#187: Gavin Meenan on Transitioning from PT to Modern Warrior Coach, Building Retreats into Your 1:1 Coaching and Rewards of Serving People on a Deeper Level!

I'm Brankyne, your online health and fitness entrepreneur and business coach here to help you by deconsurking all these health and fitness and online business. And today's show with in-person podcasts, I'll actually pop this up onto my YouTube channel on Brankyne Fitness if you want to watch the full video. We chat with Gavin Meenan and somebody who has really smashed the business base of Nishin. He's transitioned from a personal trainer, very successful offline personal trainer, to now the modern warrior coach, where he helps men in particular on all facets, a very holistic approach from their physical well-being, but especially their mental well-being. And in today's show, we talk about building retreats into your one-to-one coaching, which is a particularly great angle if you are looking to serve people on a deeper level and the rewards of serving people on that deeper level and meeting them where they're at. For some of you, you're going to be perfectly fine with just health, fitness, weight loss, body composition. Amazing. You can keep your business exactly there, but if you feel it as a calling to go a little bit deeper and help people in a more meaningful way that transforms their life outside of just their physical body composition, then you're going to get loads from today's podcast. It's also sponsored by The Circle, which is my online group mastermind, my online business coaching in that circle premium episode. All the questions I've been sent in from actually one of the girls mostly who's looking to build out a retreat style business, but we go heavy into the nooks and crannies of building a retreat business. So that premium content will be in the circle alongside all the other training videos, the quarterly meetups, the weekly trainings with me, etc. So that link is in the description below. It's the sponsor of today's podcast, but without further ado, here's Gavin Meenan on transitioning from personal trainer to modern warrior coach, building retreats into your one-to-one coaching and rewards of serving people on a deeper level. Enjoy. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of The Fitness Business Podcast with Brankine. I'm delighted to have a guest today who just did an episode on the main show, which was a very different topic to what we're going to be covering here. On there, we spoke about self acceptance, we spoke about self love, the journey of men in particular when it comes to work into since the vulnerability, the things that actually make you a more holistic man. In today's podcast, we are going to talk about business. We're going to talk about the transition from a traditional personal training fitness business into becoming a modern warrior coach, leveraging a podcast, growing up, using social media to bring people into retreats and everything in between. Gavin, welcome to The Business Podcast. Thank you very much, Brian. Gavin, let's go into a backstory, completely different vibe and frequency for this podcast compared to the first one because this is the business side of things. So your work is very, very deep and I'll link that other episode so people can see and get very familiar with the hands-on and you go into that soul work with people getting men that like remove all the blocks, all the shit that's holding them back, but it's not where you started. You started as a coach, as a personal trainer, as general fitness. Talk to us a little bit about the backstory on how you go into business first and then when the transition towards a more holistic, modern warrior style coach came about. Yeah, I got into business first after I was kicked off the career ladder. It was after a redundancy, shortly after my daughter was born. I was working with Elri Sports as an assistant manager. That redundancy led to more or less a year long of trying to find a new way and actually a couple of months after that redundancy, it was fired from another job. Sometime after that, it was fired from a different job. The universe is like Gavin, start your own thing. You're not meant to be here, Gavin. You're meant to be somewhere else. I get in one of those moments where I was reflecting on who I'm at, I was obviously reflecting on the failures and on the way. I keep fucking up these job opportunities and I keep falling back into social welfare and joblessness. I was working a few hours here and there in security and different things just to make ends meet and had an epiphany or had a moment there where I looked back and began to take stock of my experiences in the past and identify what it was that I enjoy doing and what it is that I'm good at doing. The enjoyment part was actually working with people, dealing with people and helping people. The skillset that I had was the personal training because I had a personal training qualification, I had a degree in sports and leisure so I had that background behind me and I sat there and I put one and one together and that was the inspiration to start personal training. In person personal training. In person personal training and so again it was that period where I was looking outside but did not see or foresee any opportunities coming my way. Again this process of well I'll keep applying for jobs and maybe something will come up and nothing's coming up so maybe you come up with something instead. So that was the that was the initiator and also been inspired by my daughter and wanted to provide and you know support her as she was growing and developing so so then yeah it's it's this different and business cards and started the Facebook page. What are you with this? This was 2011 into 2012 I'd say so yeah one full on with what the promotional pieces you know become frequent on Facebook motivational codes. Business cards everywhere but then you know it was a very slow burner and I would say maybe a month or two months went by before somebody actually reached out to me which was my a friend from college who wanted to get in the shape for a wedding so thought great this is it I'm making a start and then I thought okay but where are