Episode 5 – The One With John Romaniello

The One With The Brookanator

Transcript of EPISODE 3:

Brett: Welcome to Professionals to another Fiit Professional Podcast. Today, I am very very excited to be speaking to this friend of mine from the other side of the world. It is currently night time for him and it is early morning for me. So, very very excited to be talking to this gentleman who I will introduce to you in a moment. First of all just a quick recap if you haven’t listened to any of the past episodes of Fiit Professional Podcast – what you can simply do is you can actually go to the I-tunes and type in FiiT Professional – F II T – so that’s FiiT with two Is and basically they will bring out the Fiit Professional Podcast and you can subscribe to that and what will happen is every time we upload a webisode you get that uploaded to your file immediately so you will never missing out on these awesome interviews. So, lets get started straight into it today and the gentleman I am going to be speaking to is John Romaniello and John Romaniello, just to give you a bit of a background – he is one of the most highly regarded experts in the fitness industry. He has written a myriad of publications ranging from Men’s Health to Fast Company and has been featured as an expert on a number of television programs, including Good Morning America ! John Romaniello is an angel investor, in addition to his writing and serves as an advisor to nearly a dozen fitness and tech companies. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller, Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha. So John Romaniello, welcome aboard buddy !

John: Thank you so much for having me and thank you for that very kind intro directly from my Amazon buyer.

Brett: Yeah…just on that …just on that John Roman … I noticed that you have missed out on a couple of things that I thought you would have on there.. as a fitness advisor now,  we will get into this a little bit more in the episode but you are fitness advisor to the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger.

John: Yes…yeah …I am… I am one with my collaborating {inaudible} team.  We are the heads of Arnold Schwarzeneggar’s fitness advisory board, which is just weird. So Arnold was actually kind enough to write the foreword for our book which is great. So it’s extremely cool to get to work with him and it is really what we do for him is essentially find and manage content on the website which is we also design some workouts which he himself has done and it’s nice that Arnold has occasionally will do workout that I have to….so that’s fun.

Brett: Yeah yeah that’s brilliant…must be funny, growing up and watching out on the big screen and all of a sudden you are writing for his website.

John: Yes but you know it’s been a fun filled journey. Every now and again I have a moment where I really look back and sort of like go over things and it’s all very strange that these things have happened in this particular order but we all feel very good.

Brett: That’s brilliant buddy. So John I guess getting stuck straight into this, let’s just paint a little bit picture of how we met and so forth and I guess you probably got a different story to me because there was some alcohol in the midst of everything. So we met in Vegas. I went over to Vegas to basically mastermind with the world’s leading internet entrepreneurs and John was actually speaking at this event and then as every event there’s an after party so we went to uh..then actually you might be able to tell me on this.. what was the name of the Club Festival. Its called…

John: Ah….I want to say we went to EXCESS which is … it’s the wheel-in hotel ……not sure why we wandered there but that feels great

Brett: I have been telling this story without being able to actually give the address but that shows how good the story is. Basically John {inaudible} me met there – at the event – and I guess we kicked it off at Excess…how was the night out? I haven’t been able to find out the aftermath of that…but it was spot ready

John: You want that …real …you want like the half or the full story …because this can be real bad…

Brett: We want the full story mate.

John:  Oh..Jesus..all right …So when you last saw me… or when I last remember seeing you we were talking to a couple of girls and then I remember like sort of walking back towards the table where our group was and then I don’t remember anything…at one point I remember falling down back at the table and then all I have is flashes…I .. have this flash where I am walking out of the club and then I have a flash and then it’s a black and then a flash I am in a taxiline and then its like five minutes blackness and then it’s a flash line in the taxi and then it’s a flash two, you don’t have to tell the boys this and then I am standing in front of the elevator vomiting bokshoy into a garbage can….and we had..it’s bad..not a problem and so there was this girl from the event who I was flirting with or whatever and we had sort of like hooked up the night before. So she has been very maternal and sort of like took responsibility for me and so her and my buddy Alex …. got me up to my room and then I remember trying to undress myself….I was trying to take off my shoes but I couldn’t find my feet and…..which happens sometimes …you are drunk…. you couldn’t lose your feet…and so eventually you know she says she will help me with my shoes and she followed up with “Many hands make light work” and I looked at her and I said “That’s a proverb” and then I fell over backwards and passed out and I did not wake up until the next morning. When I woke up…I was at the foot of the bed…like a scrolled up ball like a dog and in my underwear which was like bright red diesel creeps …and I made my way to the bathroom and proceeded to vomit and I just went back and forth from the bed to the bathroom and kept vomiting and I could end the story there but you said you wanted the full version…so then I like I am done vomiting for a while and this girl so there she had slept in my room ……and she began to rub my arm but not in a maternal way ….more in sort of a … you know like… this is going to happen kind of way …. I mean I just like I told you there is nothing in the world I wanted to do last than have sex…I didn’t know her that well….I didn’t want to say that I didn’t want to like I mean it’s a really ..we wanted poking up because I didn’t want to be impolite ….she did take care of me when I was drunk and it would be rude.  So rather than sort of her being up and I was like in the middle of really the worst sexual performance of my life and I had to stop in the middle to go drop again…and then

