Adam Schaeuble is on a Million Pound Mission | PoP 431

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Adam Schaeuble is on a Million Pound Mission | PoP 431

Do you have a passion that could motivate an entire community? How do you go about spreading your message? Want to stay on track with all your health, business and life goals?

In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok speaks with Adam Schaeuble about his weight loss journey, actionable steps you can take today, how to have cheat meals without feeling guilty and lessons he’s learned in his business.

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Meet Adam Schaeuble

Adam Schaeuble used to weigh 327lbs. He went on his own 100lb weight loss journey and as he was on this journey he started to inspire people in his home town to join him. He started a gym and a boot camp program and helped his home town lose over 35,000 lbs in five years.

Now he’s the host of the top-ranked health podcast The Million Pound Mission where his goal is to inspire one million pounds of healthy results.

Adam is known for helping females(and a few men) over the age of 30 that are super busy being employees, entrepreneurs, partners, friends, and moms. These are the people that tend to put themselves and their health last on the priority list and Adam teaches them how to escape the Black Hole of Weight Loss Doom which is where most people get trapped in the vicious cycle of losing weight and gaining it back over and over again.

Adam impacts his community by teaching them his 7 Necessary Steps For Long Term Weight Loss Success that has produced a total of 55,000 lbs of results for his clients and community members so far.

Visit Adam’s website, connect him on Instagram or listen to his podcast.

In This Podcast

Summary

  • The journey from heavy and hopeless to healthy and motivated
  • How to build a healthy lifestyle
  • The cheat bank
  • Lessons learned while building the business

Adam’s journey

It was about getting motivated and setting that intention but I acted upon those goals every single day. And I had an accountability system, morning and night.

Adam hit his rock bottom moment 12 years ago when he was 327lbs, losing hope with his career and deeply in debt. He started immersing himself into personal development material. After watching The Secret, on 12 July 2007, Adam sat down and mapped out what he wanted his life to look like 5 years from that date. By 12 July 2012, he had lost 100lbs, got married, started a family, started a business, got himself out of debt. and helped his home town lose over 35,000lbs.

How to build a healthy lifestyle?

Identify your transformational danger zones, analyze them, what are all the moving parts here, what does this look like, and the third step is preparing ahead for this the next time it pops up.

Adam has a process that he calls the black hole of weight loss doom which is when we embark on a new program, whether it’s a fitness program or a new diet, we all go through the same cycle. We start out feeling really excited, then we begin seeing results and feel fired up. And then we have a “life happens” moment, we’re not ready, so we crash and burn. We give up, believe that we’ve failed or that the program doesn’t work, and we start another one. And so this process is repeated. To break out of that cycle, it’s vital to figure out your transformational danger zones (things that always throw you off track) and find strategies to deal with them. Once you do that, you will get dramatically better results from your fitness and nutrition program.

The cheat bank

As long as we have a plan, then we are on plan.

Some people will have 1 cookie out of the entire sleeve of cookies, others will eat all the cookies. If you cannot handle some periodic cheats, Adam’s cheat bank strategy may help: At the beginning of a 28-day cycle, map out upcoming events and plan how many cheat meals you are going to have in advance. In this way, you take control over and take away the emotional component from it.

Lessons learned while building his business

I’m big on, I’ve got something to say, I know I can make an impact and I’m looking for people that are ready to listen. I’m not big into convincing them that they should listen to me and spending energy on that.

When the market started becoming more saturated Adam started looking into some other avenues so that he could build his business. He wanted to work with people who were ready to work with him, instead of going out to find people who he’d have to convince they needed help. Adam now focuses on his podcast and spreading his message all over the world.

Click here for Adam’s free gift to you!

Slow Down School

Want to know more about Slow Down School? Watch the video below.

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Books Mentioned In This Episode:

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Meet Joe Sanok

private practice consultant

Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.

Thanks For Listening!

