Why Should Anyone Listen To You?

When I was a personal trainer, one of the most popular trainers in the first gym I worked at was a huge bodybuilder.

Two of the least successful were an overweight trainer and a skinny-fat trainer.

I knew that one of those less successful trainers was quite knowledgeable, but they didn’t look it.

Now, I’m a firm believer that good information can come from absolutely anywhere and it’s foolish to disregard anyone because of appearance. (Hell, my current MMA coach is a woman who’s still smaller than me, even though I’m a manlet.)

But for clients and most people, looking the part is an important factor in whether or not they want to work with you.

If you say that you can help someone lose weight, yet you’re fairly overweight, it looks bad. People won’t trust in your process.

It doesn’t matter if you actually do know your stuff — the prospective client can see for themselves that the “practice” doesn’t line up with the “theory.”

For my prospective clients, once I showed them proof that I lost 100lbs, they became much more interested in what I had to say.

This applies to human psychology outside of fitness, as well.

If someone doesn’t practice what they preach, how can they be expected to be taken seriously?

Sure, good advice can come from anywhere, but if the person themselves obviously hasn’t taken action based on their own words, how good can people expect that information to be, really?

If you don’t practice what you preach, here’s what’ll happen:

• People will not respect you or listen to you if it seems like you haven’t taken your own advice.

• All of your knowledge and research will be a waste of time because you won’t be given the chance to put it into practice.

As I said above, anyone can be knowledge in a subject, despite appearances, but some people take it too far.

Let’s take the classic examples of a fat personal trainer or a sickly doctor. What might they say?

• “But good information can come from anywhere!” (Very true, but if your doctor got lung cancer because of a smoking habit, you would second-guess all of their recommendations, wouldn’t you?)

• “People need to just give me a chance!” (As in the dating world, you won’t even get a chance if people don’t like what they see.)

I mean, this seems like a huge problem, right? It kind of is, but is it really such a bad thing if you have to adhere to your own helpful advice?

If you truly believe in it, your expertise should benefit your life, too, right?

• If you practice what you preach, you’ll gain all the benefits of following your own good advice.

• People will respect you and hold you in higher regard because your words obviously carry weight, and your past actions will prove this to be the case.

If you believe in certain information or advice enough that you feel the need to tell others about it, follow it yourself first.

No one wants to listen to a broke financial advisor.