other than what am I going to do? Yeah, what am I going to go? I don't know anything else other than I know how to play football very well. Yeah, I'm too old for that. And that was a long gone dream. And I know how to train people and get exceptional results. And that's all I've ever known. So for me, it was like, this is the current situation. It's like any other fitness goal, any other goal, this this roadblock has come up. What can I do to get around it? Yep. You know, people do this all the time in our space when we get like a client comes in and it's something you get a new job, you're just going to stop training because you've got a new job or you're going to just stop training because you have a baby coming up. No, you're going to find your way around it because there's always going to be chaos. It's just about finding that routine during chaos, right? So it was that and I just always had faith that it wasn't going to be forever. I don't know, none of us knew right? No, yeah. It was a scary time. We don't know if this thing was going to kill us to God knows what else, but I just sort of pivoted. And I think that was one of the main points at the time I did have a mentor. It was Phil Graham and he was constantly on a bell. You have to pivot, you have to pivot and he was pressing white online space at the time was such a good venture to go into. And at the time had like a handful of my one-to-one clients and a handful of the small group clients I had. And I just told them all to come down. I sort of created little packages of all of the weights. I'm like, right? I remember it was like Jamie and Emma who's still with us now and Sam was like, right, there's your dumbbells, there's your kettlebell, there's your band. And I create these little packages and I go come in and pick them up at this time because it's almost like the world's going to end, the world's closing. Make sure you come in before this time because the apocalypse is going to start. It was a mental time, like crazy time. And they came in, got their weights, where I dropped them off to the houses and that was like, right, what we'll do, we're going to keep training. And at first I used to record workouts and then would send them workouts. But by the time I recorded them, edited them, I was like, this is just stupid and just started zooming them. But it gave me a reason to still get up, gave them a reason to still keep training and just kept that sort of community feel still going. And again, like during COVID, we'd be inviting anyone and everyone, like these guys luckily stayed loyal to me and obviously we massively reduced their membership down to like next to nothing. But that was important for me because that helped me get through COVID by the kids, baby. By my second, actually Demi, she was she was born in COVID. So it was about being able to still put nappies on the back and feed ourselves because I had a gym, but wasn't able to get any grants from the government because it was privately owned, sort of bit of land. But it was just about doing what I could with what I had, knowing that we're going to get out of the back of this. But also at that point, it was coming where the barn I had wasn't big enough. So I knew that we needed to go and find somewhere else. And at that time, our coffee shop, so those who don't know, we've got a coffee shop next door of what we have now called the Game Changer Kitchen. That used to be inside the fitness first, I used to work him. And obviously, when all the doors shut, all we could do is go and sort of look through the window. And we just realized that we need to get out of there and find our own space. So we spent the whole of COVID, was it like a year or two years? Yeah, I think it was like a year and a bit by the end of it. Yeah. We were just constantly looking at units, because everyone was moving out of units. Because they couldn't afford them. They couldn't afford them. They could wear something from home. So all the units were empty. So for us, it was a good time. So we did find a unit and we're just having that faith that we're going to get out of it. And then what is the next version going to be? Yeah. And just keeping that faith in being like, guys, keep training, do what we can do. It's going to be like the end of the tunnel. You just need to just again, create some kind of routine throughout the chaos that's happening. Yeah. Because you were in the COVID lab, right? Well, yeah. So when actually COVID hit, I was just finishing at university my undergrad. So like my dissertation, we all got extensions, of course. If you've been to uni, then you'll know what an extension is. It's just like you just get like weeks added onto when your dissertation is due to be in. So we got an extension. Luckily, I'd done all my research. I'd collected all my data, I'd let it in. I was one of the first ones to do it, because I'm just a little bit organized. Yeah. I'm very organized. So yeah, I got all of that done. And then it was just a case of writing it up. But I managed to get mine in. So I was okay. But I ended up like living with