Transcript

Ben Smith:                   Welcome, everybody. My name is Ben Smith. I'm joined by my co-host, Abby Doody and Curtis Worcester, the Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper to my Jake Steinfeld. Appreciate you guys joining today. How are you doing?

Curtis Worcester:         Pretty Good.

Abby Doody:                 Good. How are you, Ben?

Ben Smith:                   Good. We're going to chat... I know there's a popular phrase that's out in the finance world is health and wealth is something that comes up quite a bit. We said, hey, we're now pretty deep into our Retirement Success in Maine Podcast Show, and we've not talked about health. That's something we have to do. As we're doing our visualization sessions with a lot of our clients, one of the things we ask our clients is what is important to you in retirement?

Ben Smith:                   Of course, the answers vary. Is it's sometimes pursuing passions, it's about fulfillment. We had Chris McLaughlin talking about family, and people want to spend time with their family a lot. We've spent a lot of shows pursuing the idea of achieving passions. But what if I'm not very healthy as I approach retirement, or I'm in retirement? If I think forward, I'm now at the fun part of life where I can probably do whatever I want, but maybe I'm scared about how unhealthy I am. What about this fear that I have that I won't be around to enjoy the most amount of retirement that I possibly could?

Ben Smith:                   Perhaps I'm not in very good physical shape, maybe I have really bad eating habits that could be improved. Again, a question that we hear sometimes is what steps can I take to get healthier? With that premise, we reached out to Wilcox Wellness & Fitness and they have a couple of locations in the state of Maine, Bangor and Brunswick, and they also received the 2020 Bion and Dorain Foster Award for Entrepreneurship from the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce.

Ben Smith:                   We said, hey, they're growing. I talked to the guest here a little bit offline to discuss this topic. He's really great. So, please join us in welcoming Mike Wilcox of Wilcox Wellness & Fitness. Appreciate you coming on, Mike.

Mike Wilcox:                All right. Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to chat today and hopefully have a little insight for you when it comes to health and taking care of yourself and obviously, as you grow older, you want to be able to do stuff. So, it's really important.

Ben Smith:                   It's right. I think when you and I've connected a little bit on the side, Mike, it seems like the people that are walking through your doors that we're hearing from our side when we're doing our financial planning sessions, is I think the people that have maybe overcome those fears to even walk through the doors, and come talk to you. I'm interested in that as a thread.

Mike Wilcox:                Yeah, absolutely. It's a big deal. It's a scary place for people. It's getting vulnerable and doing things you're not used to doing and just putting yourself out there is very scary for people, and certainly in the health, fitness space.

Ben Smith:                   What I want to do, Mike, to always start is I think it's always fascinating to hear you as our expert here, your story. Is why are you passionate about what you're doing today. I want to maybe just start at the beginning, talk about your upbringing, where did you grow up?

Mike Wilcox:                Yeah, I grew up right here in Bangor, Maine, where I still live, where our original business is now. I've got three brothers. We were very active as kids. I was into sports, youth sports. I spent a ton of time at the YMCA on Hammond Street. I've always just been an active person and I think inside of athletics, I've took on the role as a leader in the different positions I played. Whether it's point guard, quarterback, things like that, shortstop or pitcher catcher.

Mike Wilcox:                I've always been in that role of being a team player and trying to set the team up for success. I think, that really has spilled over into what I do now is just set people up for success in life by taking control of your health, and doing some little things that make a big impact. I think that's a quick version of my little stance on that.

Ben Smith:                   Can you just give us a little bit about that path towards training and fitness and wellness coaching with adults? Because of course, you could have done anything with that. There's a lot of different athletic angles you could take. When did that start, and why did you choose it?

Mike Wilcox:                I definitely thought I'd be working with athletes as a coach. In fact, I went to school originally for physical education at UMaine Orono. I transferred to Farmington where they did not have that option. I played around with some different things, business and a couple of things, and ended up in community health, which is not a typical major that people have.

Mike Wilcox:                It started there. There was just great people at the University of Farmington that led me there. Everybody I came in contact inside of that major was just phenomenal. I started there. I started teaching there, teaching my peers coaching them to strength and conditioning is where I started, but just that difference you can make in someone's life, it really does impact you, and I'm sure it does when you guys are working with people and setting them up in a financial world to give them that peace of mind that they're in control and they see gains and they see that confidence build.

Mike Wilcox:                It definitely started there with my peers. I did do some coaching and teaching right outside of college. I enjoyed it very much. However, I had this calling to work with adults, I think. I looked into personal training, became a personal trainer. Started as an independent contractor and just grew from there.

Mike Wilcox:                It was more of, I would say, a hobby, than it was an actual business for the majority of my time as an independent contractor. Luckily, my wife has a business background. She has a master's in business and comes from a family of small business owners. So, we really were able to match up very well and take it more seriously and start the business.

Ben Smith:                   Nice. Can you talk a little bit about obviously Bangor. You're a true Mainer, is you're born and raised here. I help people on the show a lot, which maybe is good or bad. But can you talk about in terms of there's it always feels like maybe the last 25 years especially there's this gravity of a brain drain. Is kids growing up and there's a pressure in terms of trying to earn more money or more career aspirations to lead the state. Can you talk about why Maine and what has held you here?

Mike Wilcox:                Certainly, family. Pretty strong roots in the area. Actually, all three of my brothers live here. I'm about one block away from my youngest brother. We're pretty close and we get to meet, and I've got 10 nephews and nieces now. Just a community. I've felt a strong connection through I think my personal coaches growing up, especially in high school, I had some really great mentors and coaches and people I looked up to. I always saw myself coaching within the Bangor community ever since I was in high school, and I actually live in my grandmother's house right now.

Mike Wilcox:                We bought her house, and here we are. My parents live on the other end of the road. We're not so tight knit that I see her every day. However, it's nice that it's not too common that you have that. It's been interesting. She just turned 61, I'm sure she'll be glad I mentioned that, just the other day. We were able to have the whole family over and have a little barbecue and do our best to keep that social distance thing going.

Ben Smith:                   Mike, I'll echo that too because personally, that's been my story too is, I just love being... My parents are in Kenduskeag, my in-laws are in Bangor. We can see each other and they're part of my son's life. It's very easy for us to just get together and doesn't have to be a big thing where you're traveling two and three hours each way to do something.

Ben Smith:                   I know Abby has a similar thing. Actually, her dad A.J is a partner in this business as well. We have a lot of family threads as this goes through. But I want to rotate Mike for you is, you're doing contractor work and your wife is got the MBA, the business acumen. How did that turn into-

Mike Wilcox:                She pushed me

Ben Smith:                   Yes, start your own business, Mike, let's go. Why are we doing this?

