Coaching for Behavior Change | Trainers Talking Truths

Listen to this Podcast Episode

Robert shares his insights into the key elements of a successful coaching relationship and how coaches can help clients to bring about lasting behavior change. The conversation then turns to the delicate balance between supporting a client's growth and challenging them to stretch beyond their comfort zone. The episode also highlights tips and strategies for coaches to approach this balance and help their clients achieve their goals, as well as tools and techniques that coaches can use to help clients identify and overcome limiting beliefs and behaviors.

Introduction:

Welcome the Trainers Talking Truths. This is an ISSA podcast dedicated to exploring the fitness industry and uncovering the whys and hows of personal training. To do that, we'll talk directly to the industry experts and certified trainers. We'll dig into fitness programming, business tactics, nutrition, and more. You'll even hear from current training clients who offer insight from the other side. We've got the fitness industry covered, so turn up the volume and enjoy the drive.

Jenny Scott:

In today's episode, Dan and I get to sit down with coaching specialists, Bobby Cappuccio. We're talking a lot today about the coaching relationship that we build as fitness professionals with our clients, not only helping them with nutrition and exercise and their lifestyle, but also on the personal side of things. Bobby's going to give us a lot of information about tips and tricks and ways that you can communicate with your clients and ways that you can incorporate motivational interviewing and understanding someone's behaviors into your personal training sessions. It can also be done separately as well. If this episode doesn't have you wanting to be a health coach, I don't know what will. Enjoy the episode.

Jenny Scott:

Hello world. Welcome back for another ISSA podcast Trainers Talking Truths. It's your co-host, Jenny Scott here with my favorite co-host, Dan the Man, Duran. What's going on today, Dan?

Dan Duran:

Well, Jenny, I am excited. Okay, so you may have heard me say this, and you certainly have, if you've ever heard me teach, and that is I'm not a very smart guy. Everything I know, I learned from somebody else, right? I try to pay attention. And one of those people that I learned so much from is our guest today, Bobby Cappuccio. I am really, really excited about this. It's going to be a fun one.

Jenny Scott:

Nice. Yeah, so I'm super excited about the content that we're going to talk about and the information you guys, because so many people out there want to help people change their habits, have a better lifestyle, be healthier, but it's more than just saying, "Oh, go work out this many times. Make sure you're eating fruits and vegetables," right? It's not that simple. For a lot of people, they need to change their behaviors. They need to understand why they make certain choices in their life. It's not that they're good or bad, but what really drives you to make these decisions and these choices, and can it be changed? The short answer is yes, and Bobby absolutely specializes in helping people change their lifestyle, understand their motivations, and so I'm super excited to really dig into the psychology and coaching aspect with him. So Dan, since you know our guest, will you tell us a little bit about him before we bring him on?

Dan Duran:

You bet. You bet. And I had to work hard at keeping it succinct here. Bobby Cappuccio specializes in coaching behavior change and motivational interviewing with a goal of helping people manage their health and their lifestyles. Now, that's not all encompassing, but that's what he's probably best known for. He works with over 60 school districts in California. He works with emergency responders as well as Fortune 500 companies. He was also formerly with the National Academy of Sports Medicine and co-founded an education company called Personal Training Academy Global. Bobby, welcome. It's great to have you here.

Robert Cappuccio:

Hey, Dan. Hey, Jen. How you doing? It's good to see you.

Jenny Scott:

Thank you for coming on. I'm super excited to hear what you have to say.

Dan Duran:

It has been a while.

How did you get started and to where you are now?

Dan Duran:

Yeah. So Bobby, you know what? Let's just kick off with the obvious question. How did you get to where you are now? What's your story? Where did it start and where are you now?

Robert Cappuccio:

Within my career? You don't mean the office.

Dan Duran:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's-

Robert Cappuccio:

I finally have an office that's walking distance from my house. Fantastic.

Dan Duran:

We have 30 minutes, so we better get on it. That's right.