my boyfriend's parents for pretty much the whole of COVID. And I won't lie, I found COVID so tough. I feel like a lot of people probably did like the gym is my literal life. Yeah. Like, do you know what I mean? So for me, when that short, I literally was like, what can I do? You're so lucky, right? I have mine. So I have my place to go in a state to every day. I'd go and shoot my workout, go and train. There was another coach who worked for me at the time as well. Charlie, I was like, yep, there's the keys mate. Like, obviously we're not allowed to cross paths. But when I'm not there, you know, it just takes each other. You go in, I go in. Yeah, which is great. Almost like feeling like your bag just sneaking around. But I was like, here's some barbells. Do your thing. Like if you need to go and train people outside, go train people outside. But I had that space where I guess. Yeah. No, no, no. I ended up being in the the spare room of my boyfriend's parents house, which then ended up going downstairs. Because it was not it was like I needed more space. But me and my friend who I basically started my fitness page in like 2017. And it grew a lot through COVID. For those who don't know, Charlotte has like, she's an influencer. No, I'm not. She's an influencer. She's, she's one follower away. So make sure you follow after this. Get the flutik. She's 20,000 followers. He's literally lying. I'm not. Go check out her. 20,000 followers, which is amazing. Well, that's like incredible. And that's just simply down to you creating this page and being consistent, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, what did I have to do during COVID over then when my dissertation was done? Exactly. When my dissertation was in in May, I hadn't until September started my master's. So I had what like four months of like literally not working furloughed from I used to work at the cinema. So I was furloughed on the cinema. This was before I started the COVID lab. And then I started my master's. But during the time before I started my master's, yeah, I was just working on my fitness page, me and my friend Chloe. And we were doing like live workouts. So like we would get together on a Wednesday and a Friday and we do like sessions. They would get quite busy like 20 people, which qualified unqualified. I was unqualified. But I had a sport and I had an exercise for a science degree. I had a first in that. We'll give you that. You had some backgrounds. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had a bit of background. But we weren't doing like, obviously, we weren't helping anyone's form necessarily. We were just doing hit sessions. You're providing community. Yeah. Yeah. And we we loved it. Like it was like that it was the best part kind of how you said about your like online space with your clients, like it was the best part of like my week and my day. But I was like, I'm not going to sit here and lie. Like COVID really, really took me down. Like I think my mind just sort of definitely got worse during that time. I lost like a lot of weight and obviously a lot of people didn't have a gym. So I didn't have any weights. I was doing pure running, walking, getting like steps. All the time I was like doing my workouts twice a day. Like I had nothing to do. Yeah. And obviously with my disorder, that kind of fell again. So yeah, COVID was a tough time for me. But again, it gave me this new lease of like, okay, well, actually, maybe I do want to get into fitness and maybe I do because I've always loved fitness, but I've never thought of it as I never at that point in no way, right? Yeah, thought of it as a career. I used to be like, I don't want to turn my hobby into a career. That's why I used to say like, I was like, I don't want to live, breathe and eat the gym. But hey, I do that. I love it. Welcome to the world. I mean, here's what we do. Yeah. So yeah, I found COVID a kind of a bit of both. You know, once I do my once I was doing my masters, I had a lot like I was obviously like doing something then during the time of like four months, I just had my my fitness page. And yeah, like that's where it grew, grew the most. And I got a lot of like good experiences from there. And that's how I got into working with that big brand and stuff like that. So yeah, I think came at the right time. Exactly. But you mentioned briefly about a mentor. So I guess, you know, I guess a question is as well, like, for someone who's starting out and someone who's like wanting to make, may potentially like, you know, start a small group, personal training. You want me to get my secrets away, Charlotte? Not secrets. What would be your best piece of advice that you would tell, you would tell someone? Yeah, it's like anything. If I want to, you want to pass your driving test, you go and hire a driving starter. You want to want some, you want to lose some weight, you go and hire a nutritionist, you hire a personal trainer. Yeah. I knew I wanted to create a certain business. I didn't know how to do it. So for me, it was, I need to go and hire somebody who's going to help and