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Podcast Transcription

[JOE]: This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 431. The work you do as a therapist is important and your private practice deserves the best website possible to allow you to see more clients. As the industry leading company that makes marketing simple for therapists, Brighter Vision understands exactly what it takes to help your practice grow to new heights this year. Brighter Vision’s team of developers will work with you to first understand your business and what makes it unique then use this information to build you a website centered around attracting and retaining your ideal client. Best yet, there’s never been a more affordable time to get the website your practice deserves. During the entire month of January, Brighter Vision is running its biggest sale of the year. Until the end of the month, pay no set up fees and get your entire first year for just $49 per month. That’s a savings of over $200 on your first year with Brighter Vision. To take advantage of this offer, simply go to brightervision.com/joe. Again, that’s brightervision.com/joe.
Well, welcome to the show. I am so glad you’re here, that you are taking action this year to level up. You know, whether you’re just getting started and you need a little support and some tips or you’re kind of in the middle or you are just rocking it out, we have all sorts of tips for you to grow your private practice. You know, this month we’ve covered all sorts of things. We’ve talked about, early on we talked about how Veronica used to work at a hospital and she grew a group practice, we talked about Jessica who talked about ranking higher in Google, we had Chrissy, she uses Instagram, LaToya with her group practice, and Janeen with her Autism Blueprint. We talked with Christina about getting your book done and then today, Adam Schaeuble. He is this awesome podcaster that I met when I was out West at a podcasting conference and he has done so many cool things.
He’s going to tell us backstory, but he’s one of these guys that, it’s funny, he calls himself a PHD, previously heavy dude and just has fun with the work that he does and he’s so approachable. And those are the kinds of people that I want to have on the show because even if he’s not a clinician, what he’s talking about is mental health issues, goal setting, thinking bigger about what your life could be. It’s so awesome to see that, you know, that idea of thinking about kind of getting to that next level. That’s one thing we really dived deep into when we’re at Slow Down School. Slow Down School’s the conference that I put on each summer here in Northern Michigan. We usually have 10 to 20 people. So, it’s a smaller conference, but we really go deep for a couple of days, we slow down, we hang out, watch sunsets, I bring in massage therapists and some yoga teachers and we really just have time to slow down. And we go for hikes, look at Lake Michigan in this beautiful part of the country.
Then for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we run full tilt towards leveling up your practice and leveling up your big ideas and to see the things that people get done. I mean, one of the 20-minute sprints, this guy Michael, he got seven chapters of his book sketched out and someone else, they figured out what they wanted to do for consulting, bought the URL, sketched out their entire first email series. So, people really get a lot done during this time too when you take that time to slow down and you do it in community with other high achievers that are struggling just like you to slow down. So, we’d love for you to go over to slowdownschool.com, find a time for you and me to talk. I jump on a phone call with every single participant to make sure that you are a good fit, you’re going to get a very strong return on investment. So, make sure you go do that. If you’re thinking about it, let’s at least chat. It’s not a hard sell. We have enough people that are applying for consulting and mastermind groups and conferences that we really just want the exact right people to be there. So, without any further ado, I give you Adam.
Today on the Practice of the Practice podcast, we have Adam Schaeuble. Adam used to weigh 327 pounds and he went on his own hundred-pound weight loss journey and then helped his hometown lose over 35,000 pounds. He’s now on a million-pound mission with his podcast and coaching programs. Adam, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[ADAM]: Joe, I’m so excited to be here on Practice of the Practice and you are somebody that I look up to a lot in the podcasting space and I cannot wait to add some energy to your audience.
[JOE]: Oh my gosh. You know, we hung out in New Media Summit and I had said to myself, “All right I’m going to just come down to the main lobby, whoever’s standing there, I’m going to go out to dinner with them.” And it was you. [timer chimes] Oh, there’s my timer going off to remind myself to jump on this podcast. Thought I had muted it, but I’m going to just leave that in because —
[ADAM]: It’s all about authenticity, Joe.