Brett: hahaha (laughter)

John:  It was so bad….….and I am blabbering ….l like I swear its not you ….its not you…sic….and she says I know I know….and so anyway eventually she and the other buddy of mine got me to the airport…I .. I had..I…I showered soda and well…I just catching my flight barely and I sweating out straight tequila on the plane…everyone around me must have hated me ….And I started to feel a little bit better about halfway through the flight and I made it home without vomiting again ….so that was good. So that’s the story…

Brett: I …I guess just to give people a little bit of background of what could have been a magic interview .to that …I ..I actually….I guess it is one of those things you know when an Aussie meets an American “I had to do everything” Aussie like him as we would take up to the bar and a delay if it was we had a {inaudible} instead of water we had a shot of tequila, a Yagabond and then a chaser. A quick fact… which is …not what you are thinking…the quick fact… is Madorie and Baileys….so it was two shots and a good Yagabond and not only that I believe there was a few bottles of tequila and vodka at the table but that’s now a great memory and that was a great way to meet you on that level …and …I think it was something funny that I picked up there just goes back to the type of person you are ….as drunk as you were …as strong as you were you still picked up that.. this mystery woman …still a pervert…which you know …for that lovely …..hilarious ..(laughter)

John: Do you remember that I you know I had like affairs thrown up {inaudible}….this is like on the floor of the hotel room… holding onto the carpet to keep from falling off the wall …it was bad….it was bad.

Brett:  All right mate … thank you very much for that …I am sharing a story I am sure everyone can relate to them…have had nights like that.  So, I guess let’s get stuck straight into John Roman and a bit more of a background to give the viewers a bit of a heads up because you are heavily involved in online internet marketing and like you say you got a number of different products and services that you purchase and one of those I guess would be your flagship product would be your online coaching.  So, I guess do you need to say anything else that you do you would like to be on it to share before you give into a question-what I would really like to know is what was your a…ha moment when you decided or realized that the internet really was a tool that you could utilize to invest your knowledge?

John:  Sure…I have been writing on the internet for I guess 13 years now and my first article was published on a body building website called T-Nation which most of you listeners know back when I was about 20 years old in 2002 and I didn’t have like a website or anything to trap traffic…so I was just like popular on T-Nation for whatever that’s worth. And I thought about setting up a website…. A few times of the year’s …never really did and at some point my buddy Joe Mannen, who is a big guy in the marketing world…at this point he wasn’t …he wasn’t wanted to get involved in my marketing ….and he just told me a little bit about it and it so to sound as – too good to be true and so good luck to all of you over there and then a couple of months later he launches for his product and he did like 300,000 dollars in gross revenue in like 3 days. {inaudible}….you got me!

Brett:  (laughter)

John:  So, that was the only haha moment where I saw what was possible because Joe had demonstrated and then I started looking into it and I saw what other people are doing and I really saw how there were many people who were making money who I didn’t think were particularly special in any real way ….not feeling bad about anyone particularly but you know I just thought he is not doing anything that I cant do better and once I saw through those people I decided to sort of jump in with both feet and thats really what happened …I decided to keep the treatment that was working out for a book at that point and really just developed it into a product so it became my key final phase fat loss …my first key product and when we launched that I was fortunate enough to beat Joe’s record and we did 460,000 {inaudible} in 3 days.  So it was pretty big and we just kept building from that.

Brett:  Fantastic…Those results would make a majority of the people shit in their pants really go well…coming from…. I guess if you are not familiar with the internet and the rich that they can have is that might right their  …is just living profound …it is possible that maybe you may not want to be out.  You may not want 460 K in 3 days.  Whether you are doing 10K – 30K you know this is still a really good opportunity.  I guess in a month or two of that ….to get to that…I guess awesome achievement of 460 K in 3 days, what was one of your biggest businesses lessons that you got through because obviously you know you didn’t just create something straight away and over the night it was success, you know …you must have gone through with someone … some good lessons along the way.

John:  Sure…what I mean I think the most valuable thing is take care of your affiliates you know that’s really all about businesses you understand in the affiliate marketing world I build.  On affiliates, so you just need to always be willing to go the extra mile, make things easy for people.  I remember in my first launch….it was sort of challenging because you know so many people had demands on my time and I didn’t want to be rude in any way.  So I was always being very prominent and I guess I didn’t understand initially just how much people depend on you to help them sell your product.  So you know I think I did a bunch of interviews and wrote articles for people so I expected  now I will double the products I just got to send emails to make money but I wound up writing thousands upon thousands of words and sort of fulfill other people’s blogs during that time and that was really a helpful  lesson..it helped me in all of my other launches and then for my book launch – the hard cover books – here comes the seller we sort of you know that lesson came in handy and it was really important as a matter of fact my coop and I in the week that the book came out we were on something like.. I don’t know .. 23 podcasts, 20 articles and 19 different publications around.  So, we were like everywhere and because I knew the value of that of having other people sell your stuff.  So, that was I would say the big lesson that I learnt during that launch that really helped this.  Helping other people sell your product.

