 Welcome to the 21 report. I'm Frank Pesci and I'm here with Speaker Jim Flanagan Jim. How are you? I'm great Frank Thank you. Good to see you sir. Thanks for having me Jim You are one of the world's foremost authorities on strength training and exercise exercise science Well, I don't know about that I'm a cog in a wheel. I helped launch a company called Nautilus back in the day a formal physical educator taught school and My calling my mission was to teach and help people and I didn't coach the sport but Nautilus was invented just up the road and I jumped on board bought equipment started them on gyms and Went to work for the inventor got him Arthur Jones and the rest is history. I had a great career You know sometimes as he said man plans and God laughs You don't know what's next, but I was very blessed to Accomplish what I did with The path I chose So excellent. Excellent. Is this your first time speaking at the 21 second time? I think it was five years ago With the young 21 year olds and you spoke at 21 convention. Yep. Excellent, right? Yes, sir. So what do you think of the event so far that Anthony has put together very impressive? I see these people are just they're they're searching for something. They're looking for something and they're trying to figure it out and That says a lot about them that means a lot of the people here are self-starters, right? Right, which is important because as you know like anywhere any industry any room that you enter About 95% of people are following the work that the 5% had created for them. That's exactly right the 20 80 20 thing Yeah, yeah, I'm with you. Excellent. What's it like meeting your fans? Well, I mean just young people and you know, you're here to hopefully get a few points across You know, I told them early on I can't teach you anything in one hour But if I can get your attention to stimulate your thinking that you want that way when you got here, then it's worth my time. So Yeah, excellent. So tell us about your speeches. I personally had the opportunity to sit it on them So I have the benefit of you know having received that but I want the audience to hear it, too. Well you I've always Stayed as a physical educator and of course they call it exercise science major now, but that was my Foundation and so I always take the position if I can help that person He may be a customer or he may be a prospect or he may just be somebody who's Wanting knowledge you give time and it'll when you give time and there's no monetary situation It all comes back to you down the road and I've always lived that way. I mean I've I've housed them. I've taken them home. I fed them. I taught them and you know, it's the gratifications there And so it's just it's what I do It was clear to me in your speeches that you're very you have a heart for service. You're very service oriented Well, I know Jim business if you don't service them they quit coming and they paid the bills and that's it was early on I had that for almost 15 years and You develop your skills and you develop relationships of people and it is a let as electronic as we are today And you you're in that market in that world because you're younger You still have to get in front of people. You have to get eyeball to eyeball and you still have to build Relationships it's a relationship business and like I said in the talk, you know When you put yourself in front of that person it's gonna come back and bite you Sooner or later, right, right? So what you're saying is it's important it when you're in business and when you're in a relationship that you put other people before you Right is to say to have a fiduciary relationship Exactly, exactly, right. Yeah. Yeah, and you know what since COVID has hit I have seen that companies have put aside customer service and put aside client-first thinking in pursuit of profits or Whatever brand management or politics even when's the last time you call somebody and answer the phone with a live person Yeah, that's true. Hard to find a day and it's too bad and that personal touch. In fact we just had a major hurricane come through here and We talked to us a lady at five o'clock in the morning with a construction company and she I would hire her yesterday Her name is Holly and she was so attentive and caring about because she we had a we had some damage And we had some we had a remodeling job coming up a big tree fell and I go You know, you don't find people like this especially at five o'clock in the morning, but that's her company But she was unbelievable. So he has that personal touch. You can't put a price tag on that today It's like finding a diamond in the rough I'm like you if I have a customer service experience for somebody and I am a business owner, too So I'm always looking with your eye of sure, you know, where's the potential? Where's the talent? I mean, it's like it's like I'm covering a gem man a diamond in the rough You're hard to find it is so with that you have built a long Distinguished career and Rolodex, which depended on networking and meeting people Well, I travel a lot and I always had a rule of thumb if I'm on the West Coast of California There's a three-hour time difference as you know So if you call me in my office and left me a voicemail before 12 o'clock I'm out there. I call you before 5 p.m. Your time. All right, if you call after lunch Between 12 and 5 I'll call you before the next noon day the next day. I've got I never miss I'll always live by that Promptness is a keyword there. You have to be timing is a key. You don't want to delay people So and it also sounds like you were very serious about prioritizing what's important. That is to say You're on the East Coast. You're three hours back from Pacific time But you are making sure that you are making the call in consideration that they Exactly are not in the same schedule as you exactly which is which is the way sometimes you work late at night So, you know in your networking journeys, and I heard your speech I know you've traveled the world doing what it is that you do what were some of the tactics strategies Ways that you approach relationships to form a solid relationship at its inception Keep that relationship monetize that relationship maintain that relationship for the long term. It's real simple You back your word if you put your handshake out there you you live by it And if you say you're gonna do something you do it it's it's it