[JOE]: It is. And you know I set timers all the time where it’s like, “Okay, I want to be ready five minutes before.” And apparently, I must have snoozed it when I did it like 10 minutes ago instead of turning it off. But man, I live and die by the timer. That’s how I get so much done. So, I come down to the lobby at the hotel out in San Diego and it was you and Tom and we had such an awesome time together and just learning about each other’s podcasts and we were off and running as friends.
[ADAM]: Yes. You know, things happen for a reason and I think it’s so cool that you were just down there with the intention of meeting somebody interesting and having an interesting conversation. I think that we definitely had that and maybe even we leveled up on what your expectations were, I hope.
[JOE]: You did. I mean, and then Tom and I, we ended up going out to comedy. He does standup comedy like on the side for fun, and it was just this weird awkward like open mic night thing. It was hilarious. So, I want to go back to when you weighed 327. Is that what your max was or your highest point?
[ADAM]: Yes, that was my highest point and the lowest point all wrapped in one.
[JOE]: You know, it’s interesting because, I have to admit that like workout guys, there’s like some triggering that happens from high school. Because I went to this Catholic high school where there was a bunch of jerks and it was a small class and like the football guys were just total jerks. And so, when I see people that are like super fit, that’s really how I kind of used to think about things. And since my wife started working at the gym five days a week and meeting people that take their bodies seriously, I’ve definitely had this kind of internal like, “Wait, okay, I totally was judging these people.” Take us through your weight loss journey, your fitness journey, because I know a lot of our listeners, they recognize maybe for themselves but for their clients too, that working out can be great for mental health. Like what got you going because I just feel like people often don’t even know where to start?
[ADAM]: Yes. Well first, let’s take a half a step backwards, and, I’m glad that I’m helping you kind of breakthrough that stereotype mold of people that are athletic looking or whatever. And that’s something I really strive to do because I love to represent the average Joe, the normal person that is a little bit nervous or self-conscious about the way they look, the way they feel in their clothes. And that’s something like when I do, you know, I develop workout programs and workout videos, I’m like, “I’m not going to be in my speedo in front of a waterfall.” Like it’s me.
[JOE]: This could be you.
[ADAM]: Yes, it’s like me and usually one of one of my a hundred pound clubbers and I have them being the fitness model and I’m talking people through the workout but, I love to bring realness and you know, and that’s something that I feel like that voice needs to be out there a little bit more of that that person is relatable. So, I’m glad that we’re, well Tom said the exact same thing. He’s like, “Dude, when I first met you, I looked at you, I thought you were going to be a total jerk and I was pleasantly surprised that you were like all right, cool.” So that being said, yes, I kind of hit my rock bottom moment. It was about 12 years ago now and I was 327 pounds, I was super stressed, you know, bad relationships, just losing hope with the direction of my life, with my career. I had $40,000 of personal credit card debt racked up. So, all kinds of things circling the drain a bit and for me, it all started with just getting plugged into some personal development material. And that’s just something that, you know, 12 years ago it just wasn’t quite as big as it is now like the whole, just investing time in yourself. Maybe it was, but you know, I feel like, it’s a little more trendy and on topic now than it was back then for sure.
[JOE]: Were there books or seminars or things you did at that time that really helped you?
[ADAM]: So, I had a friend that passed along a DVD called the Law of Attraction, The Secret. So, I pretended to watch it and I sent it back to him. saying, “Oh, thank you. This was great.” And then they realized that I did not watch it and they send it, they gave it back to me a second time and it had been collecting dust on my DVD player and one night I just sat down. I actually watched it and that was my first exposure to law of attraction, positive thinking, just shifting and believing that I could actually control my destiny. And I sat down that night and I mapped out what I wanted my life to look like five years from that date. That was July 12th, 2007 and by the time July 12th, 2012 happened I had lost a hundred pounds, I had gotten married, started a family, I had started a business, I’d helped my hometown lose 35,000 pounds, I had erased that $40,000 worth of debt and many, many other great things. But the key thing for me was you know, I teach my clients now that you can’t spell attraction without action and with me it was about getting motivated and setting that intention. But I acted upon those goals every single day and I had an accountability system morning and night. And that was the real key for me, was if I have a superpower, Joe, it is implementation and that’s what really got me through to those amazing results.