Mike Wilcox:                She probably worked on me for two or three years and we'd be driving around Bangor and every little spot. Whether it was 200 square feet or 6000 square feet, it was the spot for us to open up the, or for me to open up this business. She was [inaudible 00:09:10] I started thinking about it a lot more deeply. I was an independent contractor for eight years. I had a great following. My schedule was set, I'm not really going to be going any more this way as far as being able to impact people, as far as making a little bit more money. It wasn't a lot of growth for me inside of that. It was either we start this business or I choose another profession and go to work for somebody else. It's really where it came down to.

Mike Wilcox:                I started researching a little bit. I participated in a couple of small studio type facilities and I was pretty much sold that I could pull it off. It was nice to have that experience and see and envision myself inside of that and believing that. That really pumped me up. I started researching how to run a business, and all that. We put in a good year prior to opening up, prior to or even looking for space, I should say, on what it might look like and all the parameters behind it. It's a big leap. You don't know if anybody's going to come with you.

Ben Smith:                   It's right. It's always scary, is it the right time? It's always this, you don't know if it's the wrong time or right time, and when's the best time to start it and what happens if that person doesn't follow you that you thought was going to, because whatever reason.

Mike Wilcox:                Exactly.

Ben Smith:                   Kudos to you, because small business is obviously tough and that's something we all had to do in terms of rotate and - You could be with a larger institution or do this and that's... Again, hats off, and I love that similar thread. Can you talk about how the business has grown though, from that moment? From 2012, I think was when you started. How did you grow?

Mike Wilcox:                I started off training people one on one. I had 4000 square feet, we ended up choosing a much larger space than originally planned as the vision got a little bit bigger. We were very hopeful that we will be able to use it. Actually, since, we've added on 2000 more square feet. So, it did end up working out. It's just me and training people one on one, with the goal of getting some groups going. We started some boot camps after we got our feet underneath us. I did a couple of months of free boot camps. I think that was a big deal that people could just come to try it out and see what it was about, see what our approach was.

Mike Wilcox:                That was luckily a big hit. Six or seven months later, we were regularly seeing 40 people inside of these boot camps. Which I thought, at first, was like wow, this is unbelievable. It was cool, and we did 10 session passes or unlimited plans, but the problem was is I'm a personal trainer, and a coach and I'm used to meeting with people two to three times per week on a regular basis. Really, developing a relationship and knowing the nuances of each person, whether it's an injury or how people learn or what motivates you and all that stuff, and I was missing that piece totally, and I was just losing my mind training all these people randomly, because some would show up say four times one week, then they would not see him for three weeks, and then they come back.

Mike Wilcox:                The final thing that pushed us to where we are today is that, I found myself training the people that were not coming very often, because I was so scared that they were going to hurt themselves inside of our facility. Their technique and all that stuff, they were so sporadic, they weren't really catching on the stuff we were trying to coach them on.

Mike Wilcox:                All the people that were coming on a regular basis, our best customers, if you will, I was not even coaching them because I was too busy trying not to let people kill themselves. If you're using the wrong weights, or just doing silly things. I finally just got tired of it, and we made a massive decision to get away from 10 session passes, get away from unlimited plans and go ahead and ask for commitment.

Mike Wilcox:                We asked for three, six and 12 month commitments. Really, at the end of the day, like I mentioned earlier, to set clients up for success. You're not going to do that great if you're not accountable and showing up for a certain period of time. Three months, we knew bare minimum, we could do a lot for somebody in that amount of time.

Mike Wilcox:                Three, six and 12 months, and then you would commit to two or three, four sessions a week. We did that and we made some people mad. I was not a popular person amongst our clients who really loved us. But at the end of the day, I had to make that decision to do something I was more passionate about, and I knew we could impact them more nutritionally, we could impact them more on say, taking care of just your muscle tissues with some self-massage therapy, and getting people to just approach fitness at a different level compared to just say burning calories, and I got to get a workout. Just take it more seriously, just like you guys are trying to do with this podcast and other things you're trying to do is just take it to another level and take it more seriously than just investing some money.

Ben Smith:                   That's right. Yeah.

Mike Wilcox:                We did do that, and we lost a lot of people. We put these group sessions out there. We were training people a lot of times one on one for a while at like a $10 an hour price, for some of the way we had the pricing setup, hoping to build it. Sometimes we weren't even making money on those sessions. But we did it for the right reasons. I think ultimately, that led us to where we are today. Now, we have like 120 training sessions throughout the course of each week, that group clients can choose from.

Mike Wilcox:                We've got, I don't know how many private sessions going on a week, but a lot. People are committed and because they're committed, they're seeing the differences, they're seeing the successes, and we just have this crazy, awesome group of clients that are all in it for the right reasons. When you come to our facility, everybody's just on the same page.

Mike Wilcox:                To your point, I think earlier, in people feeling uncomfortable, they do right up until basically, they get there. They might still have some self-conscious stuff going on. But once they see the clients, they see, all right, that person's just like me, or that person's not like me, but they're still trying to do the same thing. Once we get into the training session, everybody's just focused on themselves, and I think that's a big deal, compared to maybe some of the other group styles where everybody's doing the same thing at the same time. You might feel a little uncomfortable because you can't keep up. Well, the way we set it up is that, and our trainers are very good at keeping people dialed in. It takes that element out pretty quickly.

Ben Smith:                   It's cool. Mike, one thing I want to ask is, of course, you've now adapted your business plans. How have you changed now during COVID-19?

Mike Wilcox:                We actually, my wife and I, and our two children were in Costa Rica at the time that they shut things down.

Abby Doody:                 Oh, my gosh.

Mike Wilcox:                We were watching and when we left, it wasn't... We left in February, and we had planned this five week trip. We left in February. There was a few people say at the airport wearing a mask, but we knew it was in China, and it was something but it wasn't... Then three weeks later, we're getting the last plane back to the United States out of Costa Rica. We were in a pretty remote part of Costa Rica on the side of this mountain. It was pretty interesting.

Mike Wilcox:                We did that, and then we thought of some different ideas, and we ended up going live stream like most, I think fitness facilities did. We only lost, I think four days of being in business as far as having sessions for people to attend. I think we closed on a Wednesday and we were open on the next Tuesday with the virtual stuff. We were able to... Go ahead.

Ben Smith:                   Your virtual stuff is, I know you've done the quarantine boot camp has been something that... Again, you're doing boot camps and now you've done more quarantine, which is more virtual at this point?

