The First Customer - How to Be a Digital Thought Leader and Lifestyle Mentor with Dai Manuel

[00:00:27] Jay: Hi everyone, welcome to The First Customer podcast. Today, I'm lucky enough to be joined by Dai Manuel. Manuel. See, I knew I was going to mess it up. It's too good. Dai, how are you, buddy?

[00:00:37] Dai: I'm doing fantastic, Jay. It's, it's nice to see you and, great to be here today, man. It's been a long time coming.

[00:00:42] Jay: Yeah, it has been, you have daimanuel. com,

mentor. There's a million different titles. I think we could have gone with today, but 

[00:00:49] Dai: yeah 

[00:00:50] Jay: So, So we talked a little bit before the show I mean, I you know There's some guests that come on and they have 

of information about them online and their 

and I think it's all fantastic But I think you probably have done a better job laying that out on your nice website than I could do You know in 20 minutes on this call.

So 

me where you're from and did 

[00:01:07] Dai: sure 

[00:01:07] Jay: impact on you being an entrepreneur later in life?

[00:01:10] Dai: Oh, you know what? So I grew up outside of Toronto. So in Ontario, you know, so anybody in New York state or know where Buffalo is, well, Toronto is that big city next to it across the water there. you know, and I grew up with two entrepreneurial parents. my mom was a professional. She worked as a registered nurse, but went back to school, leveled up her education, eventually got into more of the leadership role, running various medical divisions.

but the thing was, she always had a side hustle. Always, like always. I never remember my mom without one, you know, whether it was an antique store, got into a design business, interior design, was slinging antiques, like she just always had a hustle going. And, my dad on the flip side was an academic, but it went through schooling to be a veterinary medicine.

And so he's a an animal doctor, you know, cats and dogs mainly. And so, but ran his own practice with a business partner straight at university. So I got to see him, you know, log those 60, 70 hour work weeks, especially as they were growing the practice. and, both my parents had just wonderful work ethics, but easy to see where the imbalance would arise from though.

And I see that in myself too, where. Sometimes I get too involved in my professional life and often my personal life would get a beating, you know, as a result of that. But I like to think that's something I've corrected in my wise age of 46 now. but hey, it's still a work in progress, you know?

[00:02:27] Jay: always a work in progress. 

[00:02:29] Dai: Yeah 

[00:02:30] Jay: what was the first business you actually started?

[00:02:32] Dai: Well, I guess it was personal training, but not being a certified trainer yet. But, you know, from age 15 to 17, I just went through a huge lifestyle shift for myself. I was morbidly obese as a teenager, so really out of shape, really overweight, dealing with all the mental health stresses that come along with sort of that stigmatized level of health, you know, and so I don't need to dive into that.

But after I made that change for myself and just, you know, put this into context, it took me six years to get to my heaviest weight, my biggest size. But when I made the mental shift and then started to do different things to actually promote more health, it only took me about 20 months to get to a place where I really started to feel good about myself again and like being who I was, you know? But what was really interesting was that attracted a lot of people, you know, seeing this massive physical shift, but also just my energy shift over in less than two years. And so I even found friends of my parents looking for help and guidance. So I was sort of thrust into this coaching role, you know, and what would start as barter exchange, you know, might have friends that would have little jobs.

So they would give me stuff that they get from their work. Take me out for a bite to eat, maybe pay for a movie or dinner. You know, my parents, friends were a little bit more generous, obviously not afraid to throw me a 20 here and there. but you know, that was sort of my first taste of being able to help people with making changes.

And, and I found it relatively easy because it was something that I had just gone through. Very intimately on my own lifestyle. And so I found a lot of fulfillment doing that, you know? And so that was sort of my first foray into entrepreneurship, if you will, for myself. and it sort of branched off because I knew health would be a part of any business model that I would do in the future.

And fair enough. That's been true. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah 

you know, the lessons you've learned, you know, doing as a teenager? Well, what's interesting is, and I think a lot of us probably relate to this, especially the people that are listening and watching this, you know, we have this wonderful sort of idea that if we're in business for ourselves, It might be a more control of lifestyle, more flexibility, you know, more, independence, if you will, autonomy.