[JOE]: You know, for a long time, the kind of law of attraction, like vision board, all that, I was super against it because I had met, of course, you know the first person I met that was into it, she was like, “I went to this meeting and I willed it to the universe that they would have hot wings. And what did they have at the meeting? Chicken wings. They were the exact flavor I wanted.” I’m like, “What? This does not seem like it’s good for the universe or for you.” So that was like my first encounter. But I think the power of it is that it’s keeping front of mind the things you want to keep front of mind. So much of our day, oftentimes you wake up and then your kids are acting a certain way and then you don’t even think about like, “What am I doing with my time? What am I focusing on?” And then those emails start coming in, texts start coming in. Your day is determined by other people’s agendas but when you have those triggers, you know, whether it’s written on your mirror or on your whiteboard or however you kind of stay focused on it, I think part of it is just keeping those things that are most important, most important.
[ADAM]: Yes. And for me, the system that worked really well was, I wrote down my affirmations and positive tense with the date that I wanted to achieve them by. So, I kind of set the tone. I tried to feel it, but I would do that and I would read them out loud every morning and every night. And I did that for five years. I never missed a day, morning and night. And the morning is kind of like what you talked about where I set the intentions, I kind of turned the light switch on in a dark hallway and I could see which doors were open and which ones weren’t. But I could see the opportunities and I could take action in line with that if it made sense. And then in the evening it was all about accountability. I just, I would not allow myself to go to bed until I had moved the needle at least like 1% in one of the directions, whether it was, “Okay, I’ve got to read a blog, I’ve got to send an email, I’ve got to do a little mini workout, I’ve got to drink some water, I’ve got to eat a healthy meal, I’ve got a meal prep.”
But I had to do something every single day and it wasn’t like, “Let’s chop down the entire tree in one swing.” It’s like, “Let’s just keep swinging, let’s just keep showing up,” and eventually all that showing up led to just a huge amount of positive progress.
[JOE]: That’s awesome. Now, in like high school, college, were you pretty athletic and then you kind of let yourself go? Or was it that you had never really been athletic or like what was your journey there?
[ADAM]: Well, growing up in Indiana, basketball is religion. And I played basketball and I was very active. You know, I graduated, I’m six foot three and when I graduated high school, I probably weighed 190 pounds. So just kind of athletic and basketball ish looking. Then in college I stopped playing basketball, so all that calorie burn went away, beer was introduced into the diet. And every year in college I put on 20 to 25 pounds until where I graduated, pushing 300 pounds and then it kept kind of going in the wrong direction after college as well, sort of having health issues, blood pressure issues, all this stuff and I just kind of hit that rock bottom moment like I talked about and it was, you know, for things to change, I had to start changing. And I did, you know, we talked before about like anxiety attacks. I’ve had issues with that even after I lost the way that still started to kind of rear its ugly head as a lot of entrepreneurs start to feel where, you know, we have all, we’re wearing all the hats all at once, we’re not sleeping and I sent myself to the hospital three different times. Being a health entrepreneur, I work with the hospital three times so, —
[JOE]: You got to come to Slow Down School man.
[ADAM]: Exactly. That’s when I started slowing things down a little bit. That’s when everything really changed from that perspective.
[JOE]: Now for people that are listening that say, you know, so many folks talk about losing weight, getting healthier, and especially when this podcast goes live earlier in the year, that’s top of mind for a lot of people. And then I think the stats say by like mid-February, most people give up their kind of new year’s goals and I think there’s even an official date that now is like, “Get rid of your new year’s resolutions,” kind of thing. So, what actually sticks? Like what do you see with your people that actually sticks to build a healthy lifestyle? I feel like there’s so many extremes that are out there. Like just eat meat and, or never eat meat or you, you know, you just hear all these things. What have you seen that actually works for people, for their bodies to feel healthier, to not just do it for loss of weight, but to just feel good?
[ADAM]: All right. Joe, this is the magic question. I’m glad you asked it and I’m going to give you one thing that every single person listening can do. And it does not matter what nutrition protocol they’re following and it does not matter what fitness protocol they’re following. They will get better results this year. Are you ready, Joe?
[JOE]: I’m ready. Bring it.
