Storytelling for fitness and health coaches gives you a way to bridge a relationship with customers you otherwise won’t have. You are Too Good to Be True Say you’re fit, athletic and always have been. Say you’re happily married, and have the grown kids, a big house and your husband’s the big breadwinner, so you enjoy big vacations and no stress. Or you’re thin, have your hair done religiously, live alone, have no one but yourself to schedule around. You always put make up on before you leave the house and you work out daily even if it means doing it at 5am before work. You never eat anything “bad” and there’s no junk food in your pantry. Can people who need you really relate to you? Not unless you tell a story. You’re too good to be true. They think they’re too different than you. Storytelling for fitness and health coaches is a big asset. And it’s free, fun, and everyone has stories. Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist… offer BONUS I recently gave a master class about the connection between libido and exercise. It goes far beyond looking good and feeling good. If you’re interested in the connection between type, timing, of exercise and hormones for libido, the Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist is just for you and the clients you want. Headlines Matter The subject was: Here’s how my stepdad said “the date is over” Inside I told readers how my dad would flash the landing lights at about midnight, and definitely more feverishly if it was after midnight. So, my date and I sitting on the couch would get the message it was time for him to go. Then I launched into the details of libido then and now. Emails like that, not only get opened (remember that’s because of the subject line), but they get responses. People write in things like, that took me back to high school. That’s exactly what you want. Storytelling for Fitness and Health Coaches connects you Your story is not about you. It’s telling a story that allows your reader or listener to put themselves in the story. Stories connect you to an audience like facts and research – that are also important – can’t. But guess what? They remember the stories. They remember you told them. Because as the saying goes, people don’t remember what you said, they remember how you made them feel. How to tell your story: Start by collecting your stories. Just think about ones you always tell at family gatherings. These might be the ones you have to live down and have since you were 12! Just do a dump and spend 10 minutes writing the details out of stories that come to mind. Even pieces of stories. Don’t filter them. You’ll figure out later what you’re going to do with them. Categorize each story by the emotions you felt when it was happening. Think about emotions your ideal customer goes through. What are they feeling before they start to work with you? What are they feeling as they start to work with you? After they work with you what do they feel? You want a lot of stories. And you want to follow them all the way from beginning to end so you can: Identify with a client where they’re at now Relay how you coped or overcame Reveal how it is now or after it was over The Moment You Know At the end of 2012, I knew I wanted to leave my job and start something bigger. I’d already started to pull away from traditional, safety, and security. It had been a big deal for me to quit my position as a Senior Lecturer in Kinesiology at Iowa State. I loved it. But I no longer had the hours to do that and manage personal training department at a multisite gym. I wanted to have a bigger impact, faster and the path to do that wasn’t clear, but I trusted it. Then 4 years later after creating systems and seeing what worked (and didn’t) I wanted to share it with more fitness professionals. I quit. Show Them: I've Been There While building courses and an online presence… I have felt completely lost, been easily distracted, not known which thing to do first, second… and which things I needed to stop doing. And I figured it out