Robert Cappuccio:

So I started out in fitness probably for a similar reason to a lot of other people because there was a deeply resonant and personal reason that got me into the industry as an enthusiast, a participant, and it was transformative. I operate off of something that I like to call originating intention, which is a litmus test for an agenda versus a real value. When you deeply value something to the point where it is so sacred, and when you engage in that thing, it makes you feel most alive whilst you're living. You simultaneously tend to want that for absolutely everyone without conditions. Not if I agree with you or not if I feel you're deserving of it, you want it unconditionally. And that's one of the tenets of coaching, actually. And I was born physically deformed, had a facial deformity. I was growing up in a very abusive household, a rather violent neighborhood.

I had Tourettes, so I was different and not in the way that is like, wow, he's got a unique personality. I got noticed a lot, in ways that was uninvited that I would rather not, until I got into fitness. Everything changed for me when I saved up just enough money to go into the local Y on Coney Island Avenue. And when I started exercising, it gave me not only a reprieve, something constructive to do at my time because I was at that point in my life at 15, I was getting into, let's just say things I shouldn't have been getting into. And I needed a safer and more constructive way to allocate my time. And it also gave me a place to hide a little bit, but it gave me self-efficacy. What I mean by that is I started to develop a belief that I was capable of taking action consistently in correspondence with a desired outcome.

And that was brilliant, and that kind of lifted me up, which was my way out. And I wanted everyone to have that experience and that's the short story of what led me to become a certified trainer when I was 18, my first certification was ACE, the American Council on Exercise. Go out, get a job, be absolutely horrible at it, go out, get another job, get pretty good at it, get promoted, be horrible at that again, and just build my career. Just snowballed from there. And then I think the intersection of all three of us was when I came onto the National Academy of Sports Medicine as the director of professional development. And one thing just led to another, and it was just a series of realizations. Some good, some a little bit more informative than others based on mistakes. But that's pretty much how I got here.

What are the key elements of a successful coaching relationship?

Jenny Scott:

That's awesome. So it sounds like you've worked with people not only again for professional development, but also for health and lifestyle changes as well. And that's a big swing, right? That's a broad amount of topics that you can talk to somebody about, but they all kind of center in a successful coaching relationship. Can you tell us some of the key elements of what you would say is a successful coaching relationship?

Robert Cappuccio:

Well, that's an interesting observation. And I got into coaching not by design. I had no intention of developing myself as a coach, initially. I was obsessed with neurophysiology, with biomechanics like anatomy. That was my thing. When I started managing teams of trainers though, what I started to learn is that it's pretty apparent people don't do things for our reasons. They do things for theirs. And Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist, endocrinologist, professor out of Stanford says it's the best. He says it's complicated. And when he says human behavior is complicated, that's an understatement. And he said, "You better think real hard and real long and be real careful before you think you understand what causes someone to behave in a certain way, especially if you have a negative connotation around what that behavior means."

I started to understand that being able to step into somebody else's experience of the world, and not detaching, but hold my point of view in mind, but simultaneously embrace theirs and hold a position of unconditional positive regard, empathy, curiosity, inquiry, and listening beyond my desire to educate was something that allowed people to go further faster because it was based on their intrinsic motivations, not my desire of who I thought they should be.

Jenny Scott:

That's awesome. I really like that. And that does make sense. I've never really thought about it like that, to not think about, so assume you know why somebody's doing something, especially if it has a negative connotation. And when he said that, I was like, huh, that does make sense because usually we assume the worst, but there might be other motivations behind their behavior or other reasons for their behavior. Super interesting.

What can coaches do to really connect better with their clients?

Dan Duran:

So on that Bobby, though, speaking to that relationship and the openness and willingness to listen and understand, what are some of the things that the coaches can do to really connect and be able to facilitate or help? I can remember you saying we don't change people, they change themselves. How do we best create that relationship to be able to facilitate the behavior change that they are seeking?