you starting Gavin you haven't got a gym to go to you haven't got any facilities what are you going to do here? I decided to trespass into into a gym and coach them there for a while until I was found out and kicked out of that gym and then went to another gym and got kicked out of there and then eventually found a spot where I could sort of hide I was actually back in the college gym and sleigh weighty and the gym is upstairs away from the reception area so I could kind of hide in there and I brought these clients in and I was building it was you know two three four or five clients over the first few months and then during a summer period I had put a tag team team together and we started going to the rugby club and started this tag team thing based on maybe at six clients at the time and that was just the the moment where things started to ramp up for me because people were talking and obviously you're in that community and they see the name on the on the t-shirts and people are talking about their experience with me with other people in the on the tag rugby so then I started to get this influx of people coming at me to the point where I ended up in a situation where I was working 66 60 or 70 hours a week and completely consumed by the workload which again you know gone back to a previous podcast was another distraction and a beautiful addiction for me to run away from the pain within but again pain can be one of our greatest initiators to to pursue a path of purpose so that was that was a process and you know working 60 70 hours a week on the on the clients and outside of the gym as well with the check-ins and the programs that you have that is Gavin Meenan fitness the first name that I came up with was one two one person training and it's one o and e the number two and then w i n it was it was a modern warrior that was far away from modern warrior at that point because I was I didn't feel like a modern warrior by any stretch of the imagination at that point so it was one to one personal training just with a bit of a twist on the words I got to a point where like I was I was heading for burnout and at the beginning of of a business you you kind of have to eat a bit of shit along the way and you're I was saying yes to everyone and then attracting quite difficult people into the business and to the gym and and it became a process where I'm sure you've experienced this before as well where I became a concert to these people to the majority of these people and I'm charged in 15 20 quid for a session and then there's the resentment that builds up because you feel this though they're taking so much away from you but you're not getting a fair exchange on your energy so I could feel this building up a my system and of course that was beginning to burn me out and worry me down and I got to a point where I reached out to fill the game at the time it was maybe 2014 maybe into 15 that I reached out to him he was relatively early into it it feels great he's been on this podcast yeah yeah I felt as a top man help he's helped me through a lot and those early days he was actually on Snapchat at the time and yeah we're dating ourselves there anyway my my regional viral platform on Snapchat yeah yeah yeah yeah I was on it too I think it's a deal my profile after a while but anyway I reached out to fullness and I'm I'm I don't know what to do but I'm I'm burning out here I've got all these clients I've got a weightlessness to people that are that I can't get in because nobody's leaving and he sat me down at his kitchen table I remember very well up in Hillsborough in Lisbon and I told him about my predicament and they just turn around say you have an eating creature prices there is a lot yeah you need to increase your prices yeah you're you're you're too you're too cheap you're undervalued in yourself and all these people are staying because you know they're only you only pay in 15 20 quarter sessions so I mean it's not done done that was very fucking uncomfortable to take that with me from Phil's home and then learn to apply it in the business in the business sitting there before I spoke to Phil this was sort of a hobby this was sort of a pastime because what I didn't tell you yeah you were an operator in an owner you were just I was doing this as opposed to running the business you were thinking like a you would have well-keying job versus running a business exactly well that wasn't the idea at the beginning because I actually went back to college around that time as well to study social care and I was so the the first year in college was was running in line with the with the start of this business and then the business started to kick off and I it's I look back and I go well okay I was observing the two the two areas okay do I continue doing this part of social care and the reason I'm doing social care is because I'm guaranteed a job and that's not really something I'm I'm driven towards whereas over here I'm you know I'm working with people I I enjoy the gym the fitness element it's so rewarding to help them transform the bodies in their lives in certain ways so I decided to drop the college and go all in and fitness which came with some push back some people turn around and tell me what are you doing like the fitness it's not money in fitness what like you're guaranteed a job in social care what like what are you doing that leaves clues failures they've clues yeah again it's like that trusting in ourselves that look I feel that this is the right path for me so so yeah I mean felt completely flipped the switch for me in in the sense of like this isn't just a job anymore this is a business and you have to look at this as a as a as a business now so putting proper packages in place and proper you know processes in place in order for the business to grow and expand and then prices increased which upset some clients of course talk to us about that because that's very tangible for people because a lot of people who listen to this podcast and I've worked some in mentorship summer in the circle some that just came across at events and conferences and they will explain a similar pain point and I'll look at them going your price is way too low you shouldn't have