Mike Wilcox:                Yeah, we are 90% virtual at this point. We just started some outdoor sessions, I think three weeks ago. We get an outdoor space and it's nice to see the energy of people being together. I appreciate we've all been huddled up for quite a long time. That's been nice. We're working on trying to get indoors but we're being patient with the process.

Mike Wilcox:                But yeah, we've got a quarantine kickstart program, I think that's what you were referring to, which is a one month program. It's very intensive as far as we're here to support people. You get daily emails. There's a success session at the beginning where we meet with each person individually and find out what's going on. We really, again, it's going to set people up for success. We give them all kinds of information to let them know what's going on, what the process is going to be like, and how you're going to feel.

Mike Wilcox:                We've done the in person kickstart program for seven or eight years. We've had probably 1000 or 2000 people go through the program. We really know what people are going through as they do it from the soreness from that first session of just feeling like I'll never make it to, all right, week three, I'm like, wow, all right, I'm drinking water, I'm getting up and having a smoothie.

Mike Wilcox:                We have this morning mojo, which is a combination of apples and water, apple cider vinegar, ginger and lemon juice. They're like, "Oh, actually, I don't mind it." Where the first day it was like, "What are you talking about?" Your face is relaxed.

Mike Wilcox:                You know the process and the evolution for people and it really sets them up for success and they trust us and our coaches are ridiculously good at what they do. We work very hard as a team to make sure that that continues to be the case.

Ben Smith:                   Mike, what I like about the thread that you've given us so far is that it's not just hey, here's personal training, and I know it's a task and I'm focusing on that. Is that you're taking... Is you started with that thread of, hey, as a coach and I wanted to get into athletic coaching was something that you're interested in, taking that idea of coaching, plus the aptitude you have in personal training. Blending the two together, so that you get to the heart of the motivation, figure out why they're doing it, to push them to get the thing done.

Mike Wilcox:                You said it, man.

Ben Smith:                   It just feels like, because I have the next question staged here and you answered it. But what's the difference between a gym business, the retail monthly business where I think 12% of the people that sign up actually go, because it's so cheap that they can feel like they've committed financially but not personally. You have other gyms where they're just going to do their own thing and lift weights and probably maybe hurt themselves or maybe not get the results that they want.

Ben Smith:                   Then it feels like you've done this, now it's intensive, which is I think, from our end, Abby and Curtis, when we work with our clients is doing financial planning, but then the coaching of what does money mean to you? Why do you want to do this? What do you want to achieve with it, and then pushing them forward to make sure that you're holding them accountable to their goals?

Mike Wilcox:                Exactly. We take a lot of pride in our coaching and that's something that I think I had to work really hard not just I think for myself. I was a personal trainer, I had that title for a very long time, and then I started moving towards the coach aspect and trying to research and fine tune all those things that I needed to, not necessarily learn, I think I was doing them, but I had to figure out how to articulate it to train some other trainers and also provide information to clients on how we are different.

Mike Wilcox:                It took me a long time to get that out of myself. But now when I listen to other coaches and read coaching books, I'm like, yeah, that's right, I get it now. That's when it really started melding together. You need the personal training side, which I consider, like the anatomy, physiology, you got to know how to put a great workout together. You've got to be able to keep people safe and know what their joints are doing all the time and all that stuff. You got to know that stuff, but that's not why people show up, it's never why people show up.

Mike Wilcox:                I have 1% of the people that really care about that stuff. Honestly, those are fun people to train because you can get them to do just about anything from an athletic standpoint and be an athlete, it's a nice test. But really, the fun of it all is being a great coach and getting through to people and seeing them grow, seeing them build their confidence, listening to their stories of what we'll probably talk about in a little bit, is playing with their kids or going on mission trips, or "Hey, I went surfing, I'm golfing and my buddies can't keep up, thank you. I'm making some money."

Mike Wilcox:                It's the personal aspect. The difference is what you invest, and taking the time to be personable, and to learn people and to believe in them more than they believe in themselves. That's one thing that we really talk about as a team is, what's your standard for that person? It should be a little bit higher than their standard. You got to believe in them, and you got to know, even if you might not believe 100%, you got to pretend you do to a point, as long as they're safe.

Mike Wilcox:                It's really, I think that's the big thing, why people continue to come back to our facility and enjoy it is that we work very hard to create that kind of environment.

Ben Smith:                   Well, and I think once you articulate that, and you really are focusing on this is how I do things, and this is the service I'm providing, and the difference I'm making, which I'm sure you get in feedback. But we've seen it with our firm too is, you attract somebody that you thought would be a good hire because maybe from a skill perspective, they're there. But they might not align to what you're articulating is, you have to have a level of care. I have to really care about each person that's walking through this door, really get to know them, and you can't fake it.

Ben Smith:                   If it's disingenuous, everybody knows that. That just is once you get everybody motivated, boy, then you start getting on fire, and that's what I'm seeing from an external part, Mike, on your business is, you're starting to see, people getting excited about that because of the fire that you guys bring to it. So, it's great.

Mike Wilcox:                Yeah, and it's a lot of what... Getting people to do things that they didn't think they could do, and then they're doing them after just a few weeks. They're like, "Well, Geez, I wish I hadn't waited so long." But there is a big thought process out there when it comes to fitness that it's like, go all out, go all in, all out. There's no middle ground. It's like, well, you can work out three times a week doing the right stuff and eating well and drinking some water and you can live a really nice, healthy, able lifestyle. You don't have to be there five days a week, two hours this training session, eating steamed vegetables and not enjoying yourself ever.

Mike Wilcox:                You don't have to do that to accomplish some of this stuff. I think it's a tough sell to get people to understand that, if it seems too simple. I don't know what it is, but our five habits for massive impact are eating breakfast, eating whole foods as best you can. Drinking tons of water and then eating consistently throughout the day. Then the fifth one is attend your training sessions.

Mike Wilcox:                We're a personal training business and we have five habits. One of them is exercise. The other four are some simple basic things and I think people look at it, yeah, okay, they want that grams and getting real granular with it, but it's just an overwhelming thing to do to your lifestyle, and it stresses people out and that's why I think there's this, "I'm doing great." Then there's just like, "Oh, God. [inaudible 00:24:59] We're trying to convince people that there's a middle road to it all and it can work.