Robert Cappuccio:

I think there's a couple of things before we get into the skillsets, because in a lot of ways, it's exactly the same way that you become really good at assessment, human movement, program design. You study it, you apply it, you get feedback as to what's working, who is it working for, when does it work, what's the difference between what works for one person doesn't work for another? You go back, you study some more, you continually apply. So that process, I'm assuming the vast majority of your listeners understand very well. But there are hard skills and then there are being skills. There's what you do, and then there's who you need to be. And I think we touched upon a lot of those. There's a curiosity more than a definitive assessment over who somebody is or what they should do or why they should do it.

There's listening skills. I'm going to learn more, and this is misunderstood. So I think every coach needs a coach. I'll probably talk about this a little bit later. One of my coaches doesn't come from coaching. They come from improvisational comedy, and they're one of the top coaches in the world. They've worked with people like Steve Cobert, Steve Carell, Steve Martin. I mean, they basically have worked with all the best Steves, and there's so many intersections between coaching and deep long-form improv. And one of the things he talks about is what really creates a great scene, what creates a great performer? And it's not talent, and it's not someone who is quick on their feet, and it's not someone who is funny, definitely not that. It's someone who has the capacity and the willingness to immersively listen. So listening becomes absolutely critical and understanding a couple of principles, and I think you touched on one, which is don't make assumptions. Inquiry before advocacy.

The other one is we don't change people, they change themselves. It's unconditional positive regard. And another space that I think is critical for people to hold is my belief is greater than your doubt. I'm willing to meet you where you need to be met because I understand that you are beginning in this journey. So you don't have the context of someone who has seen so many people, who are struggling and seem to be always striving, but never arriving yet through mistakes and through perseverance and through being able to readjust their strategy and identify what are the values that drive the desire to change in the first place. They do get to the other end of it. So I'm going to hold that space and you can borrow my belief while you develop self-efficacy on your own.

Jenny Scott:

Wow, I like that. I really like that quote. We don't change people, they change themselves, but I feel like a lot of coaches out there, Bobby, would you agree, they try and change people. They're like, "No, you're going to do this. Here's what you're going to do." They're like, "I have a plan. This is going to work." Instead of letting that person kind of figure out what their best path forward looks like. So is there a fine line between helping somebody grow and encouraging them to do it for themselves versus just being like, "I'm going to stretch you beyond your limits. Here's where you need to go." Isn't there a fine line there that a lot of people are missing?

Robert Cappuccio:

There is. And first, I just want to address where that's coming from. I don't think that most trainers do that because they feel that they know their clients better than their clients know themselves. That's absurd. Or they feel they know better, or they're taking the position. Jen, if you could just be a little bit less like you and a little bit more like me, you'll be fixed. I think it's what we alluded to in the beginning, where people enter this industry because it has made such a personal and deep impact on them, whether it's saved a life or maybe someone very close to them lost their life, or maybe they were struggling with a health issue. And we come into this wanting change for people sometimes more than they wanted or believed they're capable of it for themselves. So I think it's coming from a sense of urgency.

If you're a lifeguard and everyone's out there swimming and you see a shark, you're going to look like a lunatic on the shore if you don't think you have time to swim out to somebody in time. Where I think the transition is understanding that a lot of times, the things that we do with the best of intentions tend to bring about the exact outcome that we and our clients do not want. Because it creates invalidation and it creates intrinsic resistance where if you go with their motivations, their beliefs, their worldview, their values, you have a lot more leverage.

There's a lot more expeditious opportunities for transformation in that mindset. And accountability is critical. But here's the thing, who is your client accountable to? The misinterpretation is, well, my client is accountable to me. No, they're not accountable to you. They're not accountable to your worldview, your beliefs, your values. They're accountable to themselves. And the best thing a coach can do is help extract from their clients, what are the metrics of self-accountability? They set the rules. And how does that coach help you with self-accountability? I mean, if you're accountable to me, I'm responsible for your outcome. That didn't work. Okay. What now, coach? Oh, and by the way, I didn't gain any self-efficacy. I didn't gain any self-confidence from that. And because you're accountable that you're a strategy, I didn't gain any capacity either.

How can we start changing our mindset to help people be more accountable to themselves?