do that. And because I have a white belt mentality, you know, always have, I believe that you can never stop learning doesn't like, there's always time for me to learn. I've been doing this 15 years, but I could have a conversation with someone tomorrow has been doing it longer than me and I'm something else from them. So as long as you're open-minded and you have that growth mindset, I feel like it is so important that you have to invest and you have to, because you're messing into your future and yourself, right? So yeah, it costs me money. But in the day, it's going to make me money, it's going to make my business grow. So I've always believed in looking at, it's like when you go back to school, when you play with like the kids in the year above playing football, you're going to get to be a better football player because they're better than you. So simple as that. So if I play a game with guys that are better than me, that are doing way better than me, that I aspire to be like, they're going to help me grow. So yeah, I've had many mentors over the years and I still do have now. And I honestly couldn't say, I've been at Roblox so many times not knowing what to do or having this problem. They've experienced this and they're the people that I can turn to for help. Same as our members and our clients over the years, anyone who's ever trained by me or you, that's exactly that. We're there to help mentor and guide them closer to their goals. So if they get roadblock or they get a problem or whatever, injury, or they don't know how to get around something, that's what they're paying us for. Yeah. And I think a lot of people who come into the fitness space, like a lot of personal trainers, a lot of coaches, whoever you are, whether you're in sport or just like commercial gyms or whatever, I think people think that they get to one point, they do their qualification and then that's it. Like they don't, they don't grow from there. They don't learn from where they think that's when they know the be all an end all and that's where there is then when, as we said at the start, it's just so much misinformation because people don't actually read, there's new stuff coming out. Like I come from a science background, like I did two science degrees, like my undergrad and my master's. So for me, everything's like, okay, what research is in that? And has there been enough research in that? Like just because there's one paper doesn't mean that it's going to create a significant difference. Like I think the way that I think about things is like, when it comes to stuff like science based and I'm like, okay, what is the research in that where there's always learn and there's always room to grow and learn to, yeah, things to learn because every day, like, you know, every day, like the people say it's a learning curve. So it's never changing world as well. There's something else that's changing constantly. Oh, loads. Yeah, loads. I feel like there's something new online every day. Yeah, they must be. Do you know what I mean? It always does go back to the science. Like, yeah, it is. The science of the science of food, it's like, we all know it's only way for you to do it. That's cool. Yeah, good. But how can I get someone who's got an eating disorder to get in a career deficit? How can I get someone who is a entrepreneur who's got free kids who's working 12 hours and suits for us? How can I get that person to be in a career deficit, not drink alcohol, not abuse substances on the weekends? Yeah. Yeah. It's easy saying, oh, this is the goal. This is, this is, this is, this is, we're going to need to just code deficit thing. Yeah, cool. Great. Got to be individualized that person. The only way you can do that is by being a good enough coach to be like, right, well, let me see who's in front of me. What does your life look like? What does your life look like? What does your sleep look like? What does your job look like? How many kids have you got? What's your situation? Are you married? Are they supportive? And then that's how a coach would then go, how can I make this person be in a code deficit? Yeah. How can I make this person have results with only training twice or three times a week? Yeah. Yeah. So would you say when you were on your journey to becoming a personal trainer and a coach, these little traits of a coach, so like you say, the emotional intelligence, the kind of personal touch, would you say you developed them as you went on as a coach? Or would you say you pretty much had them before you went into the coaching? That's such a good question. Yeah. So I feel like I've always been lucky because everywhere I've gotten, there's always been someone older and wiser than me. So the first crucial project I've ever got on, there was this Kiwi blog called Dennis. At the time it was like 50. I love that, Dennis. Dennis was a boy mate. Like Dennis used to like mop up with the ladies. Like he was a savage, old like gray hair, I don't know how great I have this, but I was like 50 year old, gray knee brace refused to do any of the classes. He would just be there