Brett:  Fantastic. I guess if you could afford to give the listeners there now currently who don’t have enough information products you know that they want to get into internet marketing it and you know reap the rewards that has to offer, what would be your first bit of advice be for these type of people?  Maybe someone who has already got a product and is just not selling any of it …what would you do …your advice be then?

John:  Well…too bad for them…you know first if you don’t have a product you need to create a great product …you know that …we cant just create some need to a fabulous product because everyone else’s is a fabulous product you need to find something that people either haven’t seen before or will be interested in seeing it and having a different perspective is really important and so that’s the first.  From there if you already have a product I would say hold conferences, meet people, network, because again affiliates should know – that they are going to sell your product fully and all of them being pull people are far more interested in doing business with people they know than people they never met and so you know so many of my affiliate relationships have been a common bond by just virtue of holding conferences in knowing people and that’s why we are doing this podcast right?  I mean how many podcasts you think I did last two weeks….its astronomical….the amount of ofcourse I get through interviews – that’s again not to be  {inaudible}…..which is how it is at this point. And I said yes to you because we met, we had drunk together and I like you and that’s how it is.  So, I am not going to give interviews to just anyone because I don’t o …I will be doing f#$@$ interviews all day. So yeah….so I would say that’s the most important thing …if any of you are not selling because your affiliate networks isn’t powerful enough and to make that….. to fix that you know is pretty easy.

Brett:  Yeah…a bit of tequila and a good night out..

John:  Yeah…you could

Brett:  Another important I tell you I just really want to hold my head on that point day because I am the massive advocate on you know getting out there and doing something that might make you uncomfortable to myself I guess I have to fly all the way from Australia to Vegas which is not that bad of a task…thank you about it …I took {inaudible} faith out of that meeting alone and he took great guys and got some really good relationships which is you know he had met whether something inspires or doesn’t inspire from it I think it’s got to be something in the industry you need to the networking is a key thing and that’s something I know you do very very well.  And I guess just on that talking about how to look after your affiliates and so forth and I know in one of your last launches ..you did something different and a bit unique than what you generally see with people with affiliate programs because I guess there was a standard approach almost affiliate marketing correct?

John:  Yeah….absolutely

Brett:  And then what you did I guess was put that on the head and you made your approach a little bit different.  Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

John:  What specifically are you talking about?

Brett:  So, in regards to I guess how you got your affiliates to mail more, prices, etc.

John:   What I sort of saw….I am an affiliate as well so I promote other people’s products and the commissions are not you know you get 75% if you naturally did your own product and that’s really awesome.  But there are bonuses and everyone makes bonus cash that you get you win first place in the affiliate contest ….sometimes you get 2000 or even 3000 dollars which is cool…everybody likes competition ….everyone likes to be competent or feel like being competitive and have a chance to win right.  So, the affiliate contest is one of the primary ways that we get people to promote. But we run into this issue wherein lot of people with small affiliates, they cant possibly compete with the larger ones.  There is no way that someone with a list of 3000 people is going to be able to compete with Mike here who has massive emails.  And so what I saw happening is that was the same like 5 to 8 guys who are always wanting the affiliate ….and they didn’t even have to mail that many times to do it.  And so what I did was recreated a tiered affiliate contest where there was a tier-one for guys who had big lists and then two for guys who had a little bit smaller……no wonder we went down to six tiers based on either the size of your list or your performance with previous launches and that way you are only competing with people who were roughly as capable of winning as you could and so you know for the first year it was a $5000 first prize and for the 5th tier it was still a 1000 and so rather than having to scrounge like crazy for a chance to take eighth place overall and maybe make 250 dollars, now you said you are just competing against five other guys in your level you have a chance to win a 1000, 500, or whatever it is or all the different levels in between and really help people. So,  I think that… it needed more fun for everybody because now you are just competing with these five guys instead of giants and everyone thought like it was a bit more fair.  So I think that really helps

Brett:  Because I love that method and the approach to that because you can take that and utilize it in any form of business really like for people who are listening to this and they are not online now is maybe sitting and all this isn’t for me but you could actually tape what you have just said and are really recommended on just for one that they last 3-4 minutes and listen to this again and look at how you can introduce that into your procure order business, how you can run your affiliate contest and your iron gym or you are going to studio or you are going to boot camp. So, really good information here, John. Thanks for sharing that.  So John, I guess that one of your flagship services I can say is online coaching where you actually work with people from all over the world writing them highly and highly expert driven workouts…nothing of that makes sense really.  Anyways, that’s today….I hardly expect written workouts where you will be now able to I guess collect an income from servicing other people from all over the world.  Can you explain a little bit more on the online coaching and so forth?