a hundred percent conversion rate on people if you do the prices too low what how did you move through that what was the conversations like what was the internal dialogue to flip that switch so that you were actually able to do what the business needed versus what was uncomfortable for Gavin mean in the person yeah of course because my deep underlying fear was rejection at the time and I knew that once I put that out there I was going to be no rejected by many of these long-term clients and I did like I I had maybe let's say 30 30 to 40 clients at the time maybe 30-ish clients at the time all doing different sessions over the course of the week maybe three sessions per client or two sessions per client at all all out it up so these are 30 people that have been with me paying probably max was 30-year-old session now to go to 50 even 60-year-old session and the majority of them actually either immediately left or left soon afterwards but the brilliance was is that they had already saved their time with me they already got the result they're just kind of hanging on for the sake of it and the the opportunity that wasn't being opened up because I was keeping keeping these clients who had saved their time was others were waiting for me to come and the others were waiting at free time actually on a waiting list to have to work with me and help to help themselves you know improve their lives so yeah these people left and then these people came in and the great thing is and the funny thing is is that once I put the packages out to these newbies there was very little questions asked or they have no reference point for the old part exactly yeah exactly so man I was terrified of putting that out there because again the the underlying fear of ejection or the the inner child I think I've seen Phil put up a slide recently your inner child is running your business and the inner child was running my business at the time yeah I remember I'll send him a few voice notes or a few messages just before I initiated that and I said I feel you know I think the best thing for me to do and I was sat down with each client next week and I'll explain the process is to them and I'll you know I'll talk to them on to one and he's very blunt in his response said hey man you've got a business to run you have got time to sit down with each and every every client you send an email and that's it it's like whoa really so yeah I still remembered very well just the email was there ready to go sent a draft to Phil is it yes that's grand and just hitting that sand button was like my stomach was turning but just hit the sand and and then away it was exactly what I needed not what I wanted but what I needed in order for the the next level of the business to evolve so it went from whatever might have been maybe 50 60 hours of time in the gym to then maybe half of that so now I've got extra hours of my life that I can begin to work on online coaching I can begin to work on myself I can start to develop me I can start to improve as a coach so that was the value of of time that I got back from reducing my time in the gym by increasing the value of my services so in a way the additional value that came in with the new clients was invested in me to become better for them and this is the part that we often miss is that increasing your prices and is going to help you improve your services because you'll take ideally take a percentage of that income and invest it in becoming better for yourself so you can be become better for them you would hundreds and should be doing if you're listening to this podcast that that that's tremendous advice because that freed up time and I also tell people without cutting across because I want to continue on this before we do the transition into modern warrior is your if you're a business owner you what you're investing from the business is different mental accounting to your personal money like what you've and I've had Phil on this podcast he's done a private master class in the circle love what Phil's doing he's moving out of the fitness space now into a more general thing so like I feel great was one of these people used to always say like I do business coaching Phil's business coaching is other people I'm like go to whoever you vibe with the most like if you have a better frequency vibe with a Phil or with the me then that that's your feedback and there's all the great coaches out there too he's moving out of that space now but something that we've talked about personally me and him and we've kind of had this conversation too is just reinvesting back into yourself you know you do the retreats that aren't business retreats but what they are is they develop you as a man as a human being which hasn't knock on effect positively into your business and you're not having the same mental accounting because it's coming off your individual tax bill so so it's completely different so when people are listening and I'm always at I shout this Tommy's watching this video because we're recording it live it'll be on YouTube too I'm sure he's sick of me saying it and I'm like just reinvest back into yourself like it's different money you want to pay tax in it anyway it might not be me might not be you but somebody out there you vibe with as a coach as a mentor reinvest back into you so with that in mind without putting too much across it that's a really good feedback that I wanted to kind of just interject so that people really connect with that because you'll have men listening particularly because mostly men you serve within modern warrior who are like actually I'm really going with the business I'm doing really well with my finances with my money with my clients I don't need Brian I don't need Phil I don't need a mentor I don't need coaching but I need to sort my male shit out over here my relationships my vulnerability they love aspect the self acceptance aspect that's where I'm struggling talk about how this fitness business that went from similar to me that 50 60 70 hour weeks that was just completely unfeasible it was Elliot holds for me not Phil Graham Elliot that made that switch for me again speak very highly because I was right where I needed to be when I met him