simply just to give the workshops and sort of like do the stuff there. But again, I always had that older brother figure, I guess, who'd be like, and I'm the kind of person where I like things I'm sugarcoated. I don't need the fluff. I want you to tell me straight. You're doing this wrong. You're doing that wrong. You're doing this shit. So I can then digest it myself and realize, okay, well, I'll accept it. I might always agree with it, but I can accept it. But my ego can be deflated enough where I can zoom out and be like, yeah, that person's right. I can hold my hands up and I can get better. So I've always had that kind of person, like I said, cruise ship at the beginning, any gym I've ever gone to, the owner of the gym, or there's always been someone who's been in fitness around a lot longer than me, who I can learn off. And I thrive around people that are like that. So is it my mindset? Probably, yeah, I think it is. But again, like when I first launched the cruise ship, I was a 21 year old English guy on an American cruise line with everything is like fucking Disneyland. Everything is mental and oh, it's all cheesy. And I'm this English guy who speaks way too fast. At the time, I think I'd like a really Essex-y sort of accent, some of the Essex at the time. And I remember the first cruise I got like hammered. No one would come to my classes. People walking out my classes, I got no tips, like nothing. And then this guy was like Dennis, you need to slow the fuck down when you're talking. You need to become more Disney-like and literally just gave it to me. And I'm like that's a 21 year old. It was a Kiwi from New Zealand. And I went away with my tail to my legs and probably had a little cry at the side of the ship. And I was like fuck, I need to sort this out. I wasn't getting paid next cruise like that. To my detriment and to my benefit, I've always cared way too much that people think about me. So the social element, it's almost a bad thing. But in a business side of things, I've always wanted to be the best. If I'm going to go and cover someone's class, I will be the best so that I'm talked about. If I go somewhere and I do something, I want to be the best. I want everyone to have the best experience with me. So I'll go above and beyond to make sure that I'm not giving you 10 out of 10. I'm giving you 11 out of 10. You can't beat me because I'll be better than anyone. So I've always had that mindset. And I feel like having that want to care so much about people's opinions of me as a professional, that sort of carried me through. And then as I've gone along, then yeah, I've had to learn how to be the cheesy person and put on the mask as I call it all the time, even with you guys, and I'm coaching you a new lot. So I put on that coach's mask to the members and put on my coach's face. At the same time, that's not me all the time. But I know how to read people because I've been in so many situations with clients in the most awful circumstances. Clients that have got cans of clients that have got holes in their hearts. Clients have had kids die. Clients are the worst situations. So I can't just be like a 24-year-old kid. They're going, oh, you need to have eight hours of sleep, get in, you know, make sure you hit your macros and make sure you're doing your sessions, get your 10,000 steps in. It's not going to work. Because that's shit. And you're a fucking idiot if you're just delivering that to someone. The basics. Because you're not looking at that individual person. So because I have worked with so many people, it's allowed me to almost be a chameleon with them, like, how do I need to be around this person? And I've just got very good over the years of character profiling people. So I know now how I can push your buttons in the best way, and not the best way. I know if you're in a good mood and a bad mood. I know how to get the best out of you, because I could tell by their text messages, let them even speak in the way your face looks. But because of all of the years of doing that in all these different situations, I've worked for cruise ships two years. I've worked in America separately for another two years. I've worked in Spain. I've worked in Gibraltar. I've worked in London. I've met a lot of people. I've not always been good. I failed many times. But as that old saying goes, I think it's Denzel Washington, like, fail forward. I've always fail, zoom out, learn from it. How can we get better? And I still do that today. You see every day in the gym, like, every week we sit down at Friday, we have our meeting, and we look down, like, right, what's gone well? What's not gone well? What can we change? How can we fail forward to make it better? So I've always had that mindset of wanting to be the best, been accepting to learning, not being afraid to fail, and wanting to just constantly improve myself. Like, again, it's been books for me. I've always been into books. I haven't always. That's a lie. Ali got me into books, and she came to this book when we first met, because I was going for, like, a rough time with an ex-partner at