John:  Sure.  Essentially the online personal training and what I do is a is have a comprehensive assessment form.  It’s about six pages long – about 7-8 {inaudible}  leads ….What I collect from the internet is just this one information that I would collect from someone in person and from there I sort of have the enough information about them to design one-on-one program and this covers their training …so I get them 3 to 5 workouts that they rotate over the course of the months….I take care of their nutrition in terms of their calories and macro-nutrient break down and then I give them a list of recommended fruits that helps them sort of build their needs and the goal is really to teach people how to be self-sufficient rather than giving people a corn-chip free fabricated meals. I hope people learn how rather than tell them what to eat….you know.  And it is very successful.  We have thousands of people go through the program in the past five years.  It’s really fantastic.  I have really enjoyed it.  You know because it’s low-priced program…. I try giving work between 350 to 400 but maybe that was $250 during the sale….but that’s still reasonable.  When I was training in the New York city if you wanted to train with me you had to be willing to pay 250 an hour and you had to be 8 minutes away …that’s the average travel time in a gym in the Europe city.  So, now, you know obviously that’s a very very specific point tell you beyond.  Not only it is sort of space locational but it’s pretty high priced program.  To get people train for 4-5 times a month it can be pricy. So now, because it’s lower overall and you could work with different clients. So, working with Brooke Shields…how was it {inaudible} exclusively I have been able to work with young guys who can spare 300 a month but they could not spare 300 an hour and it has been really cool.

Brett:   Fantastic.  To suggest on that and to someone who is wanting to obviously get into that I guess I know what really needs to go into the back end of it but to share with our listeners is what are the key things you need to get to set up and understand but first of all you can just start….right now to work out to people what would you say your key points are?

John:  There are ……breaking the body fat is really important.  But other things really sort of include their experience, what type of training they have been doing for the past several months, if they have food allergies, if they have an injuries, this is really important…there level of proficiency, there is exercises like some one’s never come with that {inaudible}  I am not going to program that in…I will find a different place to allow for the hinge…..also its stuff like that…So, I mean those are the big rules…..

Brett:  So I guess in regards to the business side of it someone wanting to get set up…things such as I guess they need to create an exercise library right, they can’t just what if the one of the client doesn’t understand what RDO was.  So, how do you structure that into your workouts – into your programs.

John:  Well you know the way it is set up it is really just that I am able to tell based on the assessment what exercise they do and they don’t and under the ones that I think they could run on their own I send them the video that has a tutorial and exercise their mind and that allows them to learn it. So they are never done. I don’t think I have worked with anyone who has never done push-ups before.  You know if they have never done…if they become {inaudible}  but haven’t done RDOs I think you haven’t mastered the movements. So, I just sort of teach them how to do it…coaching however I can and then remember to work it into the program.  So thankfully you know because of the way the program is set up,  I don’t really run to…I turn off beginner clients.  Most of my clients are intermediate I would say.  So it is sort of self brigades.

Brett:  So I guess if you have not tried and exercised the library of myriad of exercises imagined…what sort of work is involved to get an online coaching business set up?

John:  The hardest thing is recreating your templates and documents.  You don’t want to have to recreate new PDF’s or forms. So, it is sort of at least the structure videos in place.  The protraction –  you have to do that, you have to create a way to give them assessment, you have to create you know you deliver….how you can deliver and how you can charge so for me I just take over people’s Pay-Pal.  It’s a wrong thing to do that.  How are you going to promote it?   You have to have a funnel that gets people in….so all of those things.  I lot of this to the proprietor so I can’t talk too much about how I did it.  But, what I will say is that those are the finer things again. Your funnel how to get people in, your marketing, your follow up marketing and templates….the way they do away the content where there is presentable and sort of permissive.

Brett:  I guess coming back to the I will thing if you know……tried in the system, and just sitting down backing up…if we look to that as a cross journey of how they can do firstly get in front of you and then how that every step is going to be delivered from there.  So, cool mate.  So moving on to a bit of a through a curve ball on you. Now another question for you, if you were given 1000 dollars and a Macbook Pro and that’s all we had and of course knowledge you have got what would you do?  If you had to start again….

John:  If I had to start over 1000 dollars of budget and Macbook Pro and I have my knowledge …. but I don’t…I have my mails right?

Brett:  That’s right….you now have no contacts.