And I know that's what attracted me to it, but this idea of doing my own thing was always something that I thought would be exciting. but the struggle as a personal trainer was, it's really, you know, it's services for hire. And it is a direct exchange of hours for dollars. And I didn't, you know, at first, you know, before I had kids and a family and other responsibilities, I was like, Yeah, this is great.

I can make this work. You know, you work a couple hours in the morning. Maybe you work a nooner. Then you got to wait until after work, you know, four or five o'clock at night for people to come and work. So I'd be working 16 hour days and billing for six, you know, not very efficient. And, so I started looking into things and I happened upon a position where I got to sell fitness equipment.

And the neat thing with that was it was the first time I was in a pay, a performance based pay structure, you know, like it was largely commission and bonuses and I still didn't quite understand it. I remember being in the interview and being like,okay. So you're telling me the more people I help get healthy by buying these products, you're going to pay me more.

And they're like, yeah, that's exactly how it works. I'm like, sign me up, man. I'm in. And I had a knack for it, Jay. I had this ability to just connect with people. And also because of my own story and what I had gone through, that was instant credibility as well as authority. And so I excelled in that role very quickly becoming one of the top earners in Canada in this national chain I was a part of.

And fortunately for me, one of my first business mentors saw that spark in me. And he's like, I can make something out of this. And he was 20 years, my senior. So he had already done this established, you know, a significant business. He was a joint venture partner. And here's the neat thing. And I want to take note of this.

You know, like you just got to pretend like you own the business. It doesn't matter where you work. If you act as if you were the owner and you treat it as you were the owner. It's amazing. The people will take note.

Especially the actual ownership or people that are partners in such organizations will take note of that. And fortunately for me, that's what happened. I had an opportunity to literally we branched off from this national chain that he was a partner with to go and start over and start our own company. And, and it was a hell of a transition, you know, going from a significant marketing budget and infrastructure and logistics were all taken care of to basically redoing it all. And it was a hell of a uphill battle initially, but man, I was excited. I was in my mid to late twenties. You know, I was young. I was eager. I was like, I could do this. You know, I had a couple of kids under my belt as well. So I'm thinking I got to put food on the table, you know, keep the shoes on the feet.

And, Things excelled really quickly. You know, over the span of years that we worked together, we built it up to eight figures a year, you know, and it was a couple of retail locations, a couple of B to B operations. And then we did manufacturing and distribution. And so it really grew into this omni channel, business.

but, you know, I fell out of love with retail, you know, that's the bottom line. And eight years ago, I transitioned out of that to doing what I'm doing today, which is a lot of my own things again, but more in the coaching mentorship and consulting space.

[00:07:40] Jay: So it's such a crowded space. 

[00:07:42] Dai: .

Yep 

[00:07:42] Jay: like, I feel like it comes in waves, but I feel like we're 

[00:07:45] Dai: Sure 

[00:07:46] Jay: in a peak of the wave where 

like, you know, everybody and their grandma is a coach of 

[00:07:51] Dai: Oh gosh yeah sure

how on earth do you authentically stand out? Right? I mean, that's like a, it's a somewhat of a softball question, but 

Sure 

[00:08:01] Jay: a real.

It's a real question. I ask it to a lot of coaches that I have on the show or people that I know that are coaches I'm just like how on

even with social proof even with you know, a great story 

like a lot of people have great stories and feels 

[00:08:14] Dai: They do .

Yeah 

[00:08:15] Jay: backgrounds and whatever Why do people work with you as opposed to somebody else,

[00:08:21] Dai: I got a prime example. One of my newest clients that has just come on board for one on one support. He's been following me online for eight years on LinkedIn. Eight years. He's not on any other social media networks. And this is very common for a lot of the people that I speak to, you know, a lot of these high level, high performers, exact C levels founders, you know, they hang out on LinkedIn, but they don't do any of the other social channels, you know, at least from my experience in my conversation.

So I made a conscious decision many years ago, especially based on my old company, that LinkedIn would be a platform I would play on and, but my voice. My messaging, everything has been the same. I have not deviated from the kind of content I put out. You know, my, my goals are simple. I got a few basic filters.

I want to educate. I want to inspire and I want to motivate and I always want to do it in a fun way, you know? And so that's that filter I pass a lot of the content that I create through, but it's also knowing who you're speaking to is really critical. And that's from my personal, Like I was someone that dealt with a lot of social anxiety growing up, partially due to what I shared with as a teenager being in that state of unhealth, but it perpetuated into my twenties.