Jenny Scott:

Yeah, I agree with that. We actually just talked about that in bootcamp today. It becomes a blame game if you're accountable to somebody else, because if you don't get the results you're looking for, well, if not my fault, it's my coach's fault. They didn't get me where I wanted. No, no, you have to make the choices. You have to do all the work. They're just there to help be your guide essentially. So I love that you're saying it that way. And I think a lot of us as trainers need to change our mindset with that. We aren't the accountability, like you just said. We have to help them become more self-efficient so that they can do what they need to do.

Do you have any tips or any keys for how we can not only do that with clients, but I'm talking more like for those of us who might need to change our mindset, Bobby, what can we do? Instead of being like, oh, they're accountable to me, how can we start changing our mindset to help people be more accountable to themselves?

Robert Cappuccio:

Well, if you want to help somebody change their mindset, they have to acknowledge that there's something in their mindset that they wish to change. And a lot of times, you help them introspect around where within their life they've already demonstrated the attributes that they think would be important to leverage moving forward. We, a lot of times in the fitness industry focus on what's the problem, what's the solution? And that is a good thing. That's not a bad thing. The issue with that is if you get into solutions a little bit too quickly, problem focus tends to narrow your field of vision, where focusing on successes seems to widen it and expand your capacity for creativity, while lowering you being defensive because you are trying to protect some aspect of your psyche or something else within your life that's a hidden commitment. That's a whole different story.

However, if I was working with Dan, what I would want to know is not just one of the problems that you're looking to solve. Talk to me a little bit about what's working really well in your life? Over the past 10 years, what's an area of your life that's critical in your most proud of? Is it what you've done in your family, is that you've been able to develop a team and coach kids within your neighborhood and transform their lives? Is it your time at ISSA? Is that what you're most proud of? Tell me a story about what it is you did to facilitate all of these changes. And after that, what do you notice? What exactly do you notice about yourself? What are the strengths? When things went hard, when you thought that things were going to have one outcome, but they had another one and it was disappointing and you didn't know a way forward, but you still were able to persevere and succeed, what were those strategies?

So as you look ahead where you want to be in this realm in your life, let's assume it's health and fitness. Now, I would not be coaching Dan on health and fitness Actually, I would hire Dan if that was the case, but what are some of these attributes and strategies and mindsets that you feel would be constructive within the next three to six months? Which one would be most relevant in the next seven days? So you could start building momentum to get there. My belief is he just needs a little bit of resources to be more resourceful at leveraging the things he has done to get to where he is. Most people have a series of accomplishments. They've gone to university, they've put kids through university, they've started a business. I remember when I was very young in my career, I was having a conversation with my client about missing sessions, and I was having conversations with him about lateness, and I thought I was going to give him a pep talk.

In other words, tell him what he really needs to hear, rather than what he wants to hear and address his lack of commitment. And he paused for a second and he looked at me and he said, "I make more in a day than you make in a year." And that was absolutely correct at the time. And he said, "I work over 80 hours a week and I barely see my family, and they're the ones that I'm doing all this for. I don't care how thin I am or how fit I am. My need to be there for them is what motivates me to pay you. And sometimes I have things that open up in my schedule and I spend time with my family and I sleep in a little bit late because I got to be at work and I miss. Don't ever assume that I'm lazy. I built my business from nothing."

I was like, yeah, people who build that level of successful business from nothing, they're typically not lazy, lack perseverance, and commitment. Maybe there's something deeper and maybe I should invest in trying to learn what those dynamics are. Because if you call people out, sometimes you might be right, but being right and being effective are two totally different things.

Jenny Scott:

Yeah, that's amazing.

Dan Duran:

Wow.

Jenny Scott:

We're going to take a quick break for an ISSA review.

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Jenny Scott:

Welcome back. We're speaking with our guest, Bobby Cappuccio, and we're talking about the coaching relationship.

What tips do you have for coaches to help clients overcome their limiting beliefs and behaviors?