[ADAM]: All right. And it’s simple but difficult, right? So, the way I teach health and weight loss is, you know, I feel like we have to use the, it’s kind of like envisioning your diets and your fitness protocols that you’ve done in the past, like a toolbox. And we have transformation tools in that toolbox, but we need to have an instruction manual, right? Like that’s the key thing and it’s figuring out the right tool for the right job. Now that being said, the one simple step is this. We have to know what our transformation danger zones are. What always tends to throw us off track? And I call this, I’ve got a process that I call the black hole of weight loss doom. It’s a simple circular diagram where the top part is where we start something new. It’s, you know, it’s January, I’m doing Weight Watchers or I’m doing Paleo, or I’m doing Keto, or I’m doing CrossFit, or I’m doing yoga, or whatever it is. We do that new thing. Then the next part of that cycle is we get some results because it’s a new stimulus. Now the bottom part of the cycle is where life happens. We’re stressed out and we aren’t ready for it. And Joe, do you know if you take the word stressed and spell it backwards, what do you get?
[JOE]: Oh.
[ADAM]: Desserts.
[JOE]: Oh my gosh.
[ADAM]: This is true. Mind blown. So, we’re stressed, we start eating desserts and that kind of connect the left side of the circle. We crash and burn. We go back to where we started and the key —
[JOE]: I’m sorry, how have I never known that? Like we’re just going to pause there for a second, Adam. Stressed backwards is desserts. Wow. Okay [crosstalk]
[ADAM]: I stole that from a wise health guru named Ron Burgundy.
[JOE]: How did I not know that was Ron Burgundy either. Like, “Oh my word.” Well for me, stressed backwards spells Cheez-Its. So, —
[ADAM]: Yes, but that’s where people make the key mistake, is they go back to the top of that circle and go, “Okay that you know, paleo didn’t work or CrossFit didn’t work,” and it’s not the thing that we implemented with. It’s that bottom part where we weren’t ready for that, that life happens moment when our job schedule shifted, our relationship shifted or our kid got sick or we got hurt or I mean it’s, it can be very simple things. Going on a vacation. How many people listening in, you know, are, have some good momentum going? They go on a vacation and it’s not the vacation itself that throws them off track. It’s what happens or more likely what does not happen after the vacation where we don’t get back into our routine. So simple things where life happens, we’re not ready for that. I call these transformation danger zones.
So, the one simple step is identifying your transformation danger zones. You have to identify them then we analyze them and say, “All right, what are all the moving parts here? What does this really look like? And then the third key step is preparing ahead for this for the next time it pops up. And if we can do that, and this is what I preach to my clientele, I’m like, “We do this, we can get better results from any program. And I’ve got people that have lost over a hundred pounds on Weight Watchers, Paleo, Keto, high carb, low carb. Like, it does not matter because we are able to be consistent and implement consistently because those danger zones get less and less dangerous the more we plan ahead for them. So that’s the one key step across the board. It works and works to the tune of, now my podcast listeners have donated 56,000 pounds of weight loss at the time of this recording. So, —
[JOE]: Wow. Well, I think for me, you know, to have a little, and maybe disagree with this, to have a little bit of that cheat, you know that I can have some Pringles, I can have some cheese. It’s like, those are my go-to terrible foods but for the most part I eat relatively healthy. Do you think people should have really hard lines? Like I never eat Pringles anymore, or do you feel like having a little bit is okay?
[ADAM]: It depends. Have you read The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin?
[JOE]: No.
[ADAM]: Okay. Great book. I use this a lot. And Gretchen, I did an interview with her. So, if you guys are fans of Gretchen Rubin, you’ve got to check that out. It was really good. We talked about Game of Thrones a lot.
[JOE]: Wow, I was just listening to Jack shepherds, [inaudible 00:18:56] with Dracarys, the dragon queen.
[ADAM]: Yes.
[JOE]: Oh, it’s so good.
[ADAM]: So good. But she talks about, certain people are abstainers and others aren’t. So, it kind of depends what you do. Some people can have one cookie out of the sleeve of cookies and they’re good. Me, I will eat the entire thing until it’s done. You know what I’m saying?
[JOE]: Yes.
[ADAM]: So, it depends on whether you’re an abstainer or not. And if you kind of pass, just do the cookie test, like put a, you know, or whatever your thing is, put them out in front of you. If you just eat one or two and then put the rest away, then you’re good you can probably handle some periodic cheats. If you’re not, if there’s some food addiction that happens there, which is definitely something that I deal with or have dealt with, then you know, you may be more of an abstainer but —
[JOE]: It just doesn’t come in the house.