and he was one of my first mentors and then you had that business which then became more focused on you learning more about yourself and then transitioned several years later into what it is now modern warrior between the brand the retreats the podcasts etc talked to us a little bit about the transition from fitness business into what I would say is it's it's still fitness but it's holistic fitness it's wellness it's emotional intelligence it's physical and health and all merged together so it's nearly like a niche and you're very targeted with who you speak to talk about how that transitioned and where that came from in terms of I I've moved past this point in general fitness now into this is who I want to help and serve yeah I can only help those if I have something to give back so for example the the time of the fitness and the personal training what I had at that time was a lot of knowledge and ideas around how to improve your life physically and obviously it filters into your your mental health as well but on a physical level that's where I was strong because I had the the background and the skills to help people through that process so again the value of reducing my hours in the gym and increasing the hours that I invested in myself meant that I was becoming more let's say self-aware becoming more knowledgeable of myself and my tendencies behaviors my triggers my trauma my pain which taken us self-awareness worth me I was able to relate to other people who are going through summer situations so it opens up something else but again we spoke on the previous podcast about certain life altering situations that that view you completely off the course you're on onto something something new if you again if you allow that to happen the transition for me happened at that life altering situation that I mentioned in the previous podcast where there was footage of me in a webcam chat room you know circled around my area and it's completely crushed me at the time and that was a time where the personal training was probably at its peak at that time that business was at its peak and was also the time when I was work I was still working with Phil Graham although he had sort of moved into more of a group mentorship process but we were we were the first group that he ever had he's had a multitude of them since but we were the first group he ever had so we had a very intimate and close relationship with Phil in those in those months because it was just us and him and we were in a room every single maybe every every every fortnight we met up in bad fast so we got deep into personal stuff with and we built this person rapport relationship with them so when all that came out for me at that time he was my only he was my own protocol he was the only person that I reached out to during this period because he's the only person I felt I could the only person I felt could help me through this without shame or judgment because I was humiliated by this instant I remember sent him an email and I explained up Phil if I've had this porn addiction and this happened and he rang me immediately and he started to help me through the process and I still remember him on the call maybe the day it happened or the day after it happened and he said you know what man you're gonna look back at this experience you're gonna thank it for happening someday I was like fill your fucking off your head man I mean my fucking life is fucking falling apart here and felt you were right but the difference is is that it's all about perspective so okay am I gonna allow this experience and this pain to continue to continue to use me in my life and I'm gonna feel debilitated because of it and I'm gonna run away I'm gonna change country I'm gonna you know get out of the fitness industry you know almost become invisible or can I use this experience as a way to serve a greater purpose in in my life and in the life of others so I decided to take that avenue and that was the inspiration to write in the first book the stronger mind stronger body stronger life and that was where I started to open up about my struggles my lessons along the way my trauma my again my ideas of what healing looks like and I started to document that on social media and a lot of the sudden that the barriers dissolve for these men and they start reaching out to me how man I could relate to where you're at there and I'm really struggling and guys just come out of a very serious breakup one of the most one of the most important experiences or the of the pivotal experience that I had when I actually realized the power of this was when I had Don reach out to me from Scotland and he was drinking himself death every single day he was broken up from his relationship he had two twin sons to this woman as well and he was effectively homeless Don's shared a story a few times on my social media he's been to a couple of my workshops and since that day he hasn't he hasn't drank any alcohol and he completely transformed his life and you know that was a realization that okay something something's fucking rocking here and again one one story leads on to another one story inspire someone else to create a new story for themselves in their life and on and on it goes so it became a one-to-one process of helping these men through their deeper struggles the fitness was still a thing but I've been gradually gradually moving away from that place don't have maybe got a handful of people that I work with only in fitness now and it's just I'm letting it go we talked about attachments for you know this doesn't serve me anymore I'm into deeper deeper work deeper deeper work with these men to help them you know heal something more that's going to be that's not going to be found through simple physical transformation of course of course you can still complement it but it's more the emotional stuff so it became a one-to-one process and just like the start of the person training business I had an idea and I thought I'd be kind of cool just to bring some guys along for a weekend or for a day I think was a day I started with and meet up and we'll climb a mountain we'll have a conversation we'll have a connection again that was that was one day in slago where I