 Next question is from Lean Queen. What's your best advice for someone who wants to become a better communicator? What would you say is a top trait of a great communicator? Yeah, a great follow-up question. I, one of my first mentors in fitness, my friend Don, he was excellent at selling and communicating fitness and the benefits of health. And I remember when he would talk to potential members or clients, he was just very effective. Now I was a young kid when I started working with him. I was 18 years old, full of piss and vinegar. I loved to talk back then, just like I love to talk now. And I remember talking to somebody about fitness and he sat in and I did what I did well as I presented and I talked and I motivated, inspired and used my charisma and all this other stuff. And I remember that at that point, I was trying to show off in front of him because he's watching me, so I'm like, I wanna do a really good job. And the person, they kinda liked what I had to say but they were struggling with it. And I remember they left and they ended up not getting started in fitness or whatever. And I was really disappointed. And the person left and then Don sat me down and he goes, I was just like you when I first got into fitness. He goes, I'm gonna teach you one of the most important lessons in communication. He said, use your ears and your mouth in proportion. I'm like, huh? He goes, listen twice as much as you talk. He said, a lot of people think communication is talking, more of it has to do with listening. So I would say the top trait of a great communicator is listening. Number one, it gives the person, they know that you're hearing them so that already opens them up to anything you're gonna have to say. And number two, you don't know what to communicate unless you listen. You really don't. You have no idea. I've seen trainers make this mistake where I remember I had this lady that one time was thinking about working out, she was in her fifties and the trainer kept talking to her about how she's gonna get her body in bikini shape and she's gonna look fit and she's gonna look so hot. And she completely failed to hear the woman say that her problem was that she had osteopenia. She didn't give a shit about that. So her communication was terrible. Well, sales is just communication. We've talked about this before, right? So people get so turned off by talking about sales or closing but really that's all that is is effective communication. So I'll give you a couple books or three books that come to mind that I think are not traditional in the sales world that I haven't been recommended before but I really enjoyed reading, Verbal Judo, Sway, and Biology. All three really good books and in effective communication and sales. And the other thing I used to always tell my trainers is I used to ask them, I said, what is the difference between a good closer and a great closer and a good closer learns to overcome objections and can push people and they know their product really well and they can push people into a sale. A great closer can pull somebody into a sale by asking the right questions. And so that kind of goes in line with what you're saying, Sal, is just learning to listen more than you talk. So learning to really hear the client or the person across from you and then learn to ask the questions to leave them in the direction that you want to go. That strategy is far more powerful than trying to push or convince somebody to do something. Yeah, I think too, one thing that I struggled with and I know some of the trainers probably out there when they're going through the process of trying to get to the close, right? Like you're anticipating the close, you're presenting what that looks like for the client but now there's this uncomfortable silence where they're trying to think it over and it's like you get this tendency of like, okay, it's silent, so that's bad. So now I have to jump in and say, well, you could also do this and you just literally like cut your feet out from under you. Like you need to give them ample time to think about it and just wait, just wait, don't say anything, let them present their ideas to you. And so that's just something that I had to work on personally. I know that I got better at as I got more confident in my skills in terms of like trying to convey the best plan for them. But it's just like, it's a process of reps, just like anything else. If you're in the gym, you need the reps, you need the people in front of you, you need to be able to see what went wrong, how it can improve and like for me and specifically like that was everything. I had to just keep placing appointments and keep booking them and keep talking to people randomly in the gym because I hated it. And it's just like, you just have to do it. Yeah, one of the big, I'd say most common mistakes and we'll stick with trainers that trainers make when it comes to communication is that they talk, without realizing it, they talk people out of getting started in fitness. And you probably hear what I'm saying, you're thinking, how is that possible? Why would a trainer talk someone out of fitness? Well, they don't mean to, but that's exactly what they end up doing. I'll give you a very simple example. If somebody is talking to you and you wanna talk to them about fitness and you're trying to get them started and they say, I don't have a lot of time, I just don't have a lot of time to work out, I've got kids, I've got a job. And the reason why I haven't done this is I just, I don't have a lot of time to get started. Well, the trainer that's not really paying attention is gonna start the whole motivation talk. Well, you know, everybody's got 24 hours in a day and we have to prioritize our time. And by the way, if you prioritize fitness, you're gonna be healthier, which is gonna give you more energy, then you're gonna be more productive, you're gonna have more time for your kids, you're gonna be a better parent, all true. None of that is false, it's all totally true. But what you failed to do was listen to the person, empathize and work with them. And believe it or not, less words would have been a million times more effective because what you just did by that is you literally talked them out of it. You literally just proved to them that you don't understand them, you don't know what they're talking about and that it's yeah, you're gonna have to make a lot of crazy changes right off the gates to do this fitness thing. When all you had to say, this is all you had to say was, oh, you know what, it makes a lot of sense. How much time do you think you can devote to fitness realistically? Whatever answer they give you is the right answer. It doesn't matter, one day a week, no problem. It's better than no days a week. I'm gonna construct the best routine I possibly can with that one day a week. We can totally start there and it's much better than doing nothing at all, and which is also all completely true. So this is one, and by the way, communication skills are the most important skills you can learn in life ever. I don't care what job you do, look at the relationships that you're in. You always have to ask yourself what your goal is. Like what is the goal with this communication that I'm doing with this person? Is it to prove them wrong and prove myself right? Or is it to get them to understand what I'm saying and maybe sway them a little bit, maybe persuade them to do what I know to be the right thing? When you think of it that way, you tend to communicate more effectively. You tend to not be so, you know, such a zealot about what you're saying. It's a little softer because here's the deal, okay? Here's the reality. If I tell the person who just told me they have no time and I say to them, well, how much time do you realistically have? And they say one day a week, here's what I know about fitness. I know this for a fact. They come in because now I've listened to them and they honestly believe they only have one day a week, no problem. Nine out of 10 times the person shows up one day a week. They do it a long enough time. They feel, see the benefits. Guess what they do? They make more time. All on their own, just like magic. I used to love watching this. It would take two months, three months, sometimes a year. Inevitably the client would come up to him and be like, you know what, Sal? I'd like to work out one more day a week. What do you think I should do? Just like magic. And they would end up sticking with fitness. So communication has a lot to do with learning and a lot to do with understanding what your desired result is. It's very little to do with winning an argument or a conversation.