[ADAM]: Yes, exactly. One strategy that I can toss out there for people that can’t handle some periodic cheats is a strategy that I call my cheat bank and it’s just like a bank account. I’ve even got a tool that will hook everybody up with that helps you just map this out. But it’s basically at the beginning of a 28-day cycle. I like to go on in 28-day cycles with my clients. We will go, “Okay over the next 28 days, I’ve got a birthday party, there’s a work thing, I’m going to Slow Down School. I got different things going on and I’m going to take six cheat meals and I’m going to book them in advance.” So, we take control over it. What we want to separate is the emotional component of, “Oh, I had a bad day, therefore I eat cake.”
We want to separate those things and go, “Oh, that was at my son’s birthday party. I had cake. That makes sense. I planned that in advance, I owned it, I’m not going to beat myself up over it. And we track the cheats and we go, “Okay, I booked and planned for six cheat meals. I ended up taking eight but good news, I still lost five pounds. Now I know what I can get away with.” And then the next month we track it again, maybe want to get a little more strict and we go, “Okay, I’m going to only do four cheat meals in this next cheat bank and see if I can drop a little bit of body fat. So that’s a variable that becomes something that we just manipulate like our, you know, like changing up our weightlifting routine. It’s just another variable instead of this emotional crash and burn moment of, “Oh my God, I had Cheez-Its. Ah, I can’t believe it. I’m going to beat myself up over it and quit my diet because I failed.” So, it’s a total mindset shift where we own it. It’s a part of the plan and I tell my clients, as long as we have a plan, then we are on plan and we need to stop beating ourselves up about it.
[JOE]: Well, and it sounds like the psychology of just kind of escapism that I would imagine that when your clients start to learn things like meditation or like learning how to distress naturally, that that tendency towards using food or lack of exercise or giving themselves permission to sit around goes away or maybe is reduced because they have better ways of handling that stress.
[ADAM]: Yes, for sure. But I mean, the interesting thing about weight loss is, you know, Joe, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s almost a nice break to coach an entrepreneur with podcasting because I’m like, it’s very linear. It’s like, we get more downloads and we grow and we monetize things like that. But with weight loss, it’s just the, our hardest critic is ourselves, you know, and we beat ourselves up and people that have those self-esteem issues already. And then, you know, I see things like, oh two friends joined at the same time or a husband and wife or a couple and person A loses 17 pounds in four weeks and person B loses 15 pounds in four weeks, which is great. But person B is pissed that they didn’t lose 17 pounds like their friend and they’re pissed at their friends, are pissed at themselves, and they’re thinking about quitting. And it’s just like, this is, you know, you did great and it’s just such a mental game. And that’s why I’m in the trenches just fighting that battle and preach it on the podcasts every single week.
[JOE]: I want to switch gears a little bit because I think that your journey really lines up with a lot of the people listening in that we do work, maybe that we’re really excited about or passionate about or have a personal experience with and then we want to kind of level up to a larger audience or maybe switch from counseling to doing more coaching or to do a podcast or to do an e-course. And so, a lot of our therapists, they may be, say a trauma therapist that helps one person at a time, but then they want to launch a podcast that can get out there. How did that transition happen for you going from just as being more of a personal journey to then actually making a business out of it?
[ADAM]: Well, that’s another great question Joe, and it kind of happened naturally. The first stage of me getting healthy to me helping people in my hometown, that started to happen naturally. As people saw my transformation, they started asking for advice that turned into, “Well I might try this little bootcamp thing,” and I rented some space around in different locations around town and that happened and we had 15 people and they ended up losing like 300 pounds total and okay, they go, “When’s the next one?” And I’m like, “Oh, it’s going to happen in March.” And then we had like 40 people show up for that one and then I was like, “Man, I got to find a location.” So, I got an actual location, I rented space and we had a hundred people show for the next one and then we were doing these a hundred person eight-week boot camps and it just kind of took off from there.
Then you know, this is back, you know, almost a decade ago and the, I’m in a college town in Bloomington, Indiana and the market started to really get saturated with more and more fitness people and franchises coming in. And it started to be a little bit harder. I’m big on, I’ve got something to say. I know I can make an impact and I’m looking for people that are ready to listen and I’m not big into convincing them that they should listen to me and spending energy on that. So, I started looking for other avenues.