Ben Smith:                   With that, I'd like to segue, Mike, here. Is it was really getting into, is that health in retirement is the theme of the show. I want to start you off with a scenario, is here's somebody that they're a desk worker their whole life. They've binged on the career, they've raised the kids, they've prioritize their family, probably then the career then ventures and maybe health is way down that avenue. They're saying to themselves, hey, I'm getting closer to retirement, or maybe I'm in retirement, and I can see all those fun things I want to do, but I'm scared that I'm not being my healthiest. If I'm not my healthiest, maybe I don't live a long retirement. Maybe I'm around for another eight to 12 years.

Ben Smith:                   When someone walks through the door at Wilcox Wellness & Fitness, I would imagine many people are feeling those insecurities and they're questioning the fitness levels, their body image. When they walk through that door, I know you mentioned a little bit of orientation process, can you talk about how do they all overcome those insecurities to not only come in the first time, but then they come back?

Mike Wilcox:                We have an onboarding process that's fairly thorough. What that does is it slowly starts to build people's confidence and also gets them to start switching their mindset, which is what you're talking about is getting over that. You got to switch your mindset. They see us on Facebook and different social medias or they get emails. They can see our approach prior to coming in. We have a call that we start people off with to learn a little bit more about them and tell them about our process. They're getting all this information before they have to walk into the gym.

Mike Wilcox:                Then we set them up with a consultation, that's an hour long meeting. Again, going in deeper to why. This is a very hard thing and you probably, guys, have the same challenges in that when you get them in there, you're hoping that they're just going to tell you all this great information about why they want to train and why they want to take care of themselves. They're just like, "I don't know."

Mike Wilcox:                We spend some time prying a little bit and getting down to the things. The things are typically they want to travel. Typically, they want to have energy for their kids or their grandkids and then do some hobbies that they're really interested in. Maybe things they did prior to their career, prior to their families, and get back into some of those hobbies that really fill them up with joy and passion. But it does, it takes a lot to get that why out of them because they've been so in it for so long. It's like, now, I got to think about me. That's just weird. I can't do that right now.

Mike Wilcox:                We have that process and it starts to get people switching their mindset to the real reason, it's not, yeah, you're going to lose some fat, hopefully build some muscle and be strong and you're going to look better in a bathing suit or something like that. Those are going to be some great things. We hear those things quite often as the first answer. I want to lose fat, I'd like lose 10 to 15 pounds, and say, "Okay, that's great."

Mike Wilcox:                Those are byproducts to your healthy lifestyle that you're going to like, but it's the energy levels, the confidence of walking into a room, showing up in a meeting and just feeling like you're on fire and not being self conscious, and all that stuff that we try to dig into. I think that really gets people's minds turning to the right reasons. I say... Whatever, right's different from different people. But the real reasons to live a great life, especially as you're getting older to find joy in what's going on, after your career has ended, and your family's gone, the real reason is... They start to think about that. When they show up to their sessions, totally showing up different than they did before that conversation, and before the first two conversations. They're like, "Okay, I'm going to pay attention to my trainer. I'll do what they ask. I'm just going to show up and do my best and I'm not going to worry about it, because I'm doing it for me, and I'm doing it for my family and I'm doing it for whatever reason.

Ben Smith:                   Mike, I'd say in terms of the coaching part, and this is what we found is it's Simon Sinek, the power of why. It's not just hey, well, I want to lose 10 or 15 pounds, or I want to look good in a bathing suit or whatever, it's sometimes when you start asking the second and third question, there's like, "Okay, well talk to me about when you go to that beach, who are you going with? What are you trying to accomplish? Are you playing beach volleyball? Are you just laying on the beach? Are you... Who's going to be there? Is it your family, and are you maybe embarrassed because you're in your bathing suit, you're embarrassed of yourself in front of your family. What are you trying to achieve, and why are you trying to achieve it?

Ben Smith:                   It seems like every time we ask those questions, and you go further and further and further, and they just open up. That's just pours out, and now we know. Now, we get to the heart of it. But yeah, it takes a while, sometimes it's a few sessions to get to it because they don't trust you.

Mike Wilcox:                Sometimes it's months and months before really, we get to make that connection with the client. It could be years sometimes, and then all of a sudden, they're like, the connection's made and the relationship's just through the roof. Yeah, very, very tough. Very tough.

Ben Smith:                   Great.

Abby Doody:                 There are different phases of retirement, right? Our late career, we're preparing for retirement, early retirement, maybe you're young and traveling, and then late retirement. Are you seeing people at your wellness center at different phases? If so, what's motivating them in each phase to continue with their health journey?

Mike Wilcox:                Yeah, we have people across the board, from finishing up their career to just starting and being confused, and then some who have been at it for a little while and have settled in. As you are, I think, you're finishing up your career, there's that pressure to find out what the heck am I going to do, and where am I going to be at? What am I going to be capable of?

Mike Wilcox:                It's encouraging to see that people are doing that before they actually retire. They're trying to figure it out how they can get it into their work schedule, to make it happen so that when they do retire, they're really well prepared. I think that's a huge motivator, just that alone, knowing that, hey, 60, 65, whatever it may be, its is coming, and I don't want to just be a bump on the log, feeling like I can't do anything, because I'm just not physically capable.

Mike Wilcox:                I think that's the biggest motivator there. If you're just retired and you're just getting started, I think that's a tough one, because people aren't necessarily in a great place at that moment if they don't really know what they're going to do and they're feeling those deep feelings of, let's say, scarcity or scared that they're not going to be able to do this stuff.

Mike Wilcox:                I think the key to anybody on the fence inside that area is to hire a coach. Find a coach. If you don't find the right one, try again, because those are the people that are going to get you where you want to go. If you try to wing it on your own, it's a much more difficult, longer process. What motivates those people, I think is getting to the point of where they can do it. I think family is a big thing at that point, to be honest with you, I think it's grandkids. I'm retired, I've got this time. I just found out that I can't walk around the block three times with my grand kid, and I am pissed.

Mike Wilcox:                I've had people tell me, one of their biggest things that scared them was they couldn't get out of the bathtub. A 60, 65 year old person was like, "The reason I'm here is because I struggled incredibly to get out of my bathtub the other day." It's like, holy crap.

Ben Smith:                   That's powerful. You don't think of that.

Mike Wilcox:                You don't think about that. But it is that for a lot of people, and they're not going to come out and tell anybody. They're not going to tell their friends, their spouse. They're not going to tell anybody that. I think that can go in towards people who are longer into retirement too, it's just the daily chores. They don't want to be exhausted just going out to put the trash out and come back in and be out of breath. To prolong the ability to do the normal things, as well as some fun things, to make those last 10, 15 years exciting. I don't know that totally answered your question, but there's definitely those three things and I think they are all looking at it slightly different.