brought a group of men up up knocked in a rain we went for a bit of food afterwards and was you know a full day of just climbing and talking and okay maybe I could turn this into a weekend and then I went to Westport maybe a month later or two months later brought like five men with me and we we we actually stayed in the place where there was no Wi-Fi it was brilliant so we could all just sit around and have conversations together went to the sauna the sea that we climbed we climbed a mountain actually it was one night the first time and they were gone you know on the side even but again that that sense of connection and brotherhood that you feel from these other individuals so at the start I wasn't offering a lot because I didn't feel like I wasn't able to offer that much because I still had to learn more by myself or learn or learn some you know deeper healing techniques to help you through the process so that's evolved the first retreat was probably back in 2022 you know but only people only find out about it now because I've this year I've decided to put a lot more time and energy into because I feel there is a calling there and there's a need for it and manage just looking for that safe place to just be and express and feel supported and feel loved by the people around them without feeling judged or shamed and again that's through my facilitation as well just to like I'll talk openly as you're well aware if I'm listening to be on several podcasts that I'll I'll talk to you about anything you know and that as I said those dissolves the sense of shame the man feel around their struggles and their pain and the reflections and the on the brotherhood and the connections that are just incredible so it's evolved from again as I said one day meet up to one night meet up to then hosting a few weekends but the weekends I've actually talked to the man about this on the on the most recent retreat just didn't have a proper structure didn't have a proper purpose in place no there's a purpose no there's a there's a whole idea of bringing them through something from Friday evening and to and to Sunday afternoon instead of I will maybe we'll do this or maybe we'll do that and not really understanding the the meaning behind it so now it's a it's a gradual process to help them let go of that which no longer serves them on a Friday evening so they can create space for something new to come in over the weekend and then we get into the depth of what that could be and of course we break it up between the the bean with the breathwork and the conversations what they're doing of the mountain hike and the sun and the sea and it finishes with a very powerful breathwork session on the Sunday afternoon which just completely exposes everything and everything a man has a different experience but again the experience that they need and just that sense of love and connection you start to find within yourself again also being murdered back to you by other men who are surrounded who are surrounding you during that period and during the the journey over the weekend feels as though it's been a journey of years you know that the the connection that's formed within only a couple of days is it would take sometimes takes a lifetime to build a connection with another man you arrive you're a stranger's on Friday evening and you leave his brothers on on Sunday afternoon and I say that to them on Friday sometimes but they don't really is until Sunday and I say you know you know what I mean now yeah and also like you know it's it's it's it's not it's not an easy process it's it there is challenges on the way obviously you're going into deeper work with yourself bringing up a lot of shit but I'm there to facilitate and to help you process that but there's also the triggers you're going to feel from other men around you it's not that it's going to be I will just go in there looking at all everybody and I'm going to like everyone here you're in a group with six seven other men you're going to be triggered by something they say or somewhere they're at in our life brilliant triggers are teachers take it with you process that understand what what that is what that root cause of that pain for you that's being exposed to this other individual and that's your teaching that's your that's your lesson from the weekend perhaps take with you so that's been the process the one to one this is still that that's that's the main gig that I have at the moment and that's the one to one conversations with some hypnosis and breath working on the way and again just guiding the men through the process of the the struggles or the pains that's coming up for them in their life at the moment and those are conversations I have every single day and then accountability and support outside those calls to help them implement what has come up for them and on those calls and conversations because we open up a lot yeah and the openness can create a sense of vulnerability so they require that bit of support outside the calls so that they don't falter with the with through the pain or the exposure of what's come up the nature of this work though of yeah that deep emotion and work I want to ask a question on that because we're going to do a circle conversation and a lot of the questions I got to do by one of the circle members or there who does a lot of retreats herself as well so we'll be unpacking that in a lot more detail but I want to ask a broader retreat based question here you when you mentioned the early one there was a testing phase which I love in business it was it was well it was intentional and unintentional there was a testing phase on it and at some point you got a there's something here feeling what's your process or your check-in for that because as you grow in business myself yourself filled we've mentioned loads of businesses listening trying to differentiate an opportunity from a distraction can be difficult and I've got Rebecca's in the circle health with Holland she's got a million plus followers on Instagram does tremendous work but has opportunities coming at our left right and center very very smart girl incredible at executing but something that we talked about when we were doing the mentorship similar