But I knew as I was obtaining more of a leadership role, also more of a community based role, I needed to deal with this fear of speaking to larger groups. And so I took it upon myself to do that. And, You know, the anxiety is still there, full disclosure, but I've learned to channel it in a much more positive way, and that comes through frequency and consistency, as well as good mentorship and feedback.

And so I found an organization called Toastmasters and I went all in with what they had to offer in the curriculum. And soon enough, you know, I found myself more comfortable speaking in front of audiences. Translating that over to the online space was really. what I strive to do. You know, I wanted to take this persona, this person that I am and how I show up when I show up in a networking event or I show up into a room or I want to connect with people authentically.

I was like, how do I translate that into an online format? You know, because I think that's where there's a lot of struggle, right? Like we, it's just, it's challenging. And, especially without that confidence in ourselves at times in what we're saying or sharing. And, and I remember I had a coach and, she was very good at reminding me, you know, you can be like every other coach out there that tells people what they should be doing.

But why don't you just show them what you do? And use your platform as a way to just show how you're navigating the challenges in life, because we're all dealing with the same stuff, you know, we really are, maybe in different stages, but we're all going through the same time. We're all just human beings just trying to make the best of this thing called life.

and so I really took that to heart. And I started to share personal experiences. I was navigating, whether it be with my kids, whether it be with my immediate family, even with my companies, you know, and I just started sharing what I was doing, how I was dealing with some of the struggles, but also providing solutions that were working for me. And all of a sudden, it just started to pick up, you know, like just the amount of people that were following along that would comment would engage with semi private messages. And then so when I did turn the switch on because I started this process while I was still running my old business. You know, in the retail space, and I had no aspirations of doing anything on my own.

And then I had a friend that's really big in social media as a consultant, and he looked at my metrics, looked at what I was doing. He's like, dude, are you making any money doing this stuff here? I go, well, indirectly, because I know I'm funneling a lot of people and awareness to my main brand. And that's where I saw a lot of opportunity because I started getting a lot of PR.

a lot of media outlets started to interview me as the lifestyle mentor, right? And, and that was a wonderful way to just build awareness for our corporate brand. I wasn't thinking about what I could do personally, and I think that was very endearing to a lot of the audience because there was never a hidden agenda to try to sell him a treadmill or something.

Right? So,

that authenticity and the fact that I never tried to sell anybody on anything. but I would always invite them to, Make a decision, especially with something that would benefit their life, you know, and so indirectly another way of asking them to do something about it, but maybe not what they were used to when they thought of sales.

And so those are a couple little pieces that I found really beneficial. And then the most important thing, Jay, and I think you could probably speak to this really well just after I've creeped your profiles as well, my man. Good job, by the way. it's consistency and frequency. You know, I don't go to the gym and do one workout and say, Oh, I'm fit now.

I don't have to go back, you know, like my messaging is clear. I know who I'm speaking to, but I'm consistent with the messaging, you know, and frequent enough that people get used to seeing my stuff,

you know, and, and I find that a lot of people just give up before they've really cracked it, you know,

[00:12:59] Jay: I think you're right. I think that's I mean We hear it all the time from the people who

[00:13:02] Dai: yeah 

[00:13:03] Jay: consistency consistently and you're just like, okay I get it and then you get into the grind of it and you're like this is this sucks man You know like it's a grind Sometimes, but you got to see it through and then 

[00:13:14] Dai: Yeah 

[00:13:14] Jay: other side and it becomes more of an inbound than an outbound, exercise.

Right. So, 

[00:13:19] Dai: Totally 

[00:13:21] Jay: who, you know, just speaking 

[00:13:22] Dai: Yeah

Yeah.

[00:13:24] Jay: business perspective, who is your target customer? 

[00:13:29] Dai: Mmm 

[00:13:30] Jay: best person that, you know, if he comes to you, you're like, I know I can help that guy or 

[00:13:35] Dai: Yes 

[00:13:36] Jay: is that person for you? Like, like demographically, just 

[00:13:39] Dai: Yep 

[00:13:40] Jay: who is that person?

[00:13:41] Dai: it is predominantly male, 35 to 55. they are working professionals, founders, owners, C levels, you know, so they are, well, let's just say they have discretionary dollars to, to reinvest and often they're investing in certain things that give them more monetary gain and recognition, not necessarily reinvesting in themselves directly.