John:  Okay…well..the first thing I would do is reach out to editors and try to get published on websites that had high traffic and so to bring people back to my site that’s free .. hopefully or actually be making money there.  I will also try to get published in big magazines like Men’s House, Men’s Fitness.  From there, I will certainly be creating content for my own website and republishing content that I wrote for other websites and at the same time trying to build my Facebook column.  Once I start writing, you get to feed people in, I would develop income for my coaching program that I charge maybe 200$ a month and trying to get people on that to generate more income.  Once my budget is a little larger, I will be making maybe 1000 to 3000 dollars a month, I will create a product and I will have enough money that I could wind up and develop a very low priced point product maybe 999 to get people into the habit of buying from me.  I would give it fully 100 percent on it to get them to promote. I would even ask them to just put up a link through Facebook or I could write a bloggers forum, etc.   just get affiliates across into promoting for you and get people accustomed to buying from those who have been a big thanks and eventually maybe I will work up to a bigger product.  But the very next product 999 is probably works up.

Brett:  Perfect.  A good point ….that is you are going to give away 100% of your income.  For the people there listening who are don’t probably fully understanding why would you want to give away 100% of your 995…

John:  Well…because everyone is trying to make his efforts right?  How much money you really need for the affiliates getting 75%

Brett:  (laughter)

John:  You know you may add at best to make 250 sell and then minus quick entries….so this should be a sign of good faith and listen my focus might just work one to one with this…I will give you a 100%…it’s like they know they are not making any more money. To make $9 instead of $7 isn’t changing their lives but if they are big affiliates it’s a nice thing…they still know you mean business

Brett:  Yeah …And not only that…I guess the fact that you have been a big part in front of their large audience so you less can grow exponentially

John:  Exactly, if I am a big affiliate, I am thinking this ten dollar product, if I market it well, maybe I can sell a 1000 copies- that’s ten grand….now all of a sudden the …that extra 25% starts to mean a lot…right….so now its a difference of making 20…..uh 10,000 dollars that is 7500 you know….. its a nice difference.

Brett:   Yeah…thats a lot…that’s correct…so I guess again to the listeners there thinking you know how can you utilize this into your floor business, you know it is the same old thing what are you willing to give up in the front to get at the end…so I am I am a big believer in that.

John:  So that $1000 would go in building an empire. So good on you.

Brett:   (laughter) ….You passed

John:  Yeah

Brett:   So a question for you then…Where do you see this fitness industry heading …being so prolific in the industry…like where do you see it heading in the next 25 years?

John:  One I think online things will probably continue  …the markets could get more saturated but the people there will also rise to the top….I think that you have a lot of people who are very very very good trainers highly regarded in the industry who are not good at marketing and then you will be able to search and get people who will be marketing for them. marketing all that and they will really be going to crush it you know and from there, I mean I think…… in person you are going to see something like cross linking continue to do well…and you will see very very high priced point gyms do well and very very low priced point gyms do well but everyone in the middle is going to get crushed you know you try to. If there is a 10 dollar a month gym in your area and there is a 150 dollar a month gym in your area and you will try to do 60 you are going to get crushed.  Because people you know want posh services or they want to save money.

Brett:  I agreed that totally…and you can see that happening right now…You know here’s the reason we have opened up our FIIT Chick Transformations locations so we currently got 30 locations around Australia of about female only boot camp programs so you know that it’s definitely we are seeing the energies shift from one-on-one sole training to the group format as well and definitely online.  So, definitely agree with you on that one. So John I guess it is.   In one of my past episodes I talk about five keys to running a successful fitness business.  Now I just want to run you through the five keys and I just wanted to talk to one of those that pop out for you the most. So, in any particular order, we have got  – Be Genuine, we have got  –  create and run a range Community,   Produce Results, Create Multiple Services and Have a Purpose.  So out of those five…which ones succeed the most and can you elaborate on?

John:  I think creating community is really …probably the one that has been..if not necessarily the most effective in terms of bringing in money certainly the most fulfilling. You know I am very fortunate to say that I have a really active subscriber base…you know the people who comment on my blogs and who share them …you know I got ….can’t say right now actually ….I have got 18,800 fans on my Facebook page which is not a huge Facebook page by any stretch. There are people who have 50000 that has been still mine people online and those 50000 have got you know 11000 followers on Twitter but what I will say is that these people are engaged and that’s awesome.  I mean you know I care about their results…I would want to know what they are doing they want to know what I am doing you know when I post about fitness shit they enjoy it but when I post about stuff from my life they care and you know a big community like that caring about people and getting people care about you and then most importantly getting people who care about each other…that’s …. that’s the key right because if you have a 1000 raving fans instead of 10000 or 20 or 50 or 100,000 people feel informed about you, those people will always support your path.

Brett: Perfect….Love that..….I couldn’t agree with you more….You know its… its not about….its not about the size….its how you use it in our end ….whether that’s manliness or Facebook fan page  …you know gives something…they are really proud with our companies….you know we have got a 130,000 Facebook fans and its a very active page and I couldn’t agree of you more the training raving community …this means you know when you have got products and services they are going to love what you…. what you are bringing out and they kind of want to share a mindset you know.  So I guess leading onto that you know having a New York Times bestselling book you know obviously having raving fans and creating a community has been a big advantage to yourself on the success of the book so lets chat a little about the book.   Firstly, if you just want to give us and the audience a bit of overview about the book and in the end explain why you even wrote it and what do they look out into today.  That sort of things.

