 and welcome to Connecting Hawaii Business on Think Tech Hawaii. My name is Kathleen Lee, and I am your host for this program. You can catch all of our Think Tech Hawaii shows on thinktechhawaii.com as well as on Think Tech Hawaii's Facebook and YouTube channel. Today, we have Aaron Sakai of Healthness Hawaii as our guest, and he'll be talking about personal training as a business. Aaron, welcome to the show. Hi. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you for responding to me. So, tell our viewers about yourself. Of course I would. Where would I go? I mean, it was really nice. Yeah, thank you. So, for the viewers out there, Aaron and I met each other through social media, and this is a testament to how powerful social media can be when it comes to fostering connections. So, Aaron, let's go through you telling our viewers about yourself. Well, being that you brought up that we met each other through social media, it was through a previous endeavor that I would like to still do, but I don't do anymore. So, Sleep Times Over was the talk show that I used to do on social media, and we met through, because this is my first time talking to you in this capacity. I've had guests, Adrienne Tam, Megan Cowell, friends of yours. That's how social media works, and we connect with people, and I had the show, and also my day job is a personal trainer. I had that along with the show. Show got too tiring for me, so I had to put the show on the back burner, because I just couldn't do it all by myself and focus on the day job, which is and always has been personal training. Healthness Hawaii is the company, and been doing that ever since 2006. Yeah, tell us more about that. I know part of your background is like you were educated in physical training. So, can you go over that as well as your experience as a personal trainer since 2006, as well as being at the Honolulu Club since, and I want to tell you. 20 was when they finally shut down, which was a very odd situation. How controversial can we get? Can I go say some stuff about that? Maybe not. We can edit this later. So, Honolulu Club, I was there from an intern when I first started college. So, I went to college. I don't want to make this a long story, but I got into health and got wanting to help people from 2003. Went to KCC, those in exercise science program, took that, went to UH, took the kinesiology program. Within the span of that time, a professor told me, why don't you just work at the Honolulu Club and see if you like working at a gym and seeing if this is the right thing for you. So, that's how I started there as an intern working at like four in the morning, and then folding towels, and just seeing what everything unraveled with the gym. And lo and behold, I've been there since, till they're closing in 2020. And that was the thing. I graduated 2006 in kinesiology, exercise science in KCC, kinesiology, UH. 100% trainer since 2006. So, it's going on 17 years. And very fun, everyone's different. And it's always an experience every hour is different. Literally every hour of the job work day is different. Yeah. What keeps you going? I mean, it's a very niche industry. What inspired you to go into it and have that as a business? Because we're not talking about like selling products or maybe you have that at some point. I don't know. But we're talking about you selling your actual services and your knowledge. So, tell us more about that. Well, when it comes to health, it may sound cliche to a lot of people, but the reason I got into it was I wanted to truly help people feel better about themselves physically, mentally as well. I mean, we can get into that later of how it's very important mentally and how that connects with the physical. But that's basically what I wanted to do from 2003. And each and every person I meet is different. There's never the same story. You may have similar storylines, but everyone's different. Everyone's got their quirks. Just being able to help that person and help that person achieve to be confident and to be comfortable in the fitness world. Because it's quite frankly, I mean, it's a weird place, right? I mean, it's a lot of awkward stuff going on. If it was easy to do, everybody would be doing it. So that's really what the guide of the trainer is, much like a coach or a teacher teaching someone how to learn the computer or how to fish is teaching someone how to be comfortable exercising and exercising properly and doing the right things for that person for you specifically and coaching along the ways of even mental or life coaching as well that comes into play as well. So yeah, long story short. Yeah, that's a lot of responsibility. And I think it's awesome that you have taken that on because it's very purposeful and you train people from beyond fitness studio. Do you also go into people's homes as well? Yeah, that's always the thing, especially now with a lot of the condos having their own gym now. That's been a thing that has changed over the years is all of these great condo gyms and some of them are nicer than the gyms that are commercial gyms itself. So that has also been a thing that's been for convenience factor, very easy for people. They just come down from, you know, go to the lobby or go to wherever the gym is in their building and I meet them there. But also another thing that's changed regarding COVID is the virtual training and the zoom training. That's another thing that I offer and has changed dramatically since 2020. Yeah, let's bring that up. You actually went into my, thanks, Erin, you went into my next question. You know, like, did you notice any patterns between what people requested from you from before COVID hit the globe and after, but you did talk about the