And they've recognized, you know, they're at this stage in life where if they don't start to make some changes. That harmony between work life or as you know, some people call it work life balance. I'm like, well, that's just BS. I tried for years to try to create balance between those and I couldn't, but when I started focusing on how do we make these work together more harmoniously.

You know, working together, complimenting each other, that's when all of a sudden I felt like I had, I'll be honest, more control, but also, more consistency with a lot of the things that matter most to me in life, you know, like family commitments, right? It was a big one, but then I was like, well, here I am building a company.

Yeah, it's great. But I'm missing out on all these amazing family opportunities, you know, like whether it be seeing my daughter's recital. I remember missing that. I was like, Oh, man, watching it on the phone just ain't the same, you know, and, and so I started making some shifts that way. but this demographic very specifically that they struggle.

you know, because that professionally they perform at the highest of the highs. But then on the personal side, they feel like they have to compensate with their professional life to mask. What they feel is inequalities in their personal life.

And that, that, that chasm there is very scary because a lot of us put a lot of stuff into that to try to fill that void.

but they're really just distractions. Like for myself, I had a 15 year, very poor relationship with alcohol, you know, and, and it was interesting, but as more professional demands came on me, my drinking increased as well, proportionately. And. And to be fair, that's what was being modeled by everybody else.

I was networking with at that time. You know, that was normal. But here I am a guy in the fitness space, right? The prize himself on his health and holistic health. And yet on the flip side, you know, it's friday four o'clock. All right, let's go. We got till monday at nine.

You know, like just and that doesn't create a lot of feel good feelings as well.

So I speak to that a lot. And typically those gentlemen between 35 to 55 when they start to see that message, they often see themselves in that. And that's where, you know, there's that inspiration that, you know, maybe there is a way that I can reclaim this about myself. And, and I always just say, you know, you're one conversation away from making the change that will literally make the biggest impact in your life.

but you gotta make time for it, right?

[00:16:19] Jay: I think that's very accurate 

[00:16:21] Dai: Yeah 

[00:16:21] Jay: kind of 

website You've got a few different 

[00:16:23] Dai: Yeah 

[00:16:24] Jay: you know main services that you provide

[00:16:26] Dai: Sure.

[00:16:28] Jay: how do you see yourself? Kind of tying all those things 

can help you with all these different things while like Producing a cohesive message, right?

Cause there's 

[00:16:39] Dai: Yeah 

[00:16:40] Jay: avenues you can go. Like, how are you, and is it just kind of relating back to your story and the one people you've 

Like, what is the way that you're really promoting? Like. I guess I would, I could see somebody being confused. 

[00:16:52] Dai: Totally .

Yeah 

[00:16:53] Jay: that Dai is going to help me with?

Like what? So, you know, how do you make sure that they know, you know, what they're going to get from you and what they can benefit from?

[00:17:04] Dai: Great question, Jay. And I wish my new site was live. It was supposed to be live last month, but they're trying to pour it over 1800 of my articles that I've been blogging since 2007. So it's delayed the launch of my new site, but we had a whole new structure and I've redone the whole flow or really story branded it quite well.

And

so my new site will be much more effective at doing that. At helping eliminate some of the confusion because that is exactly the thing that I've struggled with as well. And I think it's a lot of time has been, I've been sort of rediscovering myself these last, I'd say 5 to 6 years, you know, just trying to figure out what is it that I really get excited to do that I would do all day long and not feel like it's a drain, you know, feel like I actually get recharged by doing that.

And I realized for me, one on one coaching, even though not scalable. I get so much fulfillment from that because I've really developed these very significant relationships with these people that I've supported. And I value those relationships very well. And, so I have limited inventory. So I know that takes care of all my basic needs.

Everything else that I do in my business is really just the fun stuff, the forward facing stuff. So I still do a lot of keynoting. I sort of limit myself to six to eight a year. I don't really do much more than that because it often involves travel and unless my family's coming with me, I just, I'm not keen on travel like I used to be, you know, especially being that time away from fam.

but then there's also some consulting and I have to be honest. This is more through LinkedIn. You know, people that know my professional background will ask me to come and help them with their businesses. I don't market myself as that. You can go on my social, like you'd be, no one would think that's what I do, but I get people that it's all word of mouth referrals and then inquiries that way.