Dan Duran:

Wow. So now, I'm just enthralled or if y'all could see, I'm just looking and listening and I always am when Bobby speaks. Thank you, Bobby. Now, if we were to take what you shared over the last 15 minutes or so and we're not done yet, and say, okay, here's three tips or three to-dos to help a coach identify what with their client, help identify and overcome their limiting beliefs and behaviors. So three things that would help them with their client, overcome their limiting beliefs and behaviors.

Robert Cappuccio:

Okay. May I give you five?

Dan Duran:

You may.

Jenny Scott:

Yes.

Dan Duran:

By the way, we got to hire Bobby for sales. I can tell already. Sales coaching. Yes sir.

Robert Cappuccio:

So the reason why I say five is because there are a lot of strategies that work, but I think something that is a more cohesive strategy that you can use in its entirety might yield a little bit more leverage. And Albert Ellis created something called the A B C that's used a lot in coaching, cognitive behavior therapy, and it's basically allowing people to implement introspection and mindfulness at the same time. So there's an activating event that happens in your life. Maybe it's, I just said, I'm going to start Monday and I'm going to eat much better, however much better looks like to you. So somebody, I don't want to say starts on a diet plan, but I'm going to clean up my eating habits. Monday, they're doing amazing, right? Tuesday, they are crushing it. Wednesday, they're doing so well. They're a little bit cocky. If they keep this up, nobody's going to like them.

Thursday, however, rolls around and a piece of chocolate cake takes advantage of them, which is very unfair. And they instantly go through this, "Oh, you know what? I always do this. I'm so unmotivated. I'm destined to be this way. I'm lazy." And it's like all this stuff happens. So they start feeling this intense anger and shame. They start feeling helpless. And what they do is they start engaging in self-talk and maybe they engage other people in a way that's not constructive. So what happens was you had an activating event and then you had C, a consequence. Well, what's between A and C? B. B is a belief. There's a belief about what that situation means to you that created that internal and corresponding external response. The next step is D. And before you do this, acknowledge it. You will get further with your clients by reflecting, affirming and encapsulating, than you will by jumping into educating or, oh, yeah, yeah, I could see why this really bothers you.

So what we need to do is... That is not going to work with someone, especially in that state. So acknowledge, validate, reflect what they're thinking and feeling. But the next step is D, dispute that. So Dan, was there a time where in your life when you had set a goal and you stuck to it, where you weren't lazy, where you weren't undisciplined? And tell me about Tuesday, actually. We know Thursday was there was a horrible chocolate cake in cement. I wouldn't say it. That sounds like you're mocking and that would be horrible. But what happened Tuesday? What was different Tuesday? Walk me through that day because there's a lot to learn in Tuesday. Understanding where the pitfalls are and how to overcome them a lot of times relies on you being able to contrast where were you at your best? What were the emotions, the conditions, the self-talk, the environmental triggers, the people that facilitated that?

And finally, E is empowerment. Dan, what would be a belief that if you possessed it would allow you to not be perfect, but when setbacks inevitably occur, leverage them through learning and be better as a result of them than you would've been without them? What would that belief sound like? What would it look like? And by the way, I don't expect anyone to have the level of insight to say, "Well, here's my limiting belief and here's this new belief..." So many of us are not even aware of the cognitive biases and the beliefs we have. So assuming that right there in the moment, they're going to be able to come up with deep, profound self-reflection is unrealistic. So why do you take them through this in the first place? Because it doesn't matter. Because the next step is, okay, if you had that belief, what would be the behaviors?

Let's talk about all the behaviors that would correspond with that person in the same situation. Which one of those behaviors? Can be a brainstorm. You could work with them. Which one of those behaviors, by the way, do you feel is most attractive to you, most realistic for you to start implementing? Because when you listen to self-help, when you listen to people talk about change, they usually talk about a linear unidirectional cause-and-effect relationship.