[JOE]: I want to pause you right there, how you just kind of glossed over that you didn’t want to put energy into convincing people. And I think that’s one thing that as I noticed entrepreneurs and podcasters and people that are really successful that I respect is they put the energy into the things that are working. And so even the fact that it wasn’t like, “I have this giant launch plan and I’m going to try and get people to lose weight with me.” It’s the people that showed up and you said, “How can I invest more in them? Kind of a saying that I’ve been saying is, you know, fall in love with the pain and the people before you ever pitch the product and so, you like fell in love with the people, they said, “We want more,” and then you said, “I’m not going to put extra effort into convincing people.” Like if they’re not there like, that’s on them. I’m going to find the people that already love me. And that idea of just going with the stream that’s already moving, I think it’s so important when people are looking to level up beyond just the individual work they’re doing.
[ADAM]: Yes. I 1000% agree with that and I just kind of visualize it as I want to help that person that walks through the door with their hand raised and saying, “I’m ready,” and not going out there and trying to convince somebody, you know, I spent a lot of time, you know, I’ve learned that lesson Joe of I see somebody that’s more of the obese and I’m like, “I can help you. Let’s just drag you over the hot coals until you’re ready to submit to my will.” And that’s pretty hard and they aren’t ready to make that change and they don’t, it’s not sustainable for them. So you know, I learned that lesson, so I looked for those people that are raising their hand and that led to looking at the podcast and going, “All right, how can I solve this at scale and on a bigger level with getting my message out there through the show, first telling my own story?” You know, I have lots of clients on there. We talk about their stories and then now just impacting people across the world, through the show and really making that transition to where, this is the first time I’m announcing this as of two days, I’m no longer a gym owner. And, I’ve fully transitioned out of that role and one of my team members has taken over and now I’m an online podcaster and a health-based coach.
[JOE]: Welcome to the club. I sold my practice in June so, boom.
[ADAM]: Yes.
[JOE]: Well, and how do you, I think this is a question I get from a lot of our Done For You folks and Podcast Launch School people, is they say, “Well, how do I make money in a podcast? How do I track whether it’s successful? What are numbers that matter? What are the numbers to just ignore?” Like how do you track success with your podcasts specifically in regards to your bottom line? Like this isn’t a hobby, this is your business. So how do you track success in regards to that podcast?
[ADAM]: Well, first of all, you hit the nail on the head. You have to make that distinction of all right, not messing around anymore. This is a business like this and I have to have that business mindset but also leading with heart, leading with connection with those audience members. So, for me, I’m laser-focused and you mentioned this earlier on, who is my audience, who are my people and what is that pain point that I can help serve as solution up to them for? And I’ve done that in reverse many times where I’ve screwed up and be like,” I’ve got this great idea and my people will love it.” And then crickets, you know, my mom doesn’t even buy it and you know, no big deal. So, we move on to the next thing and I got much, much better at saying, “All right, here are the pin points.
And I just track the amount of conversations I’m doing. I do free chats with my community and then we just try to develop things that are going to serve them through. I’m big on membership, I like residual income, I like knowing what’s coming in every single month and building relationships and especially with health and weight loss. I really want to get away with what I call Transformation Lightswitch Syndrome. And I’m sure you see this in, you know, the therapy practices as well. It’s like, I don’t want somebody that’s in it for an eight-week boot camp. They go, “I’m all in,” and then soon as it’s done, boom, light switch off, go back to old habits. That doesn’t make any sense to me. So, I’m looking at building relationships that are a long-term situation of, all right, we’re building habits, we’re building processes, and as long as I’m growing every month with more conversations, more people checking out the membership, or growing there, then I’m good.
[JOE]: Oh, that’s so awesome. Well, Adam, one of the last questions that I ask guests is if every practice owner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?