You don't lead people along the way just to try to get the sale. I Don't like quotas. I like goals for the company for the players But I want the job done right and that's what we live by it We never had a real problem and there's the human the human element is always gonna be there Some people are a little bit more aggressive than others You got to learn to bob and weave and deal with them and hit the right impulses and the right touches to get them You know open up to you. So it's there's a there's a game of psychology with people as you know because you've lived it, too So But I was lucky. How often do you meet people that stand by their word? By by well, you know, it's funny you say that I'm in another business at night with this steakhouse called Christmas Prime Steakhouse in Orlando I've been among my 20th year, but I was I was brought in to tighten up tighten it down Set the parameters make sure the standards are in line And we don't deviate from it and we've accomplished it with good people and it's funny you asked that question And I people I'll say here's my number feel call me anytime. Oh, I want to see I'm gonna set up a time never hear from Very seldom They don't live up to it a lot of this and I understand because they get sidetracked They got their issues. They got their things in her world, but every once while later on they'll call I had a phone call last night from a guy in New Jersey The last night seven p.m. I'm not off. I took it He has 10 machines in his home. I talked this guy five years ago He's he's 60s. He's got a little bit of memory problem. All right, he's getting confused a little bit So that's you know, but he still works out. He's had he had a list of questions. I Answered every one of them. He called back 45 minutes later. I hate to bother you But I got one more question Frank you go ahead and ask me the question. He did I was on the phone another 20 minutes I'm gonna I got rewarded for it So at some point in time But I helped the guy He's reaching out. He wanted to hit questions. He nobody can answer for him and It's the right thing to do. I said, I like to go to voicemail. No, I had to call him back today anyways So I took the call You strike when Aaron's hot right right and what you did was provide an experience that was set apart from what is Otherwise being provided so often in business and relationships. Yeah So right now we're at a crux in culture where things are changing, especially the way that people communicate You being an elder having tons and tons of life experience and have had the opportunity to watch these changes occur in our society What would you like to see going forward or what advice would you offer people to bring forth better communication and better outcomes in relationships Slow down a little bit We're such a fast pace and you're seeing this from a medical standpoint the younger generation you and on down Are having vision problems or earlier now you having brain fatigue More frequently than you did before at an earlier age You're having we have sedentary living habits, which is creating an obesity pandemic because they're sitting all the time and you know, it's I mean, this is I mean from the psychology aspect of it people are not they're not moving They're stuck It's this and this and that now we grew up on the TV in the 50s, but we were monitored We didn't have three or four hours a day Into the hours you had a if you didn't do your homework you didn't watch TV You know, we were disciplined or being disciplined You just need to slow down a little bit and get off that thing shut that thing down a little bit And it's there. It's not gonna go away, but we are changing and It's you know, it's you got to adapt to it to a certain level You know some some old timers don't want it won't change But that's you know, if you want to survive you got to make adjustments, you know, I apologize because a Lot of people probably want to hear your perspectives on exercise But I sat in your speech and I was so moved by your mindset principles and your purpose-driven attitude and your desire to affect The attitude of the younger generation and that's why I chose to lead with these questions What I'd like to do is just shift it a little bit now towards those exercise questions if that's okay Sure, and I think the audience and certainly I would like to know What are some of the most important guiding principles that we need to keep in mind when it comes to exercise and the trends that are an Exercise and just the overall science of health and functional fitness sure love to hear from you on that sure given your background well Exercise is a requirement for survival for a quality of healthy life. Now, of course, there's many forms of exercise back in Late 60s the governing body called the American College of Sports Medicine They were looking for some body to lead that group to the next level and they found a guy who was a I think he was a captain in the Air Force. He was a flight surgeon. He's famous dr. Ken Cooper the aerobics guru who wrote several books and aerobic training and He got people off the couch. Well before that there was a guy named Jack LaLaine Sure, I got to know very well five foot four. He was a dynamic Individual he just promoted it and he he was exciting and he got he got women and the TV set black and white in the 50s off the couch So these people all had an influence, you know, but lived to be 96 Yeah, I knew I knew his wife very well Elaine Lala they call her just in the newest son and I knew him pretty well through the industry for since the 70s So but so the aerobic movement takes place and and and we as a company Nautilus Exhibited every year from the early 70s to the through the 90s with Nautilus and medics at their annual Scientific meeting which was thousands of worldwide PhDs that do all the grants and publishing academia and medicine Well each year you'd watch these people from afar and you go kindly Here's these guys They're in their running suits at five o'clock in the morning running the streets getting their miles in I mean miles These run I did 10 I got 12. They're all try to one up each other Then they have the opening reception and it's ice carvings and everybody's dressed up There are lapel pans and a pipe, you know, you can cut the air with the attitude And they're all talking about their mileage and this and that so fast forward each year over a 20-year period