Curtis Worcester:         Mike, you're talking about-

Mike Wilcox:                Family and activity.

Curtis Worcester:         You just covered a lot of motivation for your clients. Can you talk about for a minute how, once you get them to come to you and you open up, you start working towards those goals, how do you measure that success with them? How do you help them through that process?

Mike Wilcox:                We do a lot of connection via email, via Facebook, Instagram stuff and support. We have monthly guides. We're consistently giving out content advice, mindset stuff and connecting that way. We emails back, people struggling, we can... Really, the only way to know is to have someone reach out and tell you because we're not having necessarily follow up meetings with everybody. We've created this system where it's a lifestyle for good.

Mike Wilcox:                Most of our clients have been with us two to three plus years, which is pretty cool to see. There's a relationship where they're not, "Hey, I'm struggling." Usually, it starts with their trainer that they work with most. A group training program is pretty large, and we have three trainers plus myself. It;s the main work of the three trainers mostly, but there's not a ton of interaction that you would have in a one on one situation. We work hard inside of those training sessions to figure it out, but a lot of its online, phone calls, when people need it. But I think just it may not sound real, but just in a weekly habit of showing up to your training sessions keeps you motivated.

Mike Wilcox:                Then when you miss a week, and you come back and you're like, I don't want to do that ever again because it doesn't feel good. These people that have struggled up and down, "I'm good for two months, and I'm bad for six, and I'm good for three months. I'm bad for four." They don't do that anymore, because they found something that's consistent, and it's always good, and they miss it when they're gone. I think that motivated them, and then the community of clients, they're meeting lots of people like them.

Mike Wilcox:                It's cool for me to see say 20 something year old who's a former athlete going out, working right next to the 75 year old retiree, and they're doing the same exercise at different levels, of course, but they're side by side, man, working out. We got it across the board every day. It is really neat.

Curtis Worcester:         That's awesome.

Abby Doody:                 That's very cool. What are some myths that you see about retirees and pre-retirees working with you?

Mike Wilcox:                I think it's just that they don't think they can do it, is one. There's just not enough confidence inside of them. Like, it's too late, it's too late. My knee hurts, my left foot hurts, my shoulder hurts, and I get this thing in my neck. They're like, "It's just a part of life. I'm old, and I'm just getting older."

Mike Wilcox:                I think that's a huge barrier is have all of these things be an issue. I don't even know where to start. That's where a coach can help so much. If you have a good coach that could teach you how to just work on your posture, how to use your feet correctly, just in teaching people how to re-walk. We sit so much that most people need to relearn how to walk properly, because they've got tight hip flexors and then you got glute muscles that don't work properly.

Mike Wilcox:                Then these guys just if you're on Stover all the time, you can imagine these don't work anymore. Then you get back issues and you actually get shoulder issues. That's where the neck... There's a lot to that. You can fix that depending on how severe the postural thing is, the longer it may take. But for most people, I promise you, if you have a someone to hold you accountable to great posture and using your muscles the way you're supposed to, you can fix a lot of things in a very short amount of time. I think most people think it's just too far beyond.

Mike Wilcox:                Another myth is that trainers won't listen to them, trainers won't meet them where they're at, trainers have this mindset of all in, go all out, you can do more. Got to get all the reps so you're going to make it to the time it's finished. We're totally the opposite of that. I think that helps people say, "All right, if I'm going to do five reps on, those guys can do 10 and all the guys over there can do 15." But no one really seems to care. So, I'm just going to do what's right for me. We preach it like, "Hey, do what's right with you. You've got to take breaks, Hey, your form's slipping a little bit, just stop for a second, Hey, you got to use these eights instead of these twelves."

Mike Wilcox:                We hold people accountable to that, and then they don't end up injured or more uncomfortable than when they started. There's definitely, I think a trust in the fitness industry from the older generation that's like, no, if I want this 20 something or 30 something person who's super fit to be getting after me.

Ben Smith:                   Mike, it's almost-

Mike Wilcox:                Go ahead.

Ben Smith:                   You almost see that again, with sometimes popular television might not be reflective of real life. I jokingly put that up of Jillian Michaels. But you say, man, here's somebody yelling at these people and really berating them. Borderline whether it's rude or not. That's obviously her and her style, but that can be taken as, "Well, this is the way personal training is and this is how it's going to go." If I step through those doors I have the Jillian Michaels that's just going to start yelling at me and telling me how terrible I am. That I need to do more reps, otherwise, I'm useless, right?

Mike Wilcox:                Yeah. I used to watch that show, and I have a feeling that she couldn't have gotten as successful as she did without being a great coach. I do believe a lot of that was for show, or all of it was for show. But yeah, I think it totally took on this crazy... Put this crazy message out there that trainers are crazy. [inaudible 00:39:31] trainers are crazy.

Mike Wilcox:                But yeah, it's just not the case. I know so many trainers, and it is just this area alone who are just so passionate about people, people I used to work with, people I know, who just want to help other people, and they do it in different ways, and it's all phenomenal. If you're not getting out there and finding the person or the group of people that's right for you, you're doing yourself a disservice, because there's just great people. It's shifted. It's not trainers being crazy. It's shifted, I think I would say, in the last 10 years, from what I even used to do.

Mike Wilcox:                It was all about personal training for me; sets and reps and this bicep exercise and that tricep exercise and it wasn't about posture. We talked about using your abs, but not in the correct ways that really people need to be doing, almost to a physical therapy type of, hey, this is how you guys should be doing this for the betterment of your joints.

Mike Wilcox:                Trainers are getting that and they're teaching it and I've been in some virtual seminars recently and even the people that are higher up, if you will, that are leading some of these presentations are preaching it like crazy. Training the fascial system, which is basically a web of tissue that is in your entire body that gets really knotted up and tightened up and that's why people have most issues is because they have tight tissue.

Mike Wilcox:                Anyways, those are the things that people are talking about now, and it's going to start trickling down even more. Right now, you're retired or almost there, find a coach, and if they just have you going, going, going, find a new coach.

Ben Smith:                   That's a good message.

Mike Wilcox:                and saying breaks. Yeah.

Ben Smith:                   Because I'd say to you is well, again, everybody's got a different theory in how they work. Some people just relate better to different people too. I'm sure even within your business as well is, there's going to be some trainers are going to relate better to other people than others. That's with us, too, is us in our thing. But one thing I wanted to talk to you about, Mike, is a goal we hear from our clients a lot, and this is almost across the board, is they want to live in dependently as long as possible. Because they're scared of, I'm going to go to assisted living the moment I have a fall, I break a hip, I, whatever, and that's it. I'm out of my house and I'm now into a place that I don't want to be.

