Just Don't Be Bad, Ok

It’s no secret that I’m big into behavioural psychology

(You can choose to believe me - Or you can have me tell you about the dream I had last week, where Rory Sutherland and I were plotting an escape from a group of futuristic Nazis who were going to kill us unless we did something clever.

It’s up to you.)

One thing that I think behavioural psychology knows really well that the fitness industry will never get is that people often don’t choose the best option for them - They avoid the worst one.

And so when you understand that nobody’s comparing your coaching to the ideal and that they’re just eliminating the options that don’t feel right

You understand that the job of your brand isn’t to try and tell everyone why you’re the best and no one else compares and AI can’t touch you and your mum says you’re cleverest boy she ever did see

It’s just to not trigger the ‘that doesn’t seem quite right’ instinct that people have.

Now this has become more important than it’s ever been because of the fundamental systemic lack of trust in the fitness industry

Because of bad actors and probably also because of bad actors on the internet generally and grifters in a broader sense

This means that it’s harder for people to know, like, and trust you.

And I think actually if people spend more time trying to develop that and just give the impression that you are a genuine, normal person who delivers what they say, has a life, understands people

You’ll do loads better than the humiliating content tricks that experts tell you that you’ve got to do just to try and keep up with the algorithm

Or believing that social proof is just about shouting the word “results” over and over again in the hope that people think that you’re the only person who knows that your job is to get the outcome that they want.

Can we please bring back the importance of being more yourself (genuinely more yourself, not faux authenticity) over tactics, hacks, tricks and everything else