TG: Hi Dax, thanks for being interviewed. Could you start off by telling us a little about your background in the wellbeing industry?
DM: I’ve been a fitness professional now for just over 10 years. Before that my main career was in the military.
When I left the forces I did a few different jobs from bodyguarding to firefighting, to sales to building work and more but didn’t really enjoy any of them.
I’d always enjoyed fitness as I started training as an amateur boxer and then my military fitness kept me focused on this as a part of my life so I took a basic certification course at the YMCA which got me a part time job in a gym at a mere £5 an hour.
I pretty soon became bored with fitness instruction as the company I worked for really used the FI’s as glorified cleaners and salespeople with little focus on helping the members get results so I took it on myself to offer personal training style sessions to the public for free.
It kept me busy, kept the clients happy and made me feel like I was contributing in some way. Unfortunately, the personal trainers at the facility didn’t like what I was doing. I was not only giving away a great service for free but I was getting better results than their paid clients and, I guess this upset them a fair bit.
I was told to cease and desist all of my ‘non role’ work at the gym and, at this time I considered leaving fitness altogether as many of the gyms I’d looked at were running similar policies.
Around that time I heard about a brand new idea of GP referrals where local doctors would send their patients to our gym for training and dietary advice.
It sounded interesting and I really wanted in so I went to an interview with the panel responsible for setting it up and was told in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t qualified (even though at the time there was no certification in this role as it was new) or experienced enough to fulfil the post.
I went away determined that I’d be on the advisory panel so I took out a membership with the British Library, the biggest and most equipped research library in the UK and began to study medical conditions and medications.
Six weeks later I went back and was again refused entry. They told me that I’d improved a lot but that as I had no degree to back me up that I couldn’t work in this role.
Undeterred, I went away and spent another six weeks studying and asked for another interview.
They reluctantly agreed.
During that interview I turned the tables on the panel by asking THEM questions that they couldn’t answer as well as I could and so, by force of will and pig-headed stubbornness I got the job.
This involved me working with people with all manner of diseases, disabilities and disorders and applying health and fitness protocols to them to, ostensibly, manage their conditions.
Personally, I felt that too little of what we did worked and so I started to investigate holistic health concepts and started (without the permission of my bosses) applying them to the patients… with stunning affect!
People who had decades-long arthritis were using their hands pain free again, people with high blood pressure were coming off of statin medications, people with drug controlled diabetes were able to come off their meds too and people who had been struggling with obesity, injuries, high cholesterol etc were all reporting amazing changes.
Within 6 weeks I became the senior consultant of my own centre and with 6 months the senior consultant of the scheme.
I loving called my work ‘fixing broken people’ and absolutely loved every minute of it… and still do.
Around 6 months into my role as GP consultant I revisited the idea of being a 1:1 personal trainer but was told (yet again!) that my certifications were not good enough, despite the highly skilled role I was now performing.
So I went back to school and studied exercise science at the university of Luton which I found boring, stilted and overly academic. I was concerned that my lecturers were more concerned with the facts and figures of ‘science’ than the people we were supposed to be helping.
Still, I passed my course and was awarded Master Personal Trainer status from the Association Of Personal Trainers here in the UK.
From that point I was free to work as a trainer and, after a few hiccups, I became a busy and popular trainer, building up to an entire year of 60 appointments a week.
My client attraction and retention techniques worked so well that the gym chain asked me to present to them on how I had become so effective (most of their trainers had a high turnover and only performed around 15 appts a week).
I put together a great presentation, explaining all of the details of my systems for marketing, training, retention and more and they loved it.
In fact, they loved it so much that they stole it and decided to implement my strategies without any form of promotion, compensation or even recognition. I was told that I simply had to accept it or leave.
So I left!
I opened a small personal training studio in a spare room at a church hall using all the savings my family had acquired to buy the equipment.
I was terrified.
I needn’t have been. Within 6 months I’d made back my entire investment, been featured in practically every UK magazine and newspaper and within a year was voted one of the UK’s top personal trainers.
Within 18 months I’d outgrown my little centre and moved to my current home where I have a team of 10 coaches providing holistic coaching to our clients. In addition, I have a training academy that teaches trainers, coaches, physiotherapists and other health professionals from all around the world how to get the kind of results we get.
Not bad : )
TG: You operate a number of facilities around the London area, what do you think are the advantages for a client of using a Personal Training facility over a Chain Gym?
DM: There are numerous, but the main one being that we are able to provide an environment of genuine care and consideration for the person we’re working with rather than packing out a gym with hundreds of exercisers just to make it profitable.
Gyms can offer a lot of equipment to be sure, but people don’t want equipment. They want to be heard and they want the experience of getting results with someone who they know cares about the outcome as much as they do.
Gyms can’t, don’t and won’t offer this.
TG: What do you feel are the most important traits of a good quality Personal Trainer?
DM: The ability to listen.
