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My IG account has basically stopped growing.

Nothing I do seems to work. It feels like a daily grind.

It’s frustrating.

Content’s hard.

Let’s talk about this, beginning with what’s true:

Numbers on social media don’t really matter.
A month ago I gave a talk to the District Managers for Goodlife Fitness about brand.

Collectively, this group’s responsible for 75% of all personal training in Canada.

Afterwards, one of them showed me her phone . . . 

Turns out, a facility manager she oversees sent her a post of mine the day before saying "this guy’s great!"

The post he shared?

It did not perform well on IG. 

(It’s about programming. I just reposted it for you to see.)

His message counted as one share. But not all shares are equal.

This share was a recommendation from a facility manager to a district manager responsible for 200+ trainers.

But if I didn't meet her, I never would have seen it and would have continued to think that that post underperformed.

"93% of Word of Mouth Still Happens Offline"
^That’s from Jonah Berger, a marketing prof at Wharton.
Data only tells part of the story.

What it doesn’t show––a facility manager sending a post to his district manager––a client sending a post of yours to their friend––is more valuable than the stuff it does show.

Obsessing over the numbers you can see will lead you astray. 

But, when you execute on a good process, results won’t come immediately.

It could take months, or even years, to get benefits.

For that reason, content’s a mindfuck.

It’s kind of like building a great body, right?
Amber Reynolds put this topic into perspective for me ‘cause I’m a meathead at heart:

"Coaches love to talk mindset with their clients, telling them to put in the work and execute on a good plan and trust the process, but they often fail to apply it to their own business.

"It’s like their clients trying to walk into a gym and winging it, expecting 8-pack abs.

"You make a plan and go in and lift weights, rep by rep by rep, trusting the process, knowing that results won’t be immediate.

"Eventually you realize that the process is the actual reward."

I imagine that this awareness comes with experience.

All I wanted when I started working out was a great body.

What Amber said above wouldn’t have resonated.

Now I love the daily habit of strain and sweat and struggle.

If I didn’t, I would’ve quit a long time ago when I didn’t get a six-pack after my fifth workout.

And perhaps I’ve finally gotten to the point with content where I can also surrender to the process and look past the distracting day-to-day feedback.

Ryan Holiday once wrote that the work has to be the win. He continued to say,

"You control the effort, not the results. Ultimately you have to love doing it. You have to get to a place where doing the work is the win & everything else is extra."

In Judaism, Tzedakah is often translated to "charity" but the correct translation is actually "righteousness".

The nuance is important, because it’s not just about giving.

According to the Talmud, there’s 8 levels of giving. At the top––the most righteous––is giving in a way that enables the recipient to become self-reliant.

This giving must be done anonymously so the recipient doesn’t feel like he owes the giver anything.

It goes on to say:

"The most basic need of a human being is to feel needed and capable. [...] It is important to instill in them confidence in their own ability to find solutions to their dilemmas, and even be a source of strength to others."

I don’t believe in true altruism.

To me, this highest level of Tzedakah represents belief:

The belief that if you put good things into the world, good will come back to you.

It might not be immediate. And you won’t be able to measure it. But, over the course of my life, and only obvious in retrospect, it has proven true.

From now on, I won’t pay attention to follower count
If I surrender to the process, that’ll take care of itself.

And I also know that 93% of word of mouth referrals still happen offline . . .

. . . That, and a single message sent from one person to another is likely more valuable than 1,000 likes from strangers on some silly trending song.

Still, my IG growth has slowed down.

I can’t brag about how many new followers I’m getting anymore.

And yet, business has never been better.

The lesson I’ve learned is one I’ve always known, yet have been slow to act on:

When you do great work, day in and day out, with the right intent, targeted the right way, good things will happen.

But, they’ll happen behind the scenes in ways that only become clear in retrospect.

For these reasons, the process is what matters.

So, I’m writing this as a reminder to myself:

Stay the path.

Surrender to the process.

Rep by rep by rep.

-Jon

P.S. These are the types of transformation photos the fitness industry needs to share more of.


Jonathan Goodman
Improving fitness trainers.
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