the time. And the book was called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. And I remember reading this book, and it was like this person was, like, speaking to me. Like, it's like the Truman Show. I was like, I've re-readed people, like, "Fucking hell." This person's here. This is mental. But I read this one book, and it opened my mind to having that white belt mentality and being constantly wanting to improve. And then I just got really hungry for self-improvement books, because I could see what it was doing for me. Yeah, they're great. Amazing. Yeah, I read a few of them. Even if you don't read, just listen to them. I can definitely relate with the high expectations and wanting to be the best. I definitely feel I still fear failure, rather than accepting failure. I'm more of an "I fear" failure. Like, if I get- I'm going to tell, yeah. Yeah. Any meeting with Charlotte and her great girl. I literally hate the thought of failing, but I know that's how you're supposed to grow. And I understand that. Maybe it's the words. Like, you have a bad association with the word failure. Yeah, failure to me is like, have I failed an exam? Have I failed a test? Like, am I going to lose something for this? Do you know what I mean? It could be changed that word with, rather than failing, you know? Yeah, we'll figure that one out. But yeah, I'm definitely more of a- I'm very, very high expectations. Like, I, for myself, not for anybody else, like, I don't- I mean, I have high expectations if I go to a hotel and I've paid a lot of money. But I have high expectations for myself. And I think, you know, you will definitely have a topic on this about getting feedback from a member to a personal trainer perspective. But yeah, higher can definitely relate with high expectations. I get it now in business. Like, we get disgruntled members, people that leave and I always ask for feedback. It's not nice. It's awkward. It doesn't feel nice. It makes you feel like, shit, I've taken it personal because it's my baby because it's my business. I give you guys the feedback and actually you're going to take it personal. And it is what it is. But I always relate back to my football days. If we lost a game and I'm responsible because I let a goal go in or I got sent off or it's my fault, yeah, I'm going to go and cry in the changing rooms and cry in the shower and not talk to my dad on the way home or the rest of my teammates. But I'll go back and be like, right, how can I fix that? I'll come better next week. How can I prove myself? It's just it's having that mindset to be accepted to that. Yeah, it's just the acceptance part. It goes back to fitness goals as well, even as clients, members, people that we're speaking to here. It's okay to like have a bad week and fail. Oh yeah, bad month. Bad month for bad week. Doesn't affect. It's fine. Let's pick yourself back up. Learn from it is the most important thing. Look back and be like, what is gone wrong here? Well, I once I put my one, I put my kids to bed. I stayed up a little bit too long because I wanted that free time in the evening, that decompression time, I had a glass of wine, which is fine. Absolutely. Not every single night. And then you've got a shit night sleep and then you've missed training session or you've had a shit training session, which is rolling into bad food. So it's about being able to recognize step back and like, what's gone really well this week? And then how can I repeat that? So like, I had a mentor who always said to me, like, he had this thing called like, kill the clone. And when I'm having a shit time, I literally, I said, it's going to kill the clone. It's got a cool clone saying. So the whole principle of that is, there was a clone of me today and the clone of me tomorrow and the clone of me yesterday. So today, I've got to beat the clone that was there yesterday, how I am with my partner, how I am as a father, how I am to you guys, my coaches, how I am to my clients, beat, how I am in my own training, how I am of business, beat the guy yesterday, that 1% kill the clone. And I thought that can apply to everyone, especially if you're on a fitness journey, kill your clone from yesterday. I think a lot of people will take that and roll with that because I do like that. Kill your fucking clone. Yeah, that is good. That is good. Okay, so just a quick question about what you think the best and most rewarding parts of, I guess, either being a coach or a gym owner would be. What would you say? Well, go off. We'll not say gym owner. We'll say coach. As you know, these are a lot. It's a tough, it is actually a tough gig. It's hard. It's a tough industry. And all the people realize how tough it is. People just think that we need to, we just count sets and reps and we just make up, oh, this workout, like there's so much that goes in between the workouts and people don't realize we sit down and spend hours programming, right? Does that bit? Then we want to make sure it works and it's trials and all the stuff in between. But when we are tired and we've had like a, you know, potentially like