As the old saying goes ‘we have two ears and only one mouth. This is to remind us that we should listen twice as much as we talk’ I believe this.
Good coaches are more interested in their clients than hearing their own voices.
The ability to be non-judgmental.
You can’t help a person if you’re judging them. People are where they are because of choices they’ve made or not made. If you judge them you make them and their choices wrong meaning that you’re already creating a disconnect.
Don’t judge. Instead ask them “and how has this served you?”
Things aren’t good or bad. Thinking alone makes them so.
The ability to reflect.
If you can reflect back to a client what they’ve said to you, what you think it meant to you, to them and to the goal then you’re most of the way to helping them succeed. If you can’t then you’re simply not on the same wavelength and your ability to help is greatly diminished.
The ability to respond so that they are involved in the formulation of the answer rather than forcing your own agenda.
People are far more connected to their own ideas than they are to someone else’s. A big mistake of trainers is to try and force or bully the client into their way of thinking rather than helping them to uncover the truth for themselves.
Ultimately, when combined, these traits are about communication. It’s the master skill.
Great communication built on a mediocre technical ability will always win out over great technical ability built on mediocre communication.
TG: How important is it that a client sets effective goals?
DM: Massively!
Without goals there is no direction, without direction no focus, without focus no purpose and without purpose, no reason to even begin taking action.
Goals are the progressive realization of worthy ideals.
Most people don’t have ideals that they feel are truly worth achieving so… they achieve little!
TG: How can a Personal Trainer help with this process?
DM: Comes back to listening at first and then learning to inspire rather than motivate. In truth, motivation is an extrinsic thing that one person does for another. Trouble is, it goes away when the stimulus of person goes away.
Inspiration is intrinsic. It’s in the person themselves. It needs to external stimuli to make it effective. Good coaches help a person to build their own inspiration bank account rather than relying on them as a crutch to help them through their challenges.
Goal setting is great but it’s only one part of the hierarchy of self-actualisation.
Goals are at the bottom, then comes vision, then comes purpose. A person with true purpose needs no motivation.
TG: What are your top 3 tips to achieve weight loss?
DM:
1. Eat only clean, wholesome foods in their natural state.
2. Consume 1 litre of clean, fresh water for every 50lbs of body weight
3. Get to sleep between 10-10.30pm at least 5 nights a week.
4. NEVER count calories – slaves are made this way
TG: For all the Personal Trainers out there you also offer a business coaching service, can you tell us a bit more about this and how you have helped hundreds of trainers improve their quality of life?
DM: I help coaches find their own truths about who they are and who they want to be as health professionals. I help them set higher standards for themselves, for the kind of clients they work with, for the things that are and aren’t acceptable to them and their businesses, for the standards of service and care they give to their clients and for the financial reimbursement they receive.
Only once they are clear on these truths do I help them to market and attract clients by building unique market identities, unique signature products and services and unique delivery methods for each.
The coach comes first, the business comes next then the client attraction happens last.
This is in direct opposition to the way that most of the fitness marketing guru’s work but, o me at least, it doesn’t make sense to attract clients to a coach who’s not clear on who they are, what they do or why they do or, a business that does not have systems and strategies in place to optimally care for the clients it attracts or products and services that are poorly thought out and incomplete.
The trainers who I’ve taught these methods to have gone on to quadruple (or more) their incomes, have more time off work, travel more, have more adventures and, best of all, fall back in love with their work.
Many have opened studios, appeared on TV, written books, launched amazing bootcamps and gone on to earn passive incomes too, of course : )
TG: How important is it that Personal Trainers have a mentor? And why?
DM: I’m clearly biased in this : )
I do think it imperative, though. Mentors and coaches are outside of the game you’re playng. They’re your guide on the side and aren’t emotionally caught up in the results as you are.
Sure, they want you to win but they can see the whole game while you can only see your small part of it.
A good coach/mentor has been where you’ve been, done what you’ve done and have experiences that are comparable to yours. In addition, they’ve achieved more, strategised and studied how that achievement came about and can share those strategies in simple, action-oriented terms.
Of course, a good mentor can’t make you do the things you need to do (I’ve had several people join my program and leave disappointed because they thought I’d be writing their books and sales copy for them) but they can push, pull, nudge and cajole you into keeping on keeping on so that, eventually, your goals are achieved.
I’ve had both Joe Vitale and Bob Proctor from ‘The Secret’ as my mentors and both of their programs pushed me higher than I’d ever have accomplished myself.
Get a mentor!
TG: Tell us a bit about what the future holds for Dax Moy?
DM:
Well, I’m taking a six month mini retirement with my family to Thailand this year where I’ll be living a beach bum lifestyle, reading, writing, playing and making love : )
But I’m still in full-ahead work mode with products galore coming out for both fitness professionals and the public from list building to product building to program design to goal achievement and fat loss.
Lots of stuff!
TG: Thanks for your time Dax, and we wish you all the best for the future!
My pleasure!