So I have to be full disclosure on that. That's just based on history and what I've done and what I've done well. but I don't wanna be a business coach, you know, like I don't wanna be a business consultant. I like doing it. But it's these more holistic conversations that I get a lot more fulfillment from.

and so getting that clear, cohesive message to support that, you know, I think that Instagram is probably my better channel for that. It's more of a inappropriate snapshot of me and what I'm valued, like what I value, and how I like to show up to help people. But, LinkedIn is a little bit more confusing.

[00:19:07] Jay: Okay I know,

I just 

[00:19:08] Dai: yeah, 

[00:19:10] Jay: I wanted to clarify for 

[00:19:11] Dai: yeah,

[00:19:12] Jay: who is wondering

[00:19:13] Dai: Well, hopefully that gives people hope though, you know, 

[00:19:15] Jay: I it

[00:19:15] Dai: it's yeah Yeah Yeah 

[00:19:25] Jay: what you see of somebody to think that like, that's who they are, that's what they, but like, everybody's always up or down or sideways or whatever you're changing, you're improving your messaging.

You're doing different things. You're kind of locking in what it is. Maybe a year from now, you're like, you know what? I found some vein of business coaching that I really like to do. And maybe that's what you're kind of, so there's always kind of an evolution. And I think that's a great.because there's no, like, I don't, I mean, I don't know how people work in like the coal mines and stuff for like 40 years.

You know what I mean? It's like, how do you go in and do the same thing? And you could equate that to like a, you know, a modern day corporate job where you're just going in and punching in and you're sitting in your cube for eight hours a day. I mean, it's like, It's just like that grind, down. So it's good to have that constant evolution.

I think that's how you improve. And I think that's,you know, I'll definitely check out your new website when it's live. 

[00:20:12] Dai: No thank you 

[00:20:12] Jay: who your first customer was?

[00:20:15] Dai: Well, so when I got into the equipment space, my first, I remember my first big sale, like I remember some of the smaller ones, but, at the time when I got into equipment sales, this is back in late nineties, early two thousands and bill Phillips had come out a few years prior with his program called body for life.

I don't know if you remember that, but, might be before your time, Jay, like I know you're younger than I, but, it still gets, It gets circulated out there. So Bill Phillips, I thought was genius. You know, he was really not a direct mentor, but I looked at what he did professionally and I was like.

Wow, that's awesome. Because to put this into context for people, he did, he built this entire sort of, think about it like a three prong approach to mass marketing, but also he did amazing volume. He had a supplement company called EAS. He had a publishing company called Muscle Media. And then he had this book called Body for Life.

And the neat thing was, this program leveraged the exposure through his publication. This is like, again, before social, right? And yet, he also was like, you can do this program and eat these types of foods. Or, you know, just replace it with one of these shakes and one of these bars and

[00:21:20] Jay: right.

[00:21:21] Dai: It was like novel at the time.

Like now, I mean, it's Washer and Sir Pete. We see a lot of people doing that, but it was so novel. And I remember at the time I did his program and dude, I got such great results, but he also encouraged you to take your before and after photos. And so where I'm going with this is I remember I just finished, you know, another round of that.

It's about 12 weeks to do it. And I was like, looking pretty diced, feeling good. You know, my energy was reflective of how I was feeling on the inside. And I remember this guy came in. He's like, Yeah, just moved into a new house. We have a den space. We want to put a gym in. You know, this is what we're sort of thinking about.

Can you help us? I'm like, I can help you for sure. Let's get into it. And we started talking, right? And I remember talking about body for life.

It's showing in my before and after photos, like, Whoa, can you help me do that? I was like, for sure. You know, well, here's the gear I would put in my house. And this is the craziest thing.

This is where I really found out, you know, we're just all human beings trying to connect with somebody. And if you just open up to have an honest conversation and just really put yourself out there, be a little vulnerable. You'd be surprised at the amount of trust that someone will put in you, you know, in a good way.

I'm not talking about misleading people here, you know, I'm talking about getting them what they need. And I remember him just saying, what would you put it in this space? If you know, we're building it for yourself. And I was like, you really want to know that? And it was like, yeah. And I started making up this list.