a bad week or whatever's happening around us, when you get like that random message from a member saying, or should they show you the before and after all this, and this lovely message about how it's making them feel or I always remember this one time I had this client, he was like so anxious, medicated for anti-depressant stuff and was almost like being bullied at work by their boss. This is a guy by the way, he was like in his 40s, still have him, so he might even hear this and know who I'm talking about. And then training for him gave him confidence to fast-tracking at like a year and a half later. I remember he texted me and I was like, I just told my boss to go and fuck himself. Not saying that, we're just going to tell your boss to fuck himself. But this guy had enough and he was confident enough to be like, I'm sick of being spoken to like a dickhead. I'm worth more and I told his boss to go and fuck himself and then open his own business the next day. And now he's thriving. So for me, it's not always always about dress size, looking better. Non-scale victories. Non-scale victories, I love that. Non-scale victories, it's about what it can do for people outside in your life, being open to adversity, being resilient, having confidence, all these things in between. So when you see that, again, it's like a, it's not instant gratification, fitness. Yeah, we get high fives in the session, everyone leaves sweating and smiling, cool. But it's the hard work they put in day in, day out, day in, day out, and then six months out of the line, we get that message or we get that little conversation or we look back and think, I can now look how far that person's come. That's what sets me on fire. And to me, the universe does this to me at the right times. Whenever I'm ever in a shit, shit day where I'm on the floor and I'm sometimes got my head in my hands thinking, why am I doing this? And I'm sat on my gym floor, potentially crying like I do often because it's hard being persona. And I get around the message come through, it just sets me on fire and I'm like, this is what I need. That's what I needed. That's what I do. And that's why I've been doing this so long. Because I just, it's again, you just get to see how powerful fitness is. People relate fitness to vanity because of abs and because of magazines. Of course, that's, that's a, And what the space started on bodybuilding. Exactly that. And you know, the size zeros in magazines, but that is a byproduct of your hard work. You will look better naked, full stop if you do all the hard work in between. So it's about stepping away from that and what it brings to your life in terms of you are healthier. You can get back on your feet faster from being sick. You are going to be far away from lifestyle diseases. You're going to be a better parent, a better father, a better colleague, a better mother. A hundred percent. It's about all of this stuff. Something other than I can go and deadlift 150 kilos or look at my abs, look at my ass. It's way more than that. No, Ditto. Yeah, I completely agree. I think a big thing for me is when people feel comfortable to like speak to you about certain things. Because as we just said, then like everyone just thinks a coach is a repeat is someone who tells you how to eat well and lift well. Like that's literally not the case. Like you're literally someone's therapist. You're someone's therapist. You're their doctor. You're their like shoulder to cry on. Like you're literally everything rolled into one. And I think I need to take their problem time with you. Yeah, sure. Yeah, like I text people like afterwards being like, just thinking about you in this situation. I think the most rewarding thing I think sometimes I find is being that like you should feel pretty good about yourself if someone's coming to you with issues because you must be approachable and relatable and like someone can actually talk to you. And I think I love this job in that perspective. That's someone actually thinks, oh, I'm going to go and speak Charlotte about this situation because I know she'll give me like the best advice she can. And like sometimes I'm not going to lie, I can't give the best advice because I'm not sometimes hit the same situation myself. But I try and gear away to the point. It's that most intelligence you talk about because it goes back to like your personality because your emotional intelligence is so high. Yeah. People feel comfortable around you to then go and share their problems with you. You're not a mum. You're not older than most of our members. No. But people around you feel comfortable enough that they can come and share problems with you. Yeah. And you'll you have that personality level or that's that empathy and sympathy level where you can be like, come here, put an arm around him, give him a little cuddle whilst he's crying a shoulder. Yeah. And at the same time, you can un-shoot and cope things and be like, stop being a fucking dick. Yeah. Just get on with, depending on who's in front of you. Yeah, exactly. I think you've got to be, you've got to be so