John:  Sure… again the book is called Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha…..A Real World Guide to an unreal life…it’s a fitness and lifestyle book for men who are looking to become best version of themselves by first mastering the physicality and then using the skills there to improve other aspects of their body…so for us that’s a really really serious thing.  The reason that we wrote the book is because we want people to experience some of the success of read experience.  Because what I believe is that it is sort of impossible to go through a physical transformation but also going through a mental and emotional is it…it gives you all of this confidence that really allows you to bring those skill sets either to your business life or to your personal life and I think that whether you go through a physical transformation or spiritual one or a financial one you will come out on the other side feeling like a better and more powerful person who can offset change in the world and that’s really important you know being about a sort of empowers you around the world…how we…how we you know …leave a mark ….that is sort….that is sort of the main purpose of the book…we want to help people become the best version of themselves physically so that they can best serve the world within whatever way they seek that.

Brett:  So that’s brilliant and then huge congratulations on that ….very very well done. So, if just for the listeners out there where can I get a copy of this book?

John:  Well, if you are in Australia its kind of hard to get your hands on it.  Can you guys order through Amazon.co.uk …you can?

Brett:  Ummm…I am not sure to be honest….I have ordered mine yesterday.. but probably should call Customer Help…. but I haven’t received yet… but it’s another story.

Yes…so here is the problem we have with Australia.  We actually had about 300 books shipped back to us.  So really really firstly expensive endavour.  We had to pay to send them firstly and then now we have got to pay to send them again.   Might be 30 dollars a book.  So it is getting pretty pricy and but what we are trying to do for the next book and it is obvious that we are still sending the books …it’s a pain in the butt…you know we just wish that we could get them here faster but you know we have one-two sent back yesterday from Abu Dhabi …you know sometimes you know not getting through customs….sometimes we get it back…whatever it is….we will get them to people as quickly as we can.  But for people who can order the book on Amazon in their respective countries that is the fastest cheapest easiest way and it is just getting it across borders and on our site engineeringthealpha.com.

Brett:  Fantastic. So, let’s stick to the book for a little bit.  Why do you even …I guess….what what led you to writing this book?  Why write a book….why have the book…just that one?

John:  Why …I mean …because I love books.  You know I really believe that knowledge is important.  You know lot of people think actions speak louder than words. I think that’s bullshit..you know I think that if you are aware of the power of words one thing to write a book is sort of in it and I have always been a writer first before anything else. And I have always wanted to publish a book because you know if you consider yourself a writer….you consider yourself an author…then you stand in the ranks of a great men and that’s always been really sort of a…not just inspired but really aspirational to me and its always been important to me on personal levels have my mom being able to walk into Barnes and Noble and see my book on the shelf.  That’s really cool to me rather than just having e-books and things like that. I think its value there …I think that it’s a qualifier and I think that people who have published traditional books and, in particular, people who have written bestsellers are perceived differently than people who have just written e-books you know it’s very different.

Brett: That’s true…I wholly recommend everyone listening to this coverage and getting hands on the copy because if you see how John writes, he is definitely got an innate ability when it comes to that and something that I just wanted to touch on John’s website he can get around in Fitnesssystems.com and just just the one line is an example on one of his short times which says- I have all sorts of bad shits that you should buy…it’ll make your life better. But you know mate it’s something that 90% of people will be too scared to one- write that because they feel that you know “Hey what would people think about that” sort of stuff but I guess that goes back to you know looking at the five keys to success …you know you are definitely genuine, you produce results…you know you have created your own community and we have talked about having multiple services now in regards to you know the fifth one of having a purpose, what do you believe is John Romaniello’s purpose or why you are on this earth man?

John:  I mean.… I haven’t really figured that out yet.  I think that I mean it’s really true…I think that my purpose is to help as many people as possible and I think that I am doing that right now through fitness but I think that there are other ways I can do it….I don’t know …I mean…..the only thing I am doing important work is anything ….any of us is important is you know …Is Richard Brandson important?  Is building Aeroplanes and launching racket labels important?  Genuinely how do we try to find change?  How do we try to find our legas?  Is it the money we make or the monuments that are built in our honor …the way that we push the world forward like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs….I mean maybe ….but I think that ….you know one of my favorite stories is this one I heard when I was at a concert at summer camp.  There is this big storm and all of the star fish are washed up on the shore.  There is an old man walking down the beach.  I am sorry there is a young man walking down the beach and he sees an old man picking up starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean.  And the beach is littered with them…so there is thousands upon thousands of them and so he calls after him and the guy is not turning around and he falls and is walking over and so finally, you know he gets to the old man who is just picking up starfish and throwing them in and picking up starfish and throwing them in and the young man says – “What are you doing?  You can’t save them all. You can’t possibly make a difference” and the old man reaches down, he picks up a starfish and throws it in the ocean and he says “To that one, I just did”.  And I think being able to change one person’s life even if it’s in some innocuous way like helping them get six-pack abs and feel better about themselves or helping them make more money and be able to provide their full family…or helping them find the thing that makes them feel better that allows them to help the world.  Whatever way I can do that is how I want to do that because at the end of it all you know maybe my name will be remembered for 100 or 200 years but that’s not really going to matter… there is not going to be any monuments built in my honor or statues of me anywhere but what there will be in this lifetime is a bunch of people who can look at me and say that I helped and I think that’s truly the best us normal folks can ask for.