And I remember going, okay, everything except for that. I don't really like the roying machine. I'm not a big fan of roying. I love roying. And, and I was like, okay, great. I remember it was like a 25, 000 package. And, and you know, that's a lot of fitness equipment for a home, you know, but it's, he's got everything he needs and then some, and, And my commission on that was a hustle, like I was like, holy smokes, you know, like I made more on that deal than I would do in a week's worth of personal training,

you know, and that's where things really solidified for me, you know, and, that's what also got me really excited.

I was like, man, I not only do you get to help somebody, but at the end of the day, I don't got to create a program. I don't have to go to their house, you know, like I don't have to do all this extra follow up stuff and continue to babysit the person for the next 12 weeks, 

[00:23:20] Jay: No, 

[00:23:21] Dai: and 

[00:23:21] Jay: a great, story.

[00:23:22] Dai: That was the first one.

The first real big one, you know?

Yeah Yeah 

[00:23:28] Jay: and even myself, struggle with the concept of, you know, you're not selling, you're helping somebody. Because they feel like two separate things, right?

They feel like if I'm gonna help somebody, I'm going to just help them, and I'm gonna just give them this time, or this advice, or this whatever, and if I'm gonna sell somebody something, I'm gonna sell to them, and it's like this different thing. But once you kind of realize, That, the best salespeople, I think figured this out hundreds, probably thousands of years ago is like, if you do lead with helping someone that typically leads to opportunities for business.

And like, there's nothing disingenuous about that. If you go in with the actual mindset that you want to leave them better than you came there, right. You're 

[00:24:15] Dai: Yes 

[00:24:16] Jay: It's the same thing is when I sell QA services, right. For the longest time, I was just trying to. Win clients and do all this stuff.

And then like, when it finally clicked to me, like, Oh, if I can help them solve that problem, not only do I help them, they're going to refer me to somebody else. They're 

[00:24:31] Dai: Yeah 

[00:24:32] Jay: product. We're going to be a better company because we're delivering actual value. And the people that are doing the work know they're delivering.

So it's like just this 

[00:24:39] Dai: Yeah Yeah Yep 

[00:24:47] Jay: in a genuine way because on the complete flip side of that. There are the, you kind of pointed out earlier, the, less than honorable. and it's so transparent these days, right?

Like, you know, when someone is like, I'm just trying to help you. And you're like, no, you're not like, you're trying to sell me something. Right. I mean, we all know that guy, right. It's like the, you know, the salesman at the car dealership or the. You know, guy online that's trying to help you do whatever, like, we know that's leading to a sale because it feels disingenuous, but if you can do it in a way that is genuine, 

[00:25:18] Dai: Yes 

[00:25:19] Jay: tell and, like you helping that guy, he probably felt like, you know, you were giving him an honest shake.

You were telling 

[00:25:25] Dai: Yep Yep 

[00:25:30] Jay: you know, proof from your own story, that was kind of the, probably the biggest. And that, right. It was like, I can maybe look like this guy. If I do this program, this guy is here to help me.

He's going to show me what he did. And then he's just like, you know, here's the blank check and go fill it out. So I think that's a, that's an incredible first customer, 

[00:25:50] Dai: Well thank you 

story. I also remember selling a treadmill over Twitter to a guy that was up in Fort Mac, Alberta. That's like, you were talking about working in coal mines, well they're all oil rigs up there, they're oil sands, right? And, so there's people that make a lot of money up there, but they gotta ship everything in.

And I remember literally having a conversation over Twitter, sold him a treadmill, you know, he called in my Edmonton location and, Bought the treadmill, you know, it was like I was that was my first time doing a transaction online through social media Where I was like a direct ROI of my time online because my business partner at the time is like man You waste a lot of time online, you know, I'm like, I'm not this is helping us It believe me and then after that happened, he never bothered me again

Yeah Sure Yeah Yeah 

[00:26:36] Jay: kind of start over a company tomorrow, physical fitness, doing 

[00:26:42] Dai: Mhm 

[00:26:43] Jay: doing whatever it is, what would be step one for you in that space and just kind of what you've learned so far?

[00:26:50] Dai: I think the biggest thing is, you know, it's more of the holistic approach to physical health. And what I mean by that is I take a mental health first approach, meaning that, you know, if you get your head right, Everything else just follows suit, you know, and, but the two feed into one another, right?

