How can you make the most of this life's journey?
Big question, huh? Sure it is. And I think the answer lies in two words:
1) Sow
and
2) Reap
Truth is, you cannot reap what you have not sown. This is true in all of life's areas. Your physical fitness, material/financial fitness, emotional fitness, social fitness, and spiritual fitness. Here's the problem. Whether you are meaning to or not you should know this: You are always sowing something. So here is a clue. Make sure you are sowing the seed of the crop you wish to reap in each of life's areas.
At Freedom Fitness PLUS we work hard to help our members do exactly that! We make sure you have the information you need so that, whenever you are in the gym, you are doing all you can to sow seeds of good health and functionality. You will never find energy drinks for sale in a fridge from our gym (not whilst I am around anyway). Know why? Because I have not yet seen an energy drink which leads me to believe that it's constant and regular consumption promotes great health. "But" (I hear you exclaim) "what about the proceeds form the sales of the drinks?" Well, the fact is, if they do not positively contribute to your life then they are of no interest to me. So I guess that makes our gym a bad place for people wanting to buy energy drinks. We are just the same in many other ways too. You will not find a Leg Extension machine in our gym. We promote exercise that loads the legs the way nature intended - through the sole of the foot! We are a kiwi owned Community Gym re-investing our profits in the local community (remember the CYFs referrals (supposedly "troubled youth") that have been so good for our team?). We are not a foreign owned interest wanting to take corporate sized profits out of the NZ economy (can anyone think of another gym that might fit this description?...). We are Birkenhead's best kept little secret - we are not easy to find and if you do find us we are not easy to join. We only want a certain type of member - them's who wants to be there for the right reasons. No apologies made. We are not over-crowded but we are well attended. We want to contribute positively to your life. "Positive Contribution" was one of two principles Freedom Fitness PLUS was founded on. Everything we do is designed to make a positive contribution to our members and the community from the perspective of physical functionality. And we actually have the same philosophy with all other areas of our member's lives too. We care just as much about their Social fitness, their Emotional fitness, and their Financial fitness.
That is why we started a Chapter of Business Networks International (BNI) upstairs from the gym. This is a group of local business owners who support one another. The professionals in this group are second to none. Why? Because of the second founding principle of Freedom Fitness PLUS - accountability! Members in our BNI Chapter all answer to each other. If a BNI member refers a contact to me I am held accountable by every member of the BNI Chapter to deliver A1+ grade service to that contact. Credibility amongst my BNI peers is critical to the health of the Freedom Fitness PLUS business as far as generating referrals and memberships from BNI goes. And the other members, if I refer my contacts to them, are in exactly the same position.
That is why I have decided to start providing you, our valuable gym member, with a "Tip of the Week". So, what is the "Tip of the Week"? It is my recommendation of the very best contacts I have found to satisfy the various needs we all have from time to time. Let me tell you how this came about.
Recently I have had several repair jobs done to several motor vehicles. I have bought a new cellphone. I have bought IT equipment shop attendants swore uncompromisingly would work for me. I have bought other materials and stuff for use around the gym. And there is one thing I am completely and totally sick and tired of. That is, spending time finding what I think is (or am assured is) the right solution to a problem, paying for it, employing it, and finding that not only have I paid for a crappy solution that fails me, but I still have the original problem to solve (at best. Usually I am also left with additional problems to solve as well as the original issue).
I cannot tell you how upset I have got because of this, time and time again, in recent years. It seems the world is full of con-men and rip-off artists. I am completely fed up with it all and I refuse to play that game a moment longer.
When I started the BNI Chapter upstairs form the gym I had no idea that it would lead me to the Utopia I am about to tell you of. Here is what happened.
First, I had an internet issue in the gym. The IT guy from BNI fixed it - at cost! Next, my 'significant other' lost all her photos on her laptop's hard drive. Photos of our children growing up with trips overseas and birthday parties too. Was she upset or what? Once again the IT BNI guy fixed it - at cost! Next, I thought that my accountant was ripping me off in a way that is hard to believe. The Accountant from BNI is fixing everything up. Then, our Opel Vectra took thousands of dollars (yes, a multiple of thousands) to get warranted and on the road. Six months later it failed it's warrant and the mechanic who had done the work wanted to do more work on it. At this stage we forked out another $600.00 for a broken wiper mechanism to be replaced. They replaced it with a 'broken' second hand one which lasted no more than three rainy trips (a repair I later duplicated/repeated with another mechanic except with a worthy replacement part for just $140.00 all-up including installation labour. I now assume that I was overcharged by around $460.00!!!). Worse still, every time we put the car into that workshop we had to wait weeks and weeks and weeks (one repair job on the gearbox took them 8 weeks!!!) whilst they mucked around with it (probably dropping their kids off to school or something I suppose). I was reluctant to take the car away from the mechanic because I wanted them to fix their mistakes. All that happened was they kept charging me more money for their mistakes and/or there were extremely un-reasonable time delays where I was without the vehicle for very long periods of time. Someone wise told me "I have found it is always better to pay twice for the same problem to be fixed than three, four, five, six times or more". That advice led me to seek a second opinion on the Opel Vectra. The BNI mechanic took the car, examined it, fixed it (the wiper was fixed for just $140.00 as mentioned earlier), and now it runs beautifully. When I dropped the car off he offered me a courtesy vehicle. When I picked it up from him after the work had been completed (which took just one day) it had been perfectly washed. He did the same with the Gym-o-Zine. He told me, "No-one likes spending money on car repairs. So we give them back a spotless car and they smile as they pay. There is no perceived value for the customer in a repaired car. The customer has to pay out hard-earned dollars just to get back nothing more than what they had before their problem started. To them it feels like a hiding to nothing (at the worst) or a hollow victory (at best). Our customers find value in a repaired car that looks and feels nice to drive away in". I took special note of the mechanical and customer service certificates that were hanging on the walls of his workshop Reception area. Not only had this guy attended all the courses but it was self evident to me that he acted on the knowledge gained therein. Next he will be getting the gym's promotional MG to service and WOF. Next problem? I was made redundant recently from my employment. It was gut-wrenching and I had to ensure, (for the sake of my partner and our four children as well as for the gym), that I walked away with the best deal possible. The BNI lawyer put me in touch with a colleague who helped me do just that. I have spent the time since working in the gym and it's various systems to improve and refine what we deliver for our members (as well as recovering from the huge toll that old job took on my health). Anyway, once again BNI was invaluable to me and (even if you cannot tell yet) it has also contributed to the benefit of members as well (guess where my Business Coach comes from?... Y'know, the bloke that brainstorms with me about with all the ways the gym can deliver more to members?...).
For once in my life I can engage someone to fix a problem for me and guess what? The problem goes away! Plus I only pay what I was quoted! This is so good and, as a valuable contributing member of Freedom Fitness PLUS, you deserve the same. So the "Tip of the Week" this week is a referral to Lynette Ball, of BDO Spicers. She helped me out immensely with my Kiwi Saver scheme (thanks Lynette). Her job is to help people ensure they have enough money to retire on. She is offering the first three qualifying gym members who respond to this invitation a 1.5 hour complimentary consultation (value $500.00). If you are number 4 she will have to charge the $500.00. If you are in the least bit interested in sowing the seeds that allow you to retire with more than just the pension to live off then you must contact her asap! Here is the deal:
