In this week’s episode of Industry Change, Richard interviews Geoff Jowett. Geoff is a veteran of the fitness industry being involved in Vision Personal Training, BodyTrim as well as appearing on TV networks. His face is well known.
Geoff has a unique ability to see a gap in the market and fill that gap, wether it be a service based business, weight loss products or now communities. But what happens when people can’t also see your vision for filling that gap? Well, most people will let you know WHY it just WON’t work. But Geoff has become the king of building successful services or products even in a climate where people don’t believe in him or the product or service.
So how does he get that pure self belief? He believes it’s a few things:
1. Don’t be afraid to fail.
Fear of failure is the number one inhibitor for success. When you’re afraid to fail, you simply won’t take the risks needed to succeed. You’ll end up listening to the haters and they’ll become louder than your self belief and our passion for what you’re doing.
2. Be Resourceful – Ask For Help
It’s important to know your limitations and bring other people in who can help you. Geoff admits he’s no good at spreadsheets, operations or back end. But he is great at writing copy, talking and building communities. So he brings others along who can make up for his limitations.
3. Join A Winning Tribe.
When you start to succeed, unfortunately most people around you won’t understand and that often manifests itself in haters and doubters. So, you’ve got to find people who are on the same journey as you, who can cheer you on, celebrate the wins with you, and help you when your down too.
As much as Geoff has celebrated huge success in his life, he’s also hit rock bottom. And through it all discovered that the fame, the money and the success means nothing unless you are really doing what lights you up inside and your most passionate about. That’s where the real magic happens. For Geoff this is building communities and he believes that communities are crucial for real change to take place.
In fact connection changed Geoff’s life – through dealing with alcoholism he discovered that communities were crucial for success. You see, connection kills addiction – wether that be addiction to alcohol (in his case) or addiction to food, drugs, etc. There’s so much strength in connection and communities because people come to the realisation that they are not alone – that others are going through the same thing that they are.
Geoff’s has a few rules for building communities:
1. Communities are a safe place.
The age old cliche or ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ applies more importantly in your communities. You must build a safe place where people feel they can share without having that information ‘shared’ elsewhere. This is critical.
2. Leaders Must Lead The Way.
If you want people to be open, vulnerable and transparent in your communities – you, as a leader must example that behaviour FIRST. It’s not enough just to tell people to be open and to share – you must do it first.
3. Share the Wins
There’s such power and energy when a community of winners are together and everyone celebrates the wins of others. Not only does it pump up the person who won – but it also encourages everyone on the same journey that they can win too!
Above all, through the ups and downs, Geoff has learned that it’s important to know and get back to you true north. That thing that lights you up inside. Money, Fame and Ego seem important when you’re young and wanting to build an amazing business. But when you just set yourself on serving people, building communities and really helping people – all that other stuff will come (& you’ll probably realise along the way, that a lot of those things don’t matter anymore).
To hear more about what Geoff’s up to with the Jowett Method visit his Facebook page here.