And these people end up with bone-on-bone Lost some lost a muscle mass lost a height They're feeble Frail they got a great heart and a lung so I'm thinking Something's not something's not clicking here. They're overdoing it. They're over. They're doing something and I understand competition If you want to run a marathon, you got trained for it, but the that's the it kept on and on and on so I guess something's wrong here So now we came from a position of weight lifting weight training not weight lift weight lifting is a sport Weight training is what you should be doing because your muscles do all the movements for you They're gonna keep your posture up and give you mechanics give you strength to continue and get the days chores done The side benefit is you change your physique if you're a male and you change your figure if you're a woman Properly done safely, but there's so much misinformation out there that people have to sift through and figure out what is good What is right and how much how often? You know and that's they don't know most of them don't know and there's certain things that you can do out there They're very extremely dangerous and you've got to some of them are worthless, but it's part of the whole deal somebody's it's it's You're basically it's not going to hell club. It's can't air You can't take it with you. I'm going to get a hamburger and a franchise. So Everybody unfortunately everybody that's it is an expert therefore You got a thousand opinions from a thousand experts and people don't know what they just follow on with and do what they are told to do And if you I'll say this if you get hurt exercising you've done something wrong. I Have trained several thousand people since 1972 Under my guidance and my gems and we never tore muscle. We never broke a bone. We never ripped a tendon We never hurt anybody so that says a lot right there. Yeah, it's it's the way It's the style of performance. How you do it. Have you had an opportunity to train professional athletes or Train a lot of them. Yeah. Yes, sir. Lots anybody that we would know or could know Well, dick buckles is on our staff for eight years and he was one person who will walk in do the workout Go throw up come back and finish. He pushed it. He'd get after it. Yeah, but I had I had problem gosh I mean I can name hundreds of people we dealt with we had Professional tennis players Martial artists top guys NFL football players basketball. You'll be Dave counts. I had Dave counts nine machines in his house Most of selling all the family with that being said should people train to be functionally fit for the lifestyle that they live Like does a football player require a different type of training than a boxer? Well, that's a good question Machines that we designed were based on muscle function Your muscles have the same functions as my muscles that muscle function doesn't change So what you do is you analyze the primary movers the muscles involved in the given activity you train those muscles Here's an example. You you probably saw a gymnastics match. You ever seen anybody do the iron cross On the on rings. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Well, okay So you take that individual and you start training his legs you goofed up because the legs are non-functional in that particular sport You've got to train all these muscles up here and get them strong is as strong as you can to protect him from getting hurt And to aid him in his competition, but you put 10 to 15 pounds of muscle legs. That's non-functional that particular activity So basically we train we train football players Baseball players wrestlers almost the same way with the exception of neck exercises for any contact sport So so it's muscle Strength is general skill is specific and you separate the two and unfortunately what's happened in our fitness world today is these so-called trainers Incorporate skill with overload That's a that's a kiss of death because you will get hurt sooner or later. And this is not worth it So conditioning over here is general skills specific So before somebody commits to an exercise program like for instance, we have CrossFit. That's out there now We have, you know, all kinds of trends that happen in exercise, you know every year all the time seasonally, whatever How should somebody approach getting involved with a new trend abandoning what they've known to work in the past? Is there a level to diligence is required research? I mean, how does somebody do this? You want to you want to you want to get approval from your physician to do a standard just whether a Physical just to get documentation not that they know anything about exercise. Is that a disclaimer or do you really mean that? Probably more of a protector. I mean, I never did it. I mean, we just we just did it, you know, right? We didn't have anybody got us, but here's an example back in the day I had three neck machines Covering the seven functions of the neck to get your neck strong because you may be a wrestler or a football player So I'm gonna train your neck today. You can't have those in your gym because of liability See how we squeeze squeezed out So it's just you know, things are tightened down and you got to be careful and everybody's certified. Well, who certified you? What makes that person the expert? I mean, it's not complicated and You know everything you need to learn about proper exercise is on a website called Arthur Jones exercise.com I mean, it's a million words of information and those are all he wrote and You can agree with them. Maybe not but the information is there and it works Did you say Arthur Jones exercise Jones exercise.com? Yeah, I'm getting John Turner But that on the internet years ago with I mean a lot of hard work to do that But it's very systematic and you can learn What what you need to do so amazing. Well, let me ask you this Do you think it's important for men to attend an event like this particularly 21 convention? Well from what I see it is I mean, they you They're here for a reason. They're searching which that that's that's good They're self-starters and the information you've got speakers You're providing for them to hopefully motivate them and get them in the right direction and reinforce Maybe what they already have learned to help them. So right on right on. Okay. Well, thanks for watching the 21 report I'm Frank Pesci with speaker Jim Flanagan. Thank you