Change your beliefs and you'll change your behaviors. And that's true. But also if you change your behaviors, it will help you reshape your beliefs, change your thoughts, change your emotions. Yes, but emotions also profoundly impact thought. And you don't need to have a psychology argument about this. All you need to do is take a look at neurobiology, the architecture and function of the brain to figure that out. So everything is self-reinforcing. So this is where you can use someone's behaviors, even if they don't totally believe that it's okay. What would someone who believe that engage in? And what would that mean? What would that prove to you, the next time you're able to initiate that behavior and change that outcome? What will you now know about yourself that you might not know now?

Jenny Scott:

Yeah, I mean, listening to you, Bobby, this is all hitting home for me what you're talking about, but the depth of the conversation that you truly need to have with someone, and again, to your point, it's not going to happen in a 30-minute session. This might take weeks and months of talking to someone to develop all of this. If this doesn't make you want to become a health coach, I don't know what will. It just goes to show that we can't affect as much change as we really want to, just being so singularly focused on diet and exercise, diet and exercise, diet and exercise. This whole conversation and this coaching aspect is probably something that you're not going to be able to do while you're exercising or while you're walking on a treadmill. This is going to be a sit-down conversation. Is that the way you usually coach when you coach with people as they're changing their behaviors, it's a sit-down conversation. Let's really dig into this. Right?

Robert Cappuccio:

Well, now it is because I don't do personal training anymore. But back in the day, there was ways that I was integrating this with the conversation. So if let's say, for example, because I mean, this is getting into a totally different domain. There's three things essentially that trainers do. They instruct, they teach, and they coach. Instructing, that's where a lot of us live. That's our strong suit. It's bridging the gap between knowledge of results and knowledge of performance. You have an ideal execution of let's say a movement pattern, and then you have what's actually happening, and then you're using multi century cues, assessment or appraisal, however you want to take a look at that, to modify what someone's doing within their movement patterns to kind of narrow that chasm as much as possible between what you're ideally looking for and what's actually occurring. So you could talk to somebody about what changes to make and that does work.

You can teach somebody where I'm going to give you information, you're not going to do it in front of me. We're going to talk about healthy eating. I don't want you to eat in front of me. As a matter of fact, I'd really prefer it if you did not. But you're going to go back, you're going to apply what it is that you learned, and then you're going to come self-report what that was like, what the experiences were, what went well, what didn't work well, and then we'll have the next lesson. Coaching is kind of drawing out. So when you executed that movement pattern, you were uncertain about it before we initiated this exercise, Jen. What did you notice? Where did you really perform well? What were you focused on? What were you thinking? What sensations did you feel? On a scale from one to 10, how do you feel that went based on your own criteria?

10 is I absolutely nailed it. One, how did I live past that? Are you crazy? You're a maniac. I need to hire somebody else. Okay, well, let's say it's a five. Same thing with motivational interviewing. Why did you not say a three? Okay, because I did this, this, this well. So you're allowing them to recognize their own areas of efficacy. In your mind, what would a six have looked like? Now, coaching is a tool. It's not the right tool for everyone at every phase in their journey because some clients in the beginning phase of training, if you engage them like that, they are so involved and they have such collaborative ownership over every aspect of that session, they're going to be more committed, more engaged.

After a while, they might be like, you know what? That's why I pay you Jen, so I don't have to think like this. I don't care. Yeah, I don't want to do a sliding scale. Just tell me, throw my legs behind my head, jog upside down on a physio ball. I'll do it. I think about everything else in my life. I don't want to think here, because that's a different phase of change. So again, sometimes the same tool that works for somebody at one point within their journey is the exact same tool that is no longer works.

Jenny Scott:

Yes. I love the way you're talking about incorporating that and just the question that you asked on a scale of one to 10, how did that go for you? Instead of me saying, well, this is what I saw. Let them give you the feedback, because I love that question though too when you said, why not a three? And let them tell you what they feel that they did. Well, chances are they say, "Oh, my knees felt good. I was able to keep them out." They might pinpoint some things that you weren't even paying attention to or that you couldn't feel or perceive. And I think that's a super interesting way of going about that in a super simple way that most trainers and fitness professionals can incorporate motivational interviewing into everything that they're doing as a coach. So I love that. So it doesn't necessarily have to be a sit down session, but there are... Are there some things that you would say need to be covered in a, "Hey, we need to sit down and talk about this"?