Ben Smith:                   There's this, it's a resistance towards aging. It's a resistance towards getting to that end stage of I'm getting into assisted living, nursing home facility. There's a lot of physical limitations. The idea of, "Hey, I might have had surgery, I have a disability, I have weak shoulder, I've broken a hip." Again, too late for me, right? Can you talk about what... Again, what has led people to conclude it's too late? But I want to just hear how you address it, because it's that person that's in that bathtub saying, I couldn't get out, and I'm embarrassed, but I'm also more thinking about, hey, if this continues, I'm going to be in that assisted living facility.

Mike Wilcox:                At the end of the day, you got to start where you're at. A lot of people, I think are embarrassed about where they're at. So, they don't dare to start. They don't dare to start there. That's how... We start there... Wherever someone is, we need to address the foundational issues. If someone can't push through their feet and their knees are always wobbly, we've got to fix that before we move up the chain.

Mike Wilcox:                You're talking about, I think one of the biggest things for older people is the balance issue and falling, petrified of falling, and for a good reason. It's not something you want to be doing. We have some people who do that. Literally, we teach them how to their left leg goes forward, they put their right arm forward, right leg goes forward, they move their left arm and you're reteaching some of those things and you're teaching them to push down into their feet and push down into their toes.

Mike Wilcox:                It's some little nuanced feedback we have for them, but those are the things that keep you from falling. If you don't have to push through one side of your foot, when you get to that side of your foot, that's when you fall because you don't know how to do it.

Mike Wilcox:                Then two other things that we work on with everybody across the board but in particular people who are older or have postural issues is how to utilize your abdominals are the core. Your core should be a lot of things, but most people think of is their abdominals. You use your obliques that are right under your ribcage when you walk every day, when you do anything, when you reach, when you're going to move your mic, whatever, you're actually using those things, if you have great posture. If you're not, you're using some other things that are leading to your injury and your degeneration.

Mike Wilcox:                We teach those things, and you wouldn't believe how many times you'll hear posture inside of a training session in our facility, because you just have to have it and it's not something that's drilled into all of us. We're all probably sitting with not the best posture we've ever had in our life right now.

Ben Smith:                   All right, check it man

Mike Wilcox:                It's nature and gravity does that to us. It's the same thing that you always will have to say until we're blue in the face, reminding people of posture because as soon as you get out of that nice duct position, if you will, and you're no longer using this, you're causing stress everywhere else. For the older generation, push through your feet, learn how to brace like someone was going to just give you a little bit of shot. As you're doing things, challenge for people, and then always check in on your posture. It's easy for me to sit here and say that, but yeah, work on your posture. Well, I'm just stuck here. Well, you've got to continue to make it a priority. Because if you don't, it's only going to get worse.

Mike Wilcox:                It can be changed. It can be changed... We do a lot of self-myofascial release, which is just self-massage therapy with different types of tools like a foam roller or lacrosse ball. There's many other tools you can use, but that plays a significant role in helping with people who have large postural issues. But feet, abdominals and posture. People can do it. We can do it.

Curtis Worcester:         Mike, I want to keep going with retirees here.

Mike Wilcox:                Okay.

Curtis Worcester:         Just generally speaking, retirees tend to have more financial assets at their disposal than younger people, and that may lead them to make a decision, like to stop working or to retire, and then they struggle with that next step. We work a lot with our clients on that piece. But could you share maybe a couple of examples or stories you had of people who've rediscovered their life purpose with your program?

Mike Wilcox:                Sure, yeah. One woman that comes to mind, who is constantly thanking us for providing a place for her to stay strong, because she does a lot of mission trips. She's retired, she's been retired for four or five years, I believe. She goes for a month or two at a time and she'll tell us a story of how she just can lift up her suitcase and get onto the bus or, go on these hikes into these remote places and do it with confidence. She's not super fit, by any means, but she takes good care of herself, she works on her posture, that helps. It helps you carry things. I keep saying that to see if it may drive home for anybody who might be listening.

Mike Wilcox:                But I think that's a really cool thing to do is obviously travel but to also participate in helping others. It's exciting for me to hear those stories and hear how it's easier for her to enjoy the process. Some of these places 100 degrees and there's lots of different parameters there that would make it challenging for us. To be 65, 70 years old and still doing that, come on, that's outrageous.

Mike Wilcox:                I think in the flip side, some golfers, I guess some older guys who meet with their buddies, I hit on that I think earlier, it's just the competition thing of playing against your buddies. Like you said, there's a little financial... They've got some more means to maybe wager or some friendly betting going on.

Mike Wilcox:                To be able to keep the mobility to swing a golf club or whatever the competition may be, but usually it's golfing. To do that and not be laid up, a lot of people who golf have back injuries, shoulder injuries, because they're just not pliable enough to be going out there and smacking a ball it. When you whip through, you're asking your body to do a ton. If you're tight in different areas, you're going to end up injured.

Mike Wilcox:                Usually it's men, so they're pretty funny about it. I'm out there kicking my friends, you know what? They're thankful in their own way. But we've got a lot of also, I guess, women golfers who just enjoy being out there with their friends, and able to walk the course with their friends and feel great about it and not feel like Oh, God, I got to go play golf with my friends. This is going to suck.

Ben Smith:                   Sure.

Mike Wilcox:                I'm never going to make it. Now, they can play not only nine holes, but potentially pay 18 holes or some people play nine in the morning and nine in the afternoon. Come on, man. That's great.

Abby Doody:                 That's awesome. I was going to say we've talked a lot about why people continue to come back to see you, but on the flip side, why do people stop coming back? If they do stop, how can you get them re motivated to come back and see you guys?

Mike Wilcox:                I'd like to think that we don't do anything wrong. It could just be that we're not the right fit for them. Some people don't necessarily enjoy all the coaching, it can be overwhelming. It's both positive and constructive feedback. We're not always like, "Hey, better posture. Hey, get your foot, hey, your knee. It's. "No, you're doing that right. I think you're ready for the next phase and next weight." There's just a lot of feedback when it comes to personal training and coaching that some people just aren't used to. I think that might be one reason that people are like, "Well, I'm not comfortable. It makes me feel like I'm in the spotlight or I'm getting picked on."