[ADAM]: I think we can go back to the thought of, you know, ordinary people can make extraordinary impact. I’m a very, I’m not Mr., you know, P90X buff dude out there over the top fitness guy. I am average Joe. Like, I’m in good shape and I’m proud of the shape that I’m in and I can see abdominal muscles and all that stuff, but I feel like there’s a lot of people out there that see experts on Instagram or social media and they’re like, “I can never be that. I can never make an impact at that level. I can never make money on that level.” And I call BS on that. Like, I totally think ordinary people can make extraordinary impact, but it’s all about showing up for ourselves, showing up for the community that needs to hear “ordinary message” and connect with them and show them a path to extraordinary results and we can get out there and do it.
[JOE]: So, awesome. In a minute I’m going to have, Adam, I’m going to have you give some links for people to follow your work, but we did mention a couple of things in this episode. I want to make sure that you guys have the links for, I mentioned Podcast Launch School. So, Podcast Launch School is our e-course that’s all about how do you launch a podcast, how do you monetize it, how do you figure out even if you should or shouldn’t do a podcast? And so over at podcastlaunchschool.com you can read more about that. And then I also mentioned the Done For You services we offer. So, we started offering this in late 2019 and in 2020 in the beginning we’re launching 20 new, oh no, eight new podcasts. Not 20, maybe 20. I’m speaking into the future, but we’re launching eight new podcasts for Done For You folks. If you want to apply to be in the next cohort of eight, you can go over to practiceofthepractice.com/apply.
Adam if people want to follow your work, if they want to hear more about what you’re doing, if they want to be inspired by you, follow your podcast, what are the things that they should know in regards to how to find you?
[ADAM]: Yes, Joe, thanks man. I hang out on Instagram. You can follow me @millionpoundmission on Instagram. Send me a DM. I will send you a voice DM back so you know that it’s me and not a bot. So millionpoundmission.com if you have any interest in just health-based stuff. I’ve got a free mini-course out there that’s really going well, called The Seven Necessary Steps for Long-term Weight Loss Success. That’s a free gift for you guys out there at millionpoundmission.com. Then if you want to dive into my podcasting podcast, which Joe is a featured guest on, it’s called Casting the Pod and all that information is at castingthepod.com. I’m kind of just taking people along my journey as I learn things. It’s not necessarily something for people that want to learn how to launch a show. That’s, you know, Joe has plenty of resources for you there. It’s more of all right, we’ve launched, let’s figure out some things along the way. Let’s talk to some podcasters and see what’s working for them. And we’re getting some good traction with that one. And, I just like talking to podcasters Joe, it’s —.
[JOE]: Totally. It’s so fun. I feel like podcasters are the most fun to interview because they have a good mic, they know how to kind of keep up the conversation. It’s just so much easier. Well, Adam, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice podcast. I’m so grateful for you as a friend and for the inspiration that you’re doing and I know that we’re going to hit that million-pound mission and you’re going to have to rename everything to like billion-pound mission or something like that. So, well done with the work you’re doing and thanks so much for being on the show.
[ADAM]: Thanks Joe. Thanks everybody for tuning in.
[JOE]: I loved this interview with Adam. He really just kind of makes you look at the things that you’re doing and how you could scale it, but not just scale it to move it into a passion that motivates an entire community or even an entire nation. And so, it’s really cool that he is on this mission to get a million pounds that are lost. You know, it’s, I’m kind of going to offset it though because I’m trying to gain weight. I’ve been doing a little bit of lifting and trying to bulk up, I don’t even know if bulk up is the right word. It’s just, I’ve always been the skinny guy and I thought, “You know, if I could have a little bit of muscle, that would be pretty sweet.” So, I’ve been going to the gym most days and we’ll see how that goes. I’ll keep you posted. Feel free to ask me and I’ll tell you if I’m not.
Well, thanks so much to Brighter Vision for being a sponsor of this. Brighter Vision has the best website solution for therapists that’s out there. They have their largest sale of the year going on right now and we’d love for you to go over there and let them know that I sent you. They just do such good work and we have so many Brighter Vision clients that come to Killin’It Camp or Slow Down School or a bunch of our mastermind groups. They’re a legit company that really will support you. And I don’t know how they do it for the price that they do it in regards to their IT support, and their hosting, and their building of the websites but you’ve got to go check out Brighter Vision if you want to upgrade your website this year. Also slowdownschool.com, those interviews are open now. We’d love for you to come hang out and we will talk soon. Thanks for letting me into your ears and into your brain.
Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. We really like it and this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.