virtual training. So let's pull up your patreon.com page so we can go over it and go into more detail about what this is and how virtual training goes. Okay, so when the first lockdown happened in March of 2020, we all didn't know what was going on and we didn't know what to do and I'm always the person that works a lot. So like, okay, we're at home and everybody else is at home. So like, okay, why do I, how do I get money? Like, what do I do for a job? What, what do we do? How do we even work out? So I created this virtual program thing on Patreon and a lot of these subscription sites where you can sign up for the program, you can sign up for a workout, and then I can guide you virtually without having to be in person. So that worked for the first lockdown. I put that on hold all the way till now basically because this program that we're talking about is brand new. I didn't even launch this yet, but the site is up as you could see, but it's just to help people with convenience because convenience is a factor that's never going to go away. It will always be there. And to eliminate any possible excuses toward working out where people may not want to be around people, working out in front of people, the intimidation factors is not comfortable. So I created, if you are wanting to stay at home to work out, if you are traveling, if you moved away from Oahu where we are and you still want my guidance, I can still help you with that. We have the technology to do so. And that was what it was, just another service that kind of focuses in on today's 2022 age of how everything is online now. So that, that was really what it was. It was stemmed from COVID, but it kind of an evolution from COVID since we are back in person again. Yeah, I appreciate how you adapted that quickly. Speaking of working out, how important is routine and consistency? You know, some people say you have to switch things up, others say no, as long as you come up with, like what does consistency even mean? Is it just working out every day doing the same thing? Or is it working out every day switching it up? Like, can you go into that a little bit further? If we look at the bare bones of just exercise in general, consistency is key. And we have sets, we have repetitions. Everything is a repetition. And if we look at the word repetition, it's doing the same thing again and again and again. It sounds monotonous, but it's key. It's key to adapting, key to getting stronger, key to learning, key to getting better at whatever we're doing. That's really it. It's, I think that is the most difficult for a lot of people is just to consistently do something, consistently do something physical. We have a lot of other tasks that we consistently do throughout the week, take a shower. But we look at that, that's something that we don't really look into our mindset of thinking of we need to do something physical, we need to get out and go walking, we need to go out and get physical in any type of capacity. That's really what it is. It's just, if you can maintain that, the difficulty of the exercises, the changing up of the exercises, that comes later. That's later on. The first bare bones is consistency. Being able to work out three times a week, can you pull it off? Can you pull off four times a week? Go from there, 20 minutes a day, can you improve to 30 minutes a day? It's really, we have to simplify it and it's still going to get your results. We don't have to look at, we have to do something in high intensity training. We don't have to do anything. We start with the bare bones of the person, of yourself, myself, where are we in our life? Where can we go and add to our life in a physical capacity? That is only going to benefit us. Anybody that walks, a person walks five days a week, they're going to feel better and it's not going to be anything difficult, but they're going to feel better and then they're going to want to feel even more better and then that's when you progress. Somebody wants to do 10 push-ups every day. If he does that, he's going to feel a little bit better about himself. He's going to feel better physically and then we progress. So, consistency is number one. Difficulty, not so much number one. Maybe look at that number two or three in the ranking, but consistency is key. Okay, that's good to know. Coming from a trainer, since I do my runs, I call them run walks because they're not super intense. They're a combination of running and walking. So, this is good to know. So, thanks for confirming that, Erin. Appreciate it. You have very useful information when it comes to what you have out there, especially when it comes to your social media. And one thing that caught my attention was you talk about focusing on fat loss instead of weight loss. What does that mean? Are those synonymous or are how are they two completely different things? Big misconception. I'm going to go on the scale. All right. I go on the scale every day. Changes every day. Two pounds, one pound. And then what happens? Anxiety, stress, and then we freak out. We're like, oh my God, what are we going to do? That should not be the case because weight is going to fluctuate regardless. It's a long-going informational thing that I don't know where it got misconstrued, but we always like to look at the scale as like the end all. And that's always been the case. It should be the case that we want to burn fat. We want to lose fat. Muscle weighs more than fat. So, if the said person is going to be working out and doing weight training, they will gain probably a few pounds, but their clothes will fit different. So, looking at the fat loss is that's how you're reshaping the body. Not looking at the overall weight, but looking at how I may be weighing