“The more I know, the less I understand.”  That’s a line from an old Don Henley song.  Sometimes that hits me hard, although I’d make one change–I’d switch the placement of ‘know’ and ‘understand.’  Because truly, the more I understand, the less I really feel like I know.  And I think that’s a very good thing.  Let me explain.

When I got into the gym business, I thought group classes were where it was at.  I was a team sports guy and that was my athletic and educational background.  Everyone had to do group classes, right?  We even had a script: small classes mix the focus of personal training with the accountability of a group setting.  How could we go wrong?

And then the pendulum swung, as pendulums do.  We needed personal training, more personal training!  Everyone’s an individual, so…individual training?  Thirty minutes or one hour at a time.  For some folks that’s perfect, for others it can be intimidating in a different way than group training might be.

The point here isn’t to pick apart our history.  We were doing the best we could with the knowledge, staff, and experience at our disposal, as most gyms do.

However, as time has passed, I’ve come to understand that my job isn’t to motor my mouth.  It’s to listen.  This is a hard habit to break, especially for a small business guy.  We’re proud of who we are and how we got here.  I think we’ve got the best coaches around, and I know how much time we take examining what we do and how we teach.  I’d like for you all to know that.

But more than that?  I’d like you to know that you probably already have a pretty good idea what you need to do and how you need to do it.  None of this is rocket science, after all.  We move a few times a week, sometimes hard and sometimes not as hard.  Always well.

The details…well, you’re going to help us figure that out.  I truly believe that we’re all closer than we realize.

So you talk, we listen.  Here’s how.