Brett:  Hmmmm….That’s awesome..I loved the starfish story is so many so many take away lessons in that that you know should everyone can gravitate to serve.  I guess in regards to that.    John….what’s in store for you moving forward in the next five years…where are we heading…what’s …what’s in store?

John:  Ummm…I have got another book in the works….I mean I will be starting two books….we are also working on the second one now “People Women” and beyond that I have been approached with some TV deals.  So, we are sort of like sorting through all of that and trying to figure out if there is an opportunity there.  So, that …that sounds very interesting to me and something I always wanted to be part of.  So, I think that’s a very strong possibility in the next five years.

Brett:  Are you going on the bachelor…

John:  I didn’t understand….

Brett:  On the bachelor….(laughter)

John:  I am sorry

Brett:  Hey…Are you going on the Bachelor?

John:  No ..No….No..there has been a couple of production companies who have been interested in developing a show around me.  As it happens, I am no longer a bachelor.  I don’t know if you have heard I am getting married.

Brett:  Yeah….I have I have.  So Congratulations on that as she must be a good one.

John: Yeah….she is the best one…she is amazing!

Brett:  Excellent.  Love it.  Actually buddy I have articles and I believe about..you are talking about being engaged and how it sort of changed you etc.. levels ridicules ……

John:  Ah…ah…something else

Brett:  So, I guess then John…couple of great luck …..I mean we still got a few minutes left they say and there is a couple of things that I would like to check with you about is with one of them is the Arnold Schwarzenegger thing…I know its hush for a starry episode but how does someone end up being a fitness advisor for Arnold Schwarzenegger …what…what were your key title wise on that journey?

John:  Well you know what…the weird thing is the internet is small or is it big and you never really know who is listening and the way that it happened was sort of organic.  One day I got an email from a young guy named Daniel who said,” Hey man, is it okay if I ask you some fitness questions by email.  I know you will kill me…its on Facebook and Twitter but they are kind of a public job and I don’t want to put my business out there…is that cool?”  I said – “Sure man, yeah…absolutely”….you know….normal con…and so he went back and forth to answer his questions you know what and as you write…so you know a couple of exchanges which was no longer over a period of couple…over a period of two weeks…I got curious …so I googled him and what came up was the Wikepedia page for Body Man and Body Man is US political jargon for a politician’s closest personal aide.  And this guy’s name is Daniel Ketchell and listed under notable Body Men was Daniel Ketchell, the special assistant to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  I was like ohhh…that’s cool…this guy is going to get a little special attention…and so you know now I know my you know what you are knowing and his emails get moved to the top of the queue kind of thing….and …we just sort of built this relationship.  Eventually, he signed up for my online coaching program and you know he used to do really well and Arnold started to seeing him make progress because he…that’s his job…he travels all over the world with Arnold you know, writes his speeches, everything, all that stuff or helps on his speeches I guess and it was really cool and so you know one day he mentions to me that Arnold has been like jumping in on his workouts with him which is really cool and so that Arnold will be doing workouts that I myself wrote …it is kind of superior feeling…really awesome.  Anyway once Arnold gets out of office, he decides he wants to get back into fitness-somehow or the other and he decided he wanted to re launch his website with fitness content.  So I helped a little bit there and when he did launch I wrote the first peer stardom and that’s really how it all happened and from there I just sort of happened writing for him for a long time and helping other people write to them and finding content and eventually we decided to form an advisory board of people who write consistent and that’s sort of how it happened……that’s how we came over fortunately as fitness adviser.

Brett:  That’s awesome…that just goes to show you know it’s a sad thing if you don’t know who you are talking to and you don’t know who you can meet and the opportunities that are out there you know …most people don’t think you have engaged probably yourself….you know you probably never thought.. one day I am going to be a fitness advisor to Arnold so….you know that’s pretty cool.  Pretty cool …why on…I would to….I guess….get in front of someone like that and provide such a great service because …that cannot be big extremely helpful for your profile as well moving forward.

John:  Certainly …yeah…its I mean its just fun…its really cool ..it’s a nice thing to say and it’s nice thing to feel.

Brett:  Another curve ball for you….if money was not an option……okay you have unlimited money…what would you be doing…what would your day look like.

John:  If money was not an objective…what would I be doing?  I mean…should be gymming it…my life is not fun and different since let’s say my…. my income has doubled a few times and my life has not been really all that different and so, for me, it’s just – I would still be writing.  Maybe I would be working on different books with other things but no matter what I would just be writing all the time.  That’s the main thing.