to my business is how do I differentiate opportunity from distraction like whether so many things coming in you're like is this the path I should follow how did you figure out that the retreats were an opportunity for you to go deeper with men and build your business around it versus the distraction away from something else that you should be doing well I felt the calling to it and again it was being murd back to me through the feedback of those men and those earlier days when I'm when I'm facilitating these I'm I'm I'm very much an observer and I'm observing how these men are connecting with each other I'm observing how there seems to be a lot of crack in camaraderie along the way there's also an incredible level of depth that these men have been craving to to go into and express and let it out and again the feedback that I received is like I can't have this conversation with anybody else I don't like I've got friends but we don't have this level of conversation and basically he's telling me like I've been wanting to have this conversation for a very very long time I've been wanting to express this this feeling this emotion this pain the struggle for so long but I I didn't know where to go or how to go but it didn't realize that I could actually find a safe place for me to to be with other men who understand me and are non-judgmental and at least perceive as non-judgmental nobody's gonna be pushing you or pulling you or criticizing anything you say but you've been haired you've been seen so I'm I'm watching this and I'm I'm I'm realizing the the power of it but I'm I'm realizing the the impact of the connection with men who are in a similar journey as you instead of the connection with men who know this other version of you the the crack the drinker the party animal even the husband the father yeah this like these are you know expressions of who you are but they're not who you are like there's a there's a deeper being within there and he's worth tapping into and getting to know because once you find that within everything out there is going to you know become so much more beautiful and abundant and and loving because you find the love within again so it almost happens by accident for me you know that that's from a 3d accident level from an eagle level or from a but there's no accidents yeah so I could also look at that and tell you that the reason I started it was because I was looking for a connection I know friends I you know I was looking for the sense of brotherhood I was looking for a sense of meaning in my life I was looking for a new purpose in life I was sort of floating between yeah I mean fitness but it's not really sorry serve many more and I know there's something more here that I want to explore I want to open up so I was looking for something you know it's not all about oh I see these men are suffering so I better go and help them say no well you can't want to help yourself as well and that's okay you know it's there's a there's a massive thing about dissolving your ego and you know park your ego well your ego is always there but can you integrate it into your life in a healthy way can you use that ego as a service to others can you use your ego to serve a great purpose and to help other people or you're going to use your ego and go and you know fuck I'll arrange you and spend all your money on materials that you know just leave you with that sense of emptiness and it's a purposeless meaningless life so again learn how to manage it so that for me was it was it was what I was receiving through the feedback of these men that made me feel as though okay there's there's something there's something here these these men want this you know and and you want to facilitate it I want to facilitate it and that's big too that's like what I mentioned earlier you know I'd found a sense of power or sense of love or sense of strength within through my own journey of healing and it's it's a non-going process as always but I say okay I have this now I want to give it away and you know giving it away just in a fitness sense it feels as though I'm I'm not serving these people to to my highest potential but there's there's so much more here so again it's they go into that weekend and as I say to them this is not my weekend man you I'm here as a facilitator I'm here as an observer I'm here as your Sherpa that's it I'm here as your Sherpa whatever you put into this weekend you're gonna get out of it but I'm here to guide you along the way if you feel like you're falling into certain pitfalls or you're struggling on the way I'm I'm there I'll hold your hand I'll bring your truth and again is that trust element as well it's so important so well they they do trust me if they've set up for a treat there's a level of trust there which comes through the social media platforms and whatever else which is actually tied me on to what will be the final thing I want to wrap on about where they're coming from but I want to unpack if you think you said they're first Gavin because there's a lot of real value the first is seeking out something that you wanted to build as well that the calling that you had I think there's Megan who's in this circle did it with her running club very very similar and when I built the circle which is the online mastermind that was down to me trying to connect with entrepreneurship in business very lonely it can feel very lonely very isolating and it can feel like you're the only one that's dating with the struggles and part of the reason why I wanted to bring everyone together in one place and we do quarterly meetups we do weekly calls the premium podcast like the next one will be recording etc and it just it gets like minded people together so that you're all on this journey together and learning from each other like I facilitates but then you've got your I mentioned Rebecca I have that Holland in the who will take over for 20 minutes 30 minutes on a meetup because she is crushiness and it's just listening to her and absorbing her energy and I've got Paul and Gary who've been in business for years and they all these mistakes that are just automatic to everyone that comes on to a business knew they've navigated them and they can say