Robert Cappuccio:

I would say periodically, you should always be sitting down and speaking with your clients and having, I don't want to say an offline but off-gym-floor conversation. Obviously, if somebody's doing something that could be damaging to their physical or mental health, that's an instant conversation. And that's not even a coaching conversation because that gets into counseling. So that's a direct conversation because their wellbeing is first and foremost, so obvious, it's that. When somebody is reacting to a trigger, when somebody has a sticking point, either physically, emotionally, psychologically, that could be a time. When somebody's making a transition where they're going from one aspect of themselves and there's a whole new aspect of this person evolving in a very positive way. Don't ignore that. See, a lot of times we focus on things when they're wrong. It's kind of like somebody gets promoted to be a supervisor and they focus on the problem employees most of the time. Okay, understandable. But what about your A players? What about the most outstanding people on your team? If we neglect them in favor of what's wrong, their performance is going to decrease.

Jenny Scott:

Agreed.

Robert Cappuccio:

Makes sense.

Jenny Scott:

Yeah. That's awesome. I love that. So I love the application of this. Dan, go ahead.

How can people make sure they are continually making steps to grow their business?

Dan Duran:

Oh, no, it's just amazing stuff. I wish we could add another 30 minutes to the podcast, but I do want to ask one more question before we wrap up and let the listeners know how to find you Bobby. We have a lot of our students slash graduates members here at ISSA, our community, that are building their own businesses. So they're certainly involved with behavior change, motivational interviewing, health coaching, all of the things that we've been talking about. But they themselves need to build a business and remain inspired and using the words, the common terms, inspire, motivated to do that next thing, to build and grow and develop. And I know you do a lot of coaching, executive level coaching. So back to my top three, which you are allowed to make five, what would your tips be for our listeners out there that maybe want to find other ways or new ways to ensure that they are taking the proper steps every day to achieve that desired outcome of growing their own business?

Robert Cappuccio:

That's a really deep question. You could go so far down the rabbit hole, but understanding that, I did hear you say in wrapping up. The first thing is-

Dan Duran:

Yes, I did.

Robert Cappuccio:

You have got to decide who you are first and foremost.

Are you an intrapreneur or an entrepreneur? So both of those are people who can take resources from a level of low to high yield. That's where the term entrepreneur came from. It was coined by the economist, JB Say, in the year 1800. Not everybody is suited for starting their own business. And regardless of what your social media guru tells you, that does not make you a bad person, but you have to figure out which person you are. Otherwise, the results could be catastrophic. So are you an entrepreneur? Are you an intrapreneur? Second thing is coaching. I know that sounds self-serving, but you're going to have to build a book of business. So probably one of the greatest thinkers in the 20th century, and probably even one of the greatest thinkers in the business thinkers of the 21st century is Peter Drucker. And that's impressive because he died in the 1990s, so well done there.

Not on the dying, on being considered probably one of the greatest business thinkers of the 21st century as well. If you're considered one of the greatest past death, you're doing well. And he said that the purpose of the business is to create and to keep a customer, and it's the same principles that make you a good coach, that make you an effective salesperson. I started out in sales and I got my face kicked in, every single... Not literally, I mean, almost. I was really bad, but metaphorically. And then I became very, very good at it. It's coaching and then who are the people around you and how do you serve them? People on your team, you get promoted into management. You work for those people. That is leadership. They do not work for you. That is shortsighted. It sounds great when we beat our chest and write about that on a social media post.

When you start building a team that goes beyond three or four and it's 30, 40, 100, 10,000, that breaks down. So your ability to coach those people and bring out the best in them and align what they're doing with what they value, not you, same thing. You'll be effective. And I'm a massive advocate for go out and find information and apply it and see what works, what doesn't work. It's like if I wanted to be an attorney, I would go to law school. If I wanted to be a doctor, I would go to medical school. There is unlimited amount of information. What is the outcome you're looking for? Who's done what you want to do? What information's out there? Find it, study it, immerse yourself in it, test it. When things don't go the way you want them to, rejoice in it because that's the kind of stuff that makes you smarter or at the very least, wiser would be more accurate. And that would be my big three within the confines of time that we have.