Like our energy as a person, you can call it spirit, you can call it soul, whatever you want. I'm not here to argue about it or tell you one way or the other is more correct. But we do have a body, we do have a mind, and we have this energy that makes us up. And, those three things all need to be nurtured.

But if you look at the end of the day, who is our customer? Our customer are real people, and they're people that just want to feel better. You know, not only about themselves, but about the world around them. And I think that's the one thing that people that work within the fitness space sometimes forget, is that we're actually shifting people's worldview.

And that starts with their self view. And if I had to go and start it all over again, I would set something up that really speaks to that first. Because I'm recognizing that people are attracted to that message. There's already those conversations happening online in different industry and other verticals.

But I haven't really seen anybody do it well in the fitness space yet. And, I see people talking about it, but not really. They're still trying to just write people programs, just do this program. I'm like, you know, there's a reason why the regression rate, but also the failure rate is so high in the fitness space.

What we hear about all the time, right? People try to program. It's like, wow, you look great. See the person again, six months later. Say, whoa, what happened? Right? Well, I stopped doing it. Why? Why? And I usually find that's that muscle between the ears, right? So,

that's sort of what I would take into account, but also leveraging a lot of really good tools to keep up with the connection within a community.

Because I see this in small gyms. It's great studio size spaces because you know all your clients in the first name basis and they know you. But when you look at the more global gyms, you know, once you got thousands of members, well, how do you maintain that intimacy and connection with your membership?

And I know that's something that people are trying to figure out. And I think looking at different tools, like even MindBody's really evolved. It's still the number one software for fitness space, like yoga studios, gyms, PT studios. And they've started to put a lot of extra tools in there to support with the communication and the community development.

So I really think that's where things need to go because especially with AI now, I mean, everything's going down this automation path, but at the end of the day, we can't automate our fitness. Not in that way. We still have to get off the couch and do something, you know, so,

[00:29:12] Jay: straps like they used to wear in the

[00:29:14] Dai: yes.

[00:29:15] Jay: shake you?

[00:29:17] Dai: Or the shake weight, right?

[00:29:18] Jay: yeah the shake weight or the Electro when I whatever they'd put it in you don't

work

Now, I think that's fair. All right final question non 

[00:29:28] Dai: Yeah

sure.

[00:29:30] Jay: Anything earth 

[00:29:33] Dai: Huh 

[00:29:33] Jay: on earth and you knew you couldn't fail

[00:29:35] Dai: Wow. Well, I gotta be honest because I've always wanted to learn how to surf. Okay, 

[00:29:42] Jay: a 

[00:29:42] Dai: I,

Ah 

[00:29:45] Jay: That's a great answer.

[00:29:46] Dai: I've tried. Okay. I am a really good sinker. So that's why I'm not a great swimmer. and also when I was trying to learn to surf, I just, I really couldn't get it. I just, there was something going on in my head.

I just could not make the physical connection to the sport, but it was something I really wanted to learn and I still do today,

you know ?

Oh yeah 

[00:30:05] Jay: to like go out there and try

[00:30:07] Dai: Not without a wetsuit,

yeah, 

[00:30:12] Jay: Surfing I love that. I've never gotten that answer before. All right. Well, yeah obvious, you know, inspirational guy 

[00:30:19] Dai: Well thanks Jay Likewise 

[00:30:22] Jay: If you want to reach out to you, I'm guessing diemanuel.

com.

[00:30:27] Dai: Yeah, or actually the cool thing about having a unique name is any social media platform I'm active on, if you just search my name, you'll find me. I'm the only

one with it 

[00:30:35] Jay: going to say that, man, 

[00:30:36] Dai: Yeah 

[00:30:36] Jay: must be beautiful. Like,

[00:30:38] Dai: It's good. All

organic 

[00:30:40] Jay: yeah, there's no like finding anybody else. If they're looking for you came up high in the ranking. 

[00:30:46] Dai: you 

[00:30:47] Jay: man. Well, I'm sure people will look you up. we'll 

[00:30:48] Dai: Appreciate it Jay 

[00:30:50] Jay: the, bio and it was awesome meeting you, brother.

Have a good rest of your week. All right.

[00:30:52] Dai: Likewise, Jay.

[00:30:53] Jay: Thanks. 

[00:30:53] Dai: you so much 

[00:30:54] Jay: you, man. Later. 

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