Frustrated

So I just had my eyes opened at work today.  I am apparently a phenomenal trainer, great with people, and do a wonderful job at helping people reach their goals/feel better about themselves.  But I guess I'm terrible at my job because I don't sell things.  I just got out of a 30 minute meeting where the take away was I service too many sessions and don't make opportunities to sell stuff.  If I wanted to sell things then I would have taken a job in sales, not personal training.  Everyone would like to have a lot more money, a lot more things, and a lot more of just more.  Cue the girl from the weird kid commercial "I want more, we want more, we just want more".  I apparently have my priorities backwards because I don't want more money.  I mean I do, don't get me wrong, but right now it is the least of my worries.  I am currently making the most money I have ever made in my life, and I'm happy with it.  I am quite happy where I am and how I'm doing.  I'm able to workout and better myself as an athlete (little secret life ambition of mine to be a professional athlete of form), I am able to set my own schedule for the most part and do what I want.  I can finally pay for my bills without constantly having to reach into my savings and pray that I can pick up extra hours from a second job.  I don't want a lot and I don't want to be greedy, but the constant nudge that I shouldn't be happy until I'm making some imaginary number is driving me crazy.

I have been told that I have the best retention rate of clients for new trainers.  I am a firm believer that if it isn't broken then don't fix it.  I tell my clients what to do and let them learn from their mistakes.  If I say to not drink yourself silly over the weekend and to not eat a bunch of crap then it's probably because those things won't help you lose weight and look and feel the way you want to.  Then when you do what I tell you not to and gain weight it isn't my problem and I will say "ok, you did it your way, let's do it mine."  They do it my way and lose weight, shocker.  These are the same people that if I pushed them to buy supplement after supplement or test after test that they would just walk away and I would be without a client.  Apparently I'm supposed to push sales and let people walk away so that I can replace them with people who will buy whatever I want them to.  I don't want retards that just parrot what I say, take everything I tell them as gospel truth, and refuse to think for themselves.  I like people who have something a little bit wrong with them, or just simply don't want to do what I say just because I said so.  "Because I said so" isn't science, it isn't training, it's just telling you what to do and hoping that you'll spend enough money to pad my paycheck and let me play with your wallet until you lose the weight that you want to lose.  I don't want a brainless idiot that will buy whatever I want them to, I want them to buy what I want them to because they see the value in it and understand it will help them.  If they don't want to buy something I want them to understand what they're doing and why they're doing it.  If they don't understand then I want them to be willing to learn.  People will only see sustainable results when they're willing to learn and understand they why and how.  If not then they will just repeat whatever the fad is and see quick results but then yo-yo back to their previous position and go "I don't understand, I ate what you said but then you stopped thinking for me so I gained everything back".  I don't want to think for you, I want to teach you.  I guess this is wrong way to go about things.  I'm a great trainer because I have people that will stay with me forever because they like what I do and how I treat them.  I'm apparently a terrible trainer because I'm not saying "wow, this combined home income is $300,000!  I should make them buy testing, the most expensive heart rate monitor, supplements out the wazoo, and training until the cows come home!".  I apparently missed a memo somewhere that said "thou shalt not be happy until thou makes x amount of money".  Did anyone else get it because I certainly didn't.

What I should really do is just open my own gym.  You know the movie Patch Adams with Robin Williams?  My all time most favorite movie in the world.  He wants to have a free hospital where people can go for treatment and not have to worry about the cost of the medical bills but just focus on getting better.  I want to open a gym version of that.  Make it Biggest Loser style where people come to workout, learn how to eat healthy and train healthy, and actually see results.  Instead of being voted or kicked out each week by being under the line or whatever, they only get kicked out for being unwilling to try.  There are some contestants that you can clearly see that they used their sob story to get on the show in hopes that they can just get by and not make any real changes just so they can get the money at the end.  There would be no money to be had at my gym, just hard work and results.  None of this "I'll only train you if you're willing to take 4 supplements (which based on our portion size equates to 12 pills per day), train 3 days per week, have heart rate monitors out the butt, and do 4 different types of stress tests".  When I'm talking stress tests I'm not talking the cardiological medical useful stress tests to determine if you have an issue with your heart.  I'm talking spit in a vial 3 times a day to figure out that you have high coritsol.  I have a stressful job and life I don't need to spend $200 and spit into something for 3 days to figure out my stress hormones are high.  Waste of money.

This rant is getting a wee bit winded.  I'm going to call it and go back to things that I like to do, like train people.  If it's not good enough for you then fire me.  I'm a trainer, not a sales person, I'm sorry that my life goals don't match up to yours.