relatable and like adaptive when you're a coach, like you can go from like having banter with the boys to then like being, you know, with a 64 year old woman talking about, I don't know, coffee flavors or something like random like that. Like, that is literally what you've got to be as a coach. But I just think there's so many people out there that isn't, aren't like that. Personality. Yeah. Yeah. There we go. That's our personality. Yeah. That's our personality, Chris Mar. Must be there, must be there. Okay. So just to kind of round this off and we're going to ask this question to anyone who comes on the podcast, you know, we're going to try and you finalize the question with. If you could change one thing in the fitness space, what would it be? The one thing I would change. We shined on this before we actually came on here. I don't know. I joked off camera saying I would make it illegal to have social media fitness accounts if you're, I think you should be like a registered physician as you would be with being a chiropractor, a physio or a doctor because of the misinformation. Yeah. Because people go around and around in circles, not knowing what they should be doing because of all of the fluff of the noise. So you could go back and just say, let's just cancel social media and I wish Instagram was never made. But it is so good because it allows people to connect and it allows people to share and it allows people to, you know, it's on my magazine. But yeah, I guess not allowing influence. I see it all the time. You'll see like a pretty girl pop up who's got a waist like that and an arse like that. And she looks fantastic and she's sponsored by Gymshark. We're not going to get sponsored by Gymshark, probably. But they're selling fitness programs or they're they're juicing, they're doing this, they're doing that. And then someone like one of our members who or one of our clients or anyone's clients has been working very hard for such a long time, suddenly sees this and then gets sort of like, Oh, should I be doing that? Should I be doing this? Am I failing? So I'm not waking up and meditating and cold plunging and fucking going to a run club and doing this and doing that? And I've not signed up for a Hyrulex and what's signed up for this? And should I be doing all this as well? Should I be doing street training? We get it all the fucking time in the gym, right? So it would be to like monitor Instagram a lot more social media because it is so misleading, so misleading. They did that with like TikTok. They like, they really cut down things that were said on TikTok, like certain words, like censored of certain words, like the TikTok wouldn't go ahead. So like, I think when they say the word, like, like weight loss or I think it was when like, COVID was a wrong word to say, like the user or you get that pop up, don't you sometimes? Yeah, should you watch this video? Because it's got like bad language on, yeah, might not be true. Yeah, might not be what you want to see. That's quite cool. So something to Instagram could come could come for that. I guess the other thing, like, this is a different note for me is I feel like children should be educated a lot sooner in school. So just think back to like what we did in school, like my kid does like PE twice a day, twice a week, sorry, at the moment, just runs around, talks and beanbags around. Yes, you're just trying to blow up some energy, but and he's five. But I feel like in school, you should be educated on foods. It should be like, you know, it should be one of the main things that you're educated. It should be in your science in your science lesson. You should understand how to eat. Yeah, because again, we're misinformed by Instagram. We're misinformed by adverts. You're misinformed when you walk down the supermarket aisle and you're seeing weetabix protein, weetabix. There's no fucking protein in that weetabix. Just because you've got some crushed nuts in there, you think that's going to be a week? No. Do you know what I mean? So it's about, I feel like if we could educate earlier, even the gyms, like if you look in the US or you look at the colleges in the US, they've got the most beautiful, aesthetically pleasing weight rooms, everything you're like for like rows of 10 squat racks. And all of the sports teams go and train in there. I feel like it should be, that should be part of your PE lesson. Yeah. It's cool to go and do football and cricket and rugby and whatever the season is, track and field. Yeah, cool. But there should be an element of teaching people how to train. Strength training. Strength training is so important because one of our taglines is, we want people to train and lift and weight training, especially, or you should be able to deadlift because I want you to be able to wipe your ass when you're 90 and live independently. But if people are only getting into it when they're 20s and 30s, when they're 40s, we've got members in ours that have never been in a weight room and they're 40 years old. Imagine if they'd trained 20 years ago, how they'd be right now. Most of them