Mike Wilcox:                There's some things there that we try to meander around if we can judge that early on. But I think that may be one thing about personal training that can be tough where people are like, "I might just go do it on my own. I just want to show up and do my elliptical and call it a day." But on the other side of things, I think life is very, very stressful. Things come up, things happen. There might not be support at home. I just think there's so many things in life that can just derail you from something that seems optional. Especially if there's a financial piece like personal training's not inexpensive. It's something that you could say, "Hey, I shouldn't save this money and I should get motivated on my own." Then typically, they don't get motivated on their own.

Mike Wilcox:                But I do think that life just can get in the way. Like, your kid crashed the car, or trying to think of some silly... Not silly but real things that do happen that can just say hey, my finances are not what they were a month ago, or my parents get sick." A lot of our clients are in that 40 to 60 range where parents are sick, I got to take care of them, I got to travel a lot to go take care of them.

Mike Wilcox:                In general, I think it's more life things than it is, I don't want to exercise inside of our facility anyways. I think most people, we've got a great process for getting the right clients through the door that take it seriously and want to do it for the well-being of themselves and their family. It's usually not, I don't want to work out, I don't like it. Well, there's some... People still show up and don't like it.

Mike Wilcox:                I still have to check in with people so often because they tell me in their consultation, "I don't like exercise, and I never will and I'll keep reminding you of that." So, every six months, I'm still not? They're like, "No, I'm still not liking it."

Ben Smith:                   That's great. Extremely funny.

Mike Wilcox:                But I think life's crazy, man, schedules are nuts. Schedules are nuts, and I'm sure it's weird right now with COVID and everybody being at home so you're not running all over the place to do stuff and if got kids, they've got to go there and there. I just think it's phenomenal that people have been able to utilize our program to get their training sessions done throughout their work week, instead of after work or before work. We have a lot of people that do that. But we're cramming hundreds of people into these sessions from 7:000 to 4:00 in the afternoon.

Mike Wilcox:                People, they approach their boss about it, "Hey, I'd really like to do this." Of course, their boss is like, "Well, we'll make it work." Because they know the benefit. They know what's going to happen inside of that, and we've got some bosses paying for their employees to come because they see how good it is for them. Not a lot of that, but you know what I mean. I think just life is stressful, so things pop up, and then we usually see people return after a few months of whatever derailed them.

Ben Smith:                   I want to add another concern that we hear from our clients is, there's a lot of concern especially with couples walking through the doors, is they're concerned about losing each other. Is that the husband is scared about losing the wife, wife losing the spouse or whatever the spousal arrangement is. I think sometimes we see that there's a fear that one of them is healthier than the other, and they've just had different priorities in terms of their own health.

Ben Smith:                   If you were to say, "Hey, here's this situation", and somebody wanted to have that conversation about their partner's health, because again, their goal is together, we want to live as long and healthy and happily as we can together in retirement. I don't want to lose you and then I have to do this by myself. How should somebody approach that or how have you guys approach that if you've seen that situation? Without being hurtful, without being judgmental towards that?

Mike Wilcox:                We see that across the board as far as... We call it more like support at home. It is a big challenge. Like you said, not everybody's on the same page, and the majority of people are definitely not on the same page. At the end of the day, I just think it's going to come down to being honest, and having honest conversations with your spouse or significant other or whomever, that you want to be a part of this healthy lifestyle. It doesn't always have to be your spouse, it could be a friend, it could be somebody that you want there with you is just to be 100% honest. "Hey, I really don't feel good about myself. I know I should be doing these things, and I just can't do it by myself. So, I'm looking at you for support. You don't have to necessarily do everything I do. But when I do do things, I just really love it that you've supported me through it."

Mike Wilcox:                I think sometimes people might ridicule people for being healthy. "Why are you going to do that. Why do you do that to yourself?" You hear that a lot. I can remember some clients talking about just visiting family and how stressful it is, is you don't want to get derailed going on a week long vacation. You bring some healthy stuff and you want to eat some vegetables, God forbid, and their family is just busting him like, "Why do you torture yourself like that?" When it's really the flip side. It's flipping over, and you're actually doing the torturing.

Mike Wilcox:                But there's this thing out there. At the end of the day, I just think honesty is always going to win. Even if it doesn't win the first time or the 10th time, I think you just got to be true to yourself and know what you want to do, and hopefully, whomever you're chatting with is eventually going to come on board to support you, because they love you, and they want to see you doing well. I don't think there's any tricks to getting somebody on board.

Ben Smith:                   I think from our side, it's always starting with why, again. It's saying, well, I have this fear and this is why I have the fear because I'm going out 30 years and my goal personally, is I want us to both be here, and my concern is today and here's what I see. It's to get them there so we're both having the same motivation, because it feels like if I just say, "Hey, I'm concerned about your health right now." It just feels like you're picking on them.

Mike Wilcox:                Yes. Exactly right. It doesn't sound... It's probably very, very hard to have to say to somebody, "Hey, listen." To be honest, like you just said, hey, 30 years from now, I want to be playing in the world. Right now, it could be like, I don't feel like I'm all there yet. I don't know how you feel about yourself, but I think the two of us could probably work on it together. It sounds easy to say it right now. But that's a really tough conversation to have and most people are going to be very defensive. I meander, make it like a long term goal of getting somebody on board, so you just trickle some things very gently, very nicely until they start almost making it their plan. I like to do that sometimes with-

Ben Smith:                   With inception-

Mike Wilcox:                Yeah, like when you're questioning and people are like, "Hey, that is a good idea. I'm glad you came up with that. We should get healthier." There's no easy way to say, "Hey, listen, you're not healthy. All this chocolate, sweets, I see you stuffing your face with chips and fast food, and whatever." You can't say that to somebody. They're just going to be like, "Screw you, man."

Ben Smith:                   That's right.

Mike Wilcox:                You're damn right, I am. Gentle and honest, and if it doesn't work first time, just keep trying. Honesty will win.

Ben Smith:                   Yeah.

Curtis Worcester:         Mike, personally my favorite part of every show and I think Ben and Abby agree with me. We like to wrap up our episodes with all our guests. We're sitting here on the Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. I want you to do a little forward thinking here towards your eventual retirement. We're putting you on the spot. What is a-

Mike Wilcox:                You're going to make me do a dance?

Curtis Worcester:         What do you see a successful retirement being for yourself?

Mike Wilcox:                I will be planning to travel a lot, certainly being active as I do that. Spending lots and lots of time with my family. It'll be family and travel, I think will be the biggest thing. Trying to set myself up health wise and financially wise to have the freedom to basically do what I would like. I think that's a... Most people focus on the finance piece to have that type of freedom. But really, you can have all the finance in the world, but it doesn't mean you get to participate in anything or participate at the level you really wish you could.