look do this this and this and I love that element it's different but it's similar and the other thing about what what you were beating a higher calling to I think that's such an important check in I don't know if your friends are pathively do you know what path path wonderful human being me and Pat used to joke on the podcast when he was in fitness he used to serve the zero to ones he used to serve the very early stage mayors and I was always the three to sevens that that I was I didn't take the very very beginners in my early days of coaching I took the people to the next level people who wanted to go from I'm fish but I want a six pack I'm fish I want to be really lean I'm fish but I want to be really muscular I took them to that next level and it's a very important question to ask yourself regularly where are you serving people where are you meeting them at and where is your zone of genius to where you meet the match what do you want what do you want how do you want to serve them do you want to serve them zero to one one to five five to six six to ten well at what stage of the journey do you want to serve them on that is such an underrated question to ask because what happens is and I can remember was that this podcast or the main one where it can breed it was this one a little bit of resentment if you're feeling either underpaid or that your gifts and talents aren't being utilized the best way and that's a small seed of resentment that can grow if you're not serving people with where they need to be at in terms of where you meet the match but also where your gifts have been given to you and I think that's a really important check in with that in mind and before I go on to the final question for those that are listening Gavin like again there's going to be men there's going to be women there'll be some that have boyfriend's husbands there are listening to this podcast and they go actually he's been talking about this he's been talking about this brotherhood this connection with men which is like an internal warrior called very similar to the branding of modern warrior but those that are thinking the retreats in particular or the one to one they're the kind of the two sweet spots because I'll link the podcast in the Instagram where's the best place for them to connect either to the website is to reach out to Instagram DM for those that want to follow up off the back of this before we get on to the last question yeah Instagram DM on the process of revamping our redesign the website so Instagram for now yeah amazing yeah amazing I'll put that in the link in the description then ask question and I've got several that have been sent in for the circle conversation which we'll come up the back of this which would be all retreat based you mentioned social you mentioned obviously the podcast which is very big I did an episode on there too one of my favorite interviews actually shared it as a bonus on mine where a link out to your show I enjoyed it so much and the feedback I got was incredible where are the men coming from because right now there's probably a combination between referrals maybe some coming back some coming from one to one some from social podcast is it even need dispersed or where are the majority of people that are coming to the retreats actually coming from yes so at the beginning they were all men that I was already working with on a one-to-one basis and this is almost like an addition to the one-to-one work but since I've put a lot more time and energy into this year and I've I hired a videographer a few times got some more testimonials so there's a lot more of a promotional process behind the weekends videos are great by the way yeah yeah the top videographer and fairness so in the last on the last few retreats there's been I would only say maybe the last three retreats there's been men who have shown up that I've never met before whereas before there were other men that I already work with or had worked with in the past and they've again they've gone on their own journey since and then they maybe feel calling to to join a group of men instead of doing one-to-one so they can experience this as well and then they go on the they can come under a treat and then release I'll fuck and you go back to one-to-one because of something more has come to my awareness that I need to work on so there's that too or vice versa you've never met before you come under a treat and then you release oh shit like I know know what I need to do but I don't know how to apply this or implement it and I've had this feedback from the previous retreat there what the a couple of individuals but I'll you know one individual in particular where he had an incredible experience and let go of a lot of his well at least became aware of a lot of his childhood wounds and trauma certainly release some of it because there was a lot of tears on the breath rock session a lot of processing but as he said himself it's like I left that left a weekend I was I was posing I felt so more more energized and I felt driven and motivated and once I step back into the world it all seemed to diminish and I felt back into the default of what I was doing before but I know there's something more now but I just don't know how to navigate this and I said yeah well you're looking at your life through a whole new lens now you're seeing things from a different perspective and you've stepped into as we talk but before you've stepped into an unfamiliar place and it's scary and it's confusing so at some point or if you haven't already done it you're gonna sabotage that to bring yourself back to where you were you lived for so long because that's where you feel safe consciously subconsciously so a lot of the men have been what been the last couple of treats are what I'll call them outsiders and they're the region I threw either TikTok Instagram or Facebook yeah usually one of those usually usually yeah it's all social as I said to you I'm in the process of developing any websites so I haven't got that in place yet that's the next step but for the time being it's these individuals coming through socials and where they're at they're all coming from different places in terms of their journey at