say, I wish I started this 20 years ago. At the same time, we've got members in our gym who've been doing it for 20 years and they look incredible. Yeah. So, you know, we're like that saying is where success, there's clues with successes. So I feel like if they could educate sooner, weight train children in schools and educate around food, you'd have a lot less problems with eating disorders, people go around in circles and not seeing results. But just that misinformation would be gone. It should be part, like you wake up in your brush of teeth. Yeah, it should be on the curriculum. Everyone should be doing fitness. Yeah. You see it when you walk around supermarket and you look around people's trolleys and you're sort of like, I judge people in the non-judgeist way ever, but I'm getting judged because of what's in my trolleys. Yeah, for sure. Because my trolleys are all healthy and green and don't get wrong. I eat cookies, we're on a bakery. I'm my mother's product tester. I don't get to eat enough sugar and butter to sing a Titanic. But we shouldn't be getting judged because we're healthy. Yeah. Like if me and you walked around with our tops, not off, but if we worked around, if I walked around through the supermarket with a vest on and you had your crop top on, people would be looking at us. Yeah, for sure. And you wouldn't feel comfortable where, really, that's normal. We're not, we're normal. That's what you should look like as a human. You shouldn't look on the other end of the spectrum. So it would be about if we educate people sooner, then that's going to help them in their adulthood life to be able to go and make those choices. Yeah. We're not just that. It's going to then reflect when they have children and then they have children. 100% is a generational thing. You have to look at you and they want you to do. Yeah. No, I agree. I think I would say mine is definitely get rid of diet, will diet culture as a whole. Obviously from my own background, just from when I did my masters, I mean, I went into my masters because I wanted to educate myself on food. Because again, like you just said, what I knew was from online and what I knew was from influencers and people online, that were telling you to go on 800 calorie diets. And I mean, I started tracking my macros. Probably must have been when I was like 15. I mean, that's young to track your macros. And I obviously still do it now and again to this day, but I'm obviously when I was younger, that was all I did. I remember literally like having my scales and like weighing myself out. My mom was literally like, for God's sake, Charlotte, like you literally, what are you tracking there? Like it'll be lettuce. I'll be weighing out lettuce. Lettuce is eight calories for like 100 grams or whatever. So yeah, I would just, I would wipe diet, diet culture out completely and bring the element of education in because a lot of people just think that they, you know, you need to start yourself to lose weight. And how many, how many members that I put on like higher calories than they were, what they were on and they've lost weight. I actually got a message this morning from someone to say that they've literally lost nine pounds and they're on more calories than what they started up ever happened. We don't want 15 year olds weighing out. No, absolutely not. But understanding where to find proteins, fats and fats and how important they are for you, especially females, you think, right, they're going through with menstrual cycles and menopause and all that kind of stuff. So they're wondering why the hormones are not regulating and they're breaking out, they're not feeling great. What goes down, we'll look at their diet, look at child's diet, look at kids these days, they're grabbing a monster on the way to work and doing a way to school. So they're drinking like in monsters and red balls, first thing in the morning and just living off sugar and God knows what else. But yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, I think the education point is a really great one. That definitely needs to be on the curriculum at school. Well, again, guys, the aim here is every episode, we're going to have a different topic that we're going to run over. We're going to have some guests on. But yeah, first one done and dusted in the bag. Long time coming, speaking about this for a long time. So Charlotte, just so people know where can they find you? So mostly on Instagram, it's underscore Charlotte fitness and the oh, it's a zero. That's my handle. Very fancy. Thank you. Yeah. So for us, it's at the game change of training or at Jake Wilkins. So guys, give us a follow and like all the other podcasts to say, like, subscribe and all that in between so that we know that you're enjoying the content so we can keep making it. And yeah, I think we're going to chuck in a few Q and A's like on our socials and we can give us some sort of idea of topics we want us to discuss. That would be good. But yeah, guys, again, thank you very much. And we'll see you back at the next one. Yeah, thanks guys. Cheers team. See you.