Mike Wilcox:                Certainly on the health side is a big priority to make sure that I stay on top of that between annual physicals, lots of blood work, just to make sure that I don't get derailed or anything, and just being consistent with those little habits, and that'll get you to that spot where you're just able to do whatever you'd like to do. Seems simple, but I can see it now.

Ben Smith:                   Well, Mike, I want to just say thank you for coming on the show. We really appreciate the time that you've been with us today. I know from lots of perspective, just having the conversation about what does it mean to be healthy? What I like about what you covered with us today is, it can just be very simple things. Just like as you said, of just helping with walking or helping with balance, because again, the biggest issue, we had John Diehl from Hartford Funds, who works with MIT AgeLab, is that the biggest issue in retirement on health is fall, is people falling.

Ben Smith:                   Even what you just said there of hey, I had nowhere to go. Now, I have somewhere to go. Stuff like that, it's not just, I'm lifting all these weights and I got to do all this. It's breaking these barriers and these myths. You did a great job on that today and appreciate you coming on.

Mike Wilcox:                Yeah, absolutely. Had a blast and it was so great to cover all these topics, and it's getting my mind going too. So, it's awesome. Thanks so much.

Ben Smith:                   All right, we'll see you next time.

Mike Wilcox:                Appreciate it.

Ben Smith:                   We really appreciate Mike coming on the show today. Mike, and his wife, Paige are from a business perspective, and seeing them at chamber events and all that stuff, you start to get a feel for their business model. We've been looking at that and saying, man, well, here's somebody doing something similar to what we are. Is there's a similar track, how they work with people, how they work with their clients, and also that they're getting their clients to be these ambassadors. Is that they go, I feel like there's a transformation. I feel like there's change. I feel like I'm better because of my interactions here. It's not just, well, I went to the gym. I worked out a little bit.

Ben Smith:                   It wasn't wasn't transactional, it was transformational. That's where you can see, well, why did they win the Foster award for entrepreneurship from the Chamber? Well, that's why? It's a business making a difference. I love that as a thread here.

Ben Smith:                   Again, we're talking about, our angle's the wealth side and Mike is talking about the health side. We always like to wrap up our episodes with what lesson did we learn? I'll have Curtis start things off today. Curtis, what did you learn from Mike in today's episode?

Curtis Worcester:         Yeah. I'll start by just learning more about the business they operate. I'd always heard of them in the community, here in Bangor, or in the Bangor area, but just hearing how they operate and like you said, Ben, how parallel it is to us and what we try to do with that experience with the clients. I thought that was really cool.

Curtis Worcester:         The piece that stuck out to me, and I know we joked about it a lot, but in my mind, I think it is the little things like the posture and stuff like that, just how individual he really makes it. He talked about how he has clients who, they're so happy that they can still walk 18 holes of golf when they're retired and they're playing with their buddies and their bodies can't keep up. Just that piece and then it's so individual in the sense that, it's not all about do the max reps, lift as much weight as you can. It's really structured from that foundation of just personal wellness, not necessarily how strong you are. That was really cool to hear.

Ben Smith:                   I know, I'll steal from a previous episode, and what John Diehl was saying with MIT AgeLab, what you just touched on was two things that John brought up from MIT was, who's going to change my light bulb? The little things of hey, if I'm able to actually change the light bulb myself and safely, that's one thing. Two, is who am I going to enjoy the ice cream cone with?

Ben Smith:                   What you said on the golf side was social that by being healthier, allows me to stay more social and not be isolated. Those are two important threads, I think that Mike was touching on that he's helping people with and the problem being of, again, in retirement, I'm trying to solve these things. I think those are really important. Abby from your end, what did you kind of see from today's show?

Abby Doody:                 What I really liked about what he said was keeping it simple, you can still achieve the results that you want. A lot of times, I feel like fitness is over complicated. You're counting your macros and your micros, and you're doing this amount of lifting and this amount of cardio. Just being a little more simple and strategic with what you're doing, you can still achieve the results that you want. I think in our busy lives, that is a really good message. It's not unattainable, it's not this crazy, complicated thing that is achievable and attainable for everyone to do.

Ben Smith:                   He's doing the start where you are. If he's saying, hey, you just had an ankle surgery and your bounce is a little off, versus saying, "Well, now I got to go have you lift and do the rope work and now you got to do all that stuff." But your ankle's going to have a problem and then you extenuate issues.

Ben Smith:                   I like what he's saying is, hey, maybe it's just hey, you try this thing once, but we got to focus in on you and what you're trying to work on, what your goals are. Really cool. A nice little slant to it. For me again, I like what he was saying was, hey, a lot of things that they're doing and he might have overtly expressed it, but it seems like a lot of what we see with our clients is this idea of living independently as long as possible.

Ben Smith:                   This whole of health for people coming in the door does not mean you don't guess they might have a little more muscle and a little less fat, or maybe they're not. As he said, he had somebody that was hiking and he goes, you wouldn't describe her as being the most fit person at all, but she's healthier. The fact that, hey, when I'm getting older, and I'm able to have good posture, and I'm able to get out of the chair correctly, I'm able to get in and out of the bathtub or the shower correctly, that I'm not hurting myself doing simple chores. Because I have a level of strength and balance and posture and all those things that are necessary, I'm able to continue being in my home as long as possible and enjoying where I want to be.

Ben Smith:                   I think that's a really key theme and a goal that a lot of people have, and he talked about, basically how they go about doing it. Again, really great to hear where he's going as not like, well, the drill sergeant's going to yell at you and tell you that you're doing everything wrong and you're terrible and you're insufficient. There's some of that in terms of motivating, but it's really on, hey, this is what we need you to get done, this is where you are, let's improve here. That was really great.

Ben Smith:                   I want to point to people too, of course, that we are at episode number 22. I'll connect with Mike here and get some more resources. I know he's got several things in terms of workbooks, and again, he's got some kickstart programs that are out there. We'll try to get some more information for you about there. You go to blog.guidancepointllc.com\22 is the website. You can see that when this launches. We always like to... If you would like to reach out to us and give us feedback, I'd love to hear that. You can email us. Again, you go to our guidancepointllc.com and go to the About Us page. You can get our contact info there, phone number, email, love to hear from you.

Ben Smith:                   For those that have stayed throughout this whole episode, all throughout, just let us know if you got some feedback, I'd love to hear from it. But just let us know that you reached it. We might have a little something special for you in terms of a little gift. So, reach out to us. Again, email myself or Curtis or Abby here, and we'll send something your way for making all the way to the end on this healthful episode. Until next time, we'll see you later.