Brett:  Cool….How about travel Australia in the midst of John Romaniello?

John:  Yeah man …I fucking travel a lot..I am really sick of travelling

Brett:  (laughter)

John:  I would wait to do less business travel and a tiny bit more personal travel which honestly I have been a road wire for like three and half years now…I mean there have been months where I am home maybe 10 days…but I am getting married…my fiancée and I just kind of like hanging out…I would really love it if I get three months where I did not travel but to me it will be really exciting.

Brett: (laughter) The opposite of publicly nice people but I totally understand but I guess again the whole travel thing just goes back to what you have needed to do to become a successful as you have been so I guess it’s just part of the journey isn’t it?

John: Yeah…that’s the whole thing ….just figuring out what you like….what you want to do.

Brett:  So John…..we got like five minutes or so left here.   I just want to put it out to you and you are always never short of a great story. So, is there any good words of wisdom anything that you think you will be able to share with our listeners that they could relate to and in some sort help them become more successful in their fitness business and laugh in general as well…

John:  Yeah…I think the most important thing is to sort of find a mentor and to eventually be a mentor. I think it’s really important sort of step in your process to go through all of those different phases of your education really really …Mentoring has been really invaluable to me and I really can’t say enough about the people who helped me but it also has been satisfying in a completely different way to have helped other people and to become a mentor and a coach and I think that sort of nature of things..the cycle that you go through…may not be great things and then you want to pass them forward because once you sort of achieve a high level of success and must you find a new coach you wont go anywhere, but that must be a common coach you won’t ever appreciate what it is to be one and o think that’s just a stupid valuable experience to have.  So, having coaches is really the No.1 piece in buy-or-sell.  That’s really credible stuff.

Brett:  Fantastic….it’s quite funny you say that the other day {inaudible} he said you have to learn to teach.  So, whenever you are learning anything learn it as if you got to be teaching it and sharing with the others so I really loved that quote.  So I guess speaking of quotes you know what is your favorite quote and why?

John:  My favorite quote….. good one…I think it’s from a book called “Snow Crash” by a man named Neal Stephenson.   The quote says until a man is about 25 years old, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. So I think that for me …it is that quote is really about sort of like appreciating your youth and that leads me to think about appreciating the various appreciating the right time of your lifestyle rim you are in and this is really an exciting time for me….I am moving across the country..to California …you know I found this unbelievable woman whom I am going to marry but it’s scary it’s a lot of crazy things.  When I was younger I didn’t appreciate how young I was….how beautiful that was…and I was also actually recently in Louisiana, New Orleans, with a bunch of buddies of mine for one of our friends bachelor party who is getting married as well and you know we would just sit around talking it’s like …its crazy to think that when we were twenty three and we got to hangout all the time and how much time we spent together – we don’t have {inaudible} – we don’t have AC and every single Friday night we all drank our mind out….it’s crazy….but we didn’t take the time to appreciate how fleeting that was.  In a lot of ways, my early twenties were like the best time of my life.  You get to hangout with your friends all the time.  Now, we all have serious girlfriends or wives or fiancées, I never get to see them. And looking back nostalgically helps me sort of appreciate what I have with my fiance and what I have with my stepson…Isaac. You know I think about the fact that he is around all the time and that’s probably hard for him to be in with his parents all the time and that will be….it’s certainly …it can be stressful to deal with a child….but there is going to be a time when he doesn’t want to hang out with us at all and there is going to be a time when you know he goes away to college or he moves out and we are just not going to see him as much.  And you don’t appreciate those things while they happen.  So, I would say the main thing is to just appreciate where you are.  Take a moment and appreciate everyone.

Brett:  Yeah cool..I am into that..you got me thinking there…that’s fantastic. So, look John, I am going to leave it on that because I am always someone who loves leaving on a happy note.  So, brother mate, thank you once again for jumping on board and then sharing your wisdom and look, I am definitely going to get you on another episode coming up where we can talk more technical side of training because a lot of trainers like that and you have definitely got some different strategies and so forth in that area.  So I guess just to finish off in regards to where can people have find out more about John Romaniello, and where would like to find out more about you buddy.

John: Well…just my fitness stuff might be in my main website which is romanfitnesssystems.com and then if you are interested in more like business and personal stuff – johnromaniello.com as well and ofcourse the website to the book is engineeringthealpha.com.

Brett: If you can’t find all of that just google John Romaniello.

John:  That’s the other one…all of those things will come up.

Brett:  Fantastic…….again thank you very much.  Hope you have a fantastic night there….you probably reaching on to big time probably and I am about to get started in the day so great chatting to you and look forward to speaking to you very soon and no doubt I will be catching up at the end of the year or early next year in order to the US again….so might be great to catch up with you again and ..

John: I am done…thanks for the time now…talk to you soon…bye bye

Brett:  Excellent….See you brother