the moment they're their pain points at the moment there's there's guys have shown up the retreat and they've already been through a process of AA for example and they're and they've they've let go of their alcohol addiction and as you are probably aware you know once an energy is created they can't be destroyed so the energy that was those trans-sitioning into the or the energy is channeled into the alcoholism can then be challenged to something else or known to yourself although it could be good better and different that can go of course yeah supportive unsupportive or neutral is probably a better language true yeah so I mean the alcohol addiction of course with because a lot of health issues and difficult and more likely destruction in your life and then you leave that but then you channel all this energy into work and you become successful but then that consumes you so so there's there's different man come different different avenues and you know there's sometimes there's you know mid 20 year olds who are coming and they're just in their first ever series relationship and they haven't got a fucking clue how to navigate it and the woman's pushing back with different criticism or situations or there's things are rising they just don't know how to deal with it and you got men who've been married for 10 years and and the part that I left out is they're not only learned from me they're learned from each other so the guy who's whatever 40 years of age be married for 10 years is actually able to offer something back to the 25 year olds and he feels a sense of incredible pride and gratitude that is able to give back to him this actually happened on one of the retreats he goes man I was having a conversation on the guys in the mountain I'm getting this feeling like man I I want to be helping people more I want to be giving back more I said well you're already doing that through whatever you're doing right now so you know just be aware that you're exactly where you need to be be careful that you don't overload yourself with having to do more than you're required to do you're already doing such great work and what he's doing he isn't involved in a community so so that's brilliant as well because the man also begins to realize that they too have so much to offer and that brings a sense of inspiration and and perhaps intention then to aspire towards progressing and growing in in their own lives because they realize well like I actually made a difference in someone's life that weekend so this is the part of the connection so yeah all I mean they're whoever I always say whoever shows up as whoever needs to be there and I've had weekends where there is seven men booked and booked and and then on the Friday I've had a once it and show up didn't show up at all it's completely ghosted I can't never reached out again and I actually walking before that's very very strange that happened twice the the second time I got a call on the Fridays and I can't I can't do it if something came up so always seems to default towards the six but for the donny girl retreat I've got eight men in there so we'll see you that the universe is clearly open like you you have six to manage yeah the six the six knee your energy that was the message yeah so but so I'm waiting for two men to drop out now for donny girl reef on fallacy they push out the next retreat the business brain kicking in yeah yeah I love that and I think your spot on if it was very interesting I remember this is a complete side note but actually ties in but we won't unpack this because probably different five guys for a different day like we're both fans of our black medicine mushrooms I wasca et cetera and I remember the first time I signed up for a mushroom retreat it was in the Netherlands in 2018 and I got violently sick be the day before I was to fly out for no reason didn't eat anything particular I was violently sick and what I now realized looking back eight years later you're like oh your body will make you sick if you're not willing to face the difficult things that might come up for me I clearly had a subconscious awareness because it was going to be plant-based but what you do in that work is the same and it will show up in a really good excuse I got sick work family but in reality it's not ready yet you're you're the pain is becoming too close and that's okay too that's okay too and for those that happens to it's not a judgment it's not a shame you don't feel guilt around it it's just you're not ready yet and that's okay and when you do feel that call you just go in with that open mind open heart open soul and see what the messages that you're going to get because you mentioned it several times we'll get what we need even if it's not what we want Gavin love this conversation love both conversations on the main podcast we're about to wrap it up with a trifecta for the circle as a lot of recording today so thank you so much again and for those who want to check out the retreats in the one to one in particular the link will be in the description below and they keep doing what you're doing serving the world in a beautiful way and on all aspects from the conversations but through the business as well so thank you so much again thank you Brent remember that was Gavin main in on transitioning from personal trainer to modern warrior coach building retreats into one to one coaching and rewards of serving people on a deeper level today's episode was sponsored by the circle my online business mastermind and coaching the follow-on premium episode is questioned sent in by circle members going deeper into how to set up a retreats to a business some of the things to avoid some of the best practices going forward and how to make the alterations as you go along so you can build up your perfect retreat as you go along so you're not trying to line up all the ducks in a row or wait for all the lights to go green which as you know as a business owner an entrepreneur is a terrible approach to most things that is linked below if you want to check out the circle membership there still space in there at the minute that's everything from me from today's podcast thank you so much for listening catch you in a couple of weeks