five pounds more than I did three months ago, but I can wear a smaller size pants, smaller size shirt. That's what we need to look at as far as not looking at the scale and having that just control our life. Look at other means. Look at other types of measurements. The scale has been such a convenient thing over decades, right? You just buy one from Amazon and you put it in your bathroom and then you go stand on it and it's just convenient rather than measuring your body fat. So, I get it, but it's just changing the mindset of looking at, I'm going to start exercising. Don't focus in on the scale. Maybe look at it once a week. A big misconception that should be changed. So, you're saying I shouldn't tell you that I weigh myself every day. Please don't. Yeah, that's not going to go well. You're right though. You're absolutely right about that in that it does cause a certain level of anxiety. So, I appreciate you reminding me of that. See, this is why we have you on the show, Erin. Well, thank you. I'm trying to dispel a lot of the, I guess, the stereotypes of the years, you know, of that. Like the classic one, I'll throw this one out. Whenever I meet a female for the first time, they're always like, okay, I want to do weight training, but I don't like it bulky. It's every single time. I don't want to be like a bodybuilder. Like, I didn't realize bodybuilding is still a thing in 2022. I didn't realize, like, I thought that was like that in the 80s, but people are still holding on to the bodybuilder thing. I don't know any, unless you're in a bodybuilder, I don't know who's following bodybuilding, but women still know about bodybuilding and they don't want to be like that woman. So, I'm like, it's impossible to do that. And that's a big misconception is weight training is actually more beneficial for women than it is for men. There are far more female oriented issues that weight training will help more so than men, osteoporosis is one, if we can just say that. And women need to, I guess, get more comfortable with weight training and not realize that they're going to be all bulky and turn into she-hulk or something. That's not going to happen. So, there's another one. I hope that changed your mind. I hope you didn't think that before. No, not at all. Okay, good. Okay. But what was the other one? I'm going to lock you to that. Well, the main one is, well, that's the two main ones that I hear all the time is the scale. I don't want to become bulky. I don't want to look like a man is another one. I mean, I don't know where that got misconstrued through the years, but it's a lot of it has to do with intimidation factors of the gym and being comfortable in the gym environment. And I think that's a big factor. I hear a lot of women saying they don't want to work out in the gym because they don't want to be around these meathead guys and they don't want to, they just want to go in the cardio machines because they don't want to deal with it. And they don't want to go to the weight area. I totally understand. I mean, once again, the gym's an odd place. So that's, and that's where I come in in sense of being, I'll be the guide for you. Let's figure out this crazy world together. I got your back on this. We get in, get out, do what you have to do, and then you get out of it. We don't need to linger and go hang out and do gym selfies. We can just get out. And that's part of it. It's a lot of psychological factors too that I hear come up a lot. It's just the intimidation and just not being comfortable with working out in public especially. Yeah, I can agree with that. I actually like working out outdoors instead of gym. So it's interesting that you bring that up and makes me feel like I'm not alone in feeling that way. Let's go into more of the business aspect. If someone wanted to be a trainer like you, what would they need to have to go in the industry? How long is this show? One of the things I did at the Honolulu Club before they closed was I was the trainer of trainers. So I would train the new trainers who would come in and help mentor them so that they can figure out this world themselves. They need to listen first of all. That's number one. They need to be a good listener and ask questions but comprehend and listen to what the answers are because everybody is going to be different and every program is going to be different for every single person. And it's not some cookie cutter situation. So being a good listener, being a good conversationalist is key as well so you can gather information. And the more you gather, the more you'll know about that person, the more you can program to that person. The knowledge, hopefully, of course, we need the knowledge. So the schooling is a critical big time factor but a lot of it has to do with the personality of that said trainer, the listening skills and just the communication skills, just being able to put that all together because there's the science of it. And a person coming into the gym is not going to really, they may ask these questions and of course you answer them. But at the end of the day, this person wants to either lose weight, this person either wants to gain weight, this person wants to get healthy, their doctor's telling them they're not doing well, they need to exercise, they're coming in to see you and they need your help and they don't have the knowledge for this. So you need to guide them in a way that will make them feel comfortable to want to trust you, to want to be there with you and carry on as your coach. So that's pretty much the first bit of information I would tell someone is just being able to listen and communicate. Well. Yeah, well you've been in the business for a long time. What are some challenges that