Jenny Scott:

Nice. That's a huge takeaway in my opinion for this episode. There's so many people out there who think, "Oh, I read one book. I read the ISSA personal training. I read the NASM personal training book, and I'm supposed to know everything. They didn't teach me this. They didn't teach me." You're not going to learn everything in one spot by no means for anything. Right? Go out there and continue to learn, but apply it, use it, try it. Didn't work. Did it not, right? Because what worked for me might not work for Bobby, or what worked for Bobby might not work-

Robert Cappuccio:

And you're not even the same person after you read that book, because hopefully if you're read it correctly, you've changed, your brain changed, you changed, your perspective changed.

Jenny Scott:

Hundred percent, and you're doing things differently. You're thinking of things differently. Absolutely, Bobby, I love that. But yeah, you can't learn everything in one place and you have to actually use it and see how did this work and the next client, how did that work? Then re-adjust, do what you need to do, change something. Try something new. Learn something new that might help this person. That's a huge takeaway for me from this episode. This is amazing.

Robert Cappuccio:

Thank you, Jen.

How can listeners connect with you to learn more?

Jenny Scott:

Love it. Well, where can our listeners learn more about you, Bobby? Where can they find you? Do you have social media? Can they email you? What you got?

Robert Cappuccio:

I'm very rarely on social media, but I have a podcast, the Self-Help Antidote.

Jenny Scott:

Nice.

Robert Cappuccio:

The website is the selfhelpantidote, coincidentally, .com, and I have a co-host and she's Tiffany. She is amazing, and she is the host of Roll With the Punches podcast out of Melbourne, Australia.

Jenny Scott:

Nice.

Very cool. We'll definitely make sure that people get the link to your podcast. We love podcasts around here, obvi, but I'm super excited to listen to a little bit more because again, it's a lot of the stuff that you brought up today, it hits home. I've been in the industry for 14 years, and there's some of these things that I'm like, Ooh, I don't do that as much as I should. I don't ask questions to get their self-analysis as much as I should. I don't ask about people's motivations as much as I could. So, there's definitely opportunities. No matter how long you've been doing this or how good you think you're doing at it, there's always areas of opportunity. Right? Absolutely. Dan, what's your biggest takeaway from today?

Dan Duran:

So takeaway, well, gosh, I don't know. There's a ton of them, but something really resonated with me at the end, and I'm going to kind of add to it a bit. When Bobby said, immerse yourself in it and learn it, right? If you want to be a lawyer, you go to law school. You want to be in a doctor, you go to medical school, et cetera. You can't just stop with one book, like you said, Jenny. You've got to continue learning, continue evolving, but I'm going to add to it, relearn. And Bobby is actually the example. I went through education that Bobby helped create many times because I had to, as part of my role. Every time I went through it, I learned something new or I saw something that now that I'd learned maybe the foundational level and tried to apply it, something else jumped out at me that I missed the first time. So relearn, don't just close the chapter, close the book, put it on the shelf and go, okay, I know it now. Come back to it later.

Jenny Scott:

Absolutely. And to Bobby's point, you're a different person when you finish it. If you go out and apply it for a couple months, you're going to be a different person after that, and then it might hit different when you go back and look at it. That's a really great point. I love it. Well, Bobby, thank you for coming on and sharing your information with us today. This has been super fun, very insightful. I will say that.

Robert Cappuccio:

Thank you both. I loved it. This was fun.

Jenny Scott:

Absolutely, and thank you as always, Dan. This has been fun. Any last words for this crew?

Robert Cappuccio:

Well, I hope not.

Dan Duran:

Make good choices.

Jenny Scott:

Yes, as usual, of course. Go out into the world, do all the things, learn all the things, guys, but of course, make good choices. We'll be talking to you soon.