you have ran into in building it? It's really getting your name out there and it's and plus it's since we're on Island, it's word of mouth. It really truly is word of mouth and it's once you find that said one client. Of course, do the best job you can possibly do, of course with all of your clients, but try to see what type of worth you can get out of building that relationship you have with that said person and that will be how you build. Say you're training a man in his 40s who's married. Ask him how is it going? If he's enjoying it, if he's enjoying the time with you, ask him if there's anybody else in his family that could benefit from the results you're getting. Ask if he has a wife, son, daughter, whoever, friends and just put it out there. A lot of it is just asking. It's a salesman tactic, but it's an honest salesman tactic because we're just selling just getting healthy. You mentioned products earlier. I'm not a person of selling any products. I used to work in a vitamin store. I ain't pushing any vitamins now. I just don't feel it's needed. If you just eat well, if you exercise well, that's really, it's cliche as I said, that's what all you need. So that's how you would say to that said person of how you would build and that's how you would build your clientele is just through honesty, through trust, transparency and then hopefully that will connect to other people and people will hear of you and then you may find people on social media. Here we are. So it's all, it's all relative. See how we just bring that back from it. Yeah. It's bringing that back full circle, Erin. What are some lessons that you have learned that you'd like to share with people out there? Wow. In regarding just the business aspect or anything. Yeah. It's just really being just the key to, I guess, to being a good personal trainer or just being a successful personal trainer is just really comes out to the listening skills and the communication. The knowledge is there once again, but it's really just having to listen to that said person and follow along with what they need and cater to them. Because we're in the customer service industry. It's a customer service position. So it's being able to cater to that said client and cater to them to the best of their ability. And that's really the basis of it. And just know that there's a lot of psychological factors too that may be coming into play of why are they working out? Why are they not working out? If you're telling them to work out when I, if I see the person twice a week and I tell that person, can you go and do a two other days a week and I'll give you the homework and I'll give you a workout to do and they don't do it, delve into what's going on with that. Why are you not doing that? And there's always going to be those set factors and I hear all kind of stuff. It's similar to like a hairstylist or a bartender where they'll spill all kind of information to you and it's all connected. If they're feeling a certain way, they're not going to be able to work out. If they're stressed, they're not going to be able to work out. It will help them if they do, but there's going to be other things that we have to help guide them to make sure that they can put it to the side or overcome. So yeah, that's I'm giving long lessons. Is it sorry? Am I just? No, but you should because you're a coach. You're a trainer, you're a coach. You should be giving long lessons and so I appreciate you doing that. Once again, how long we got this episode? A couple minutes left. Is there anything else that you would like to add that we didn't cover? Just know that for anybody out there that's wanting to exercise, anybody out there that's hesitant to work out, look at yourself and what are the factors that might be the case? I mean, everybody has a ton of excuses, right? And it's just looking at what is the underlying factor? Do you want to feel better about yourself? Do you want to get and feel that way or living out of shape? I wrote a quote on IG not too long ago, living out of shape is harder to do than exercising. And I hold true to that because someone who has back pain or whatever pain going on, they're going through their day and they're just like kind of just dealing with it. Rather than somebody exercising, you bring up consistency we did before. If you're consistently working out and moving around, let's see how that back pain or whatever pain, let's see what happens with that one. I'm pretty sure it's going to change dramatically and for the better. So it's really that, do you want to move on and progressively get better with yourself or do you want to live out of shape? That's kind of the thing that each of us need to look into ourselves and figure out. I like that. Pick the kind of heart that you want to live with, right? Exactly. That's stuff, Erin. If people would like to get a hold of you, how do they contact you? Well, I'm on IG. I don't have time to make a website yet. So we're just going to go with, it's at Erin, underscore Sakai is going to be my IG. That's going to take you to the Patreon link that we showed earlier. That's the Health Miss Hawaii virtual training program. And I just post on there weekly and I guess my number of contact information is on there as well. And give me a follow. That's what they do. That's what I did. That's why we're here. That's why we're here. That's why I met you. So that's how it works. Yeah. Well, thank you, Erin. I really appreciate you being on the show today. And we also want to thank Jay Fidel and the staff at Think Tech Hawaii for making programs like this possible. Today we had Eric and Hailey who helped us out with the program. Until next time, aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Mahalo.