Automatically transcribed, so expect the odd wrong name or word.
Hey legends welcome back to the Virtus performance podcast it's been a solid six months or so since we we last sat down and surrounded this mic with good vibes and heartfelt wisdom and absolutely rubbish so today's episode is a bit of a bit of a recap on what's been going on at Virtus in our lives over the last six months and we're throwing out a little bit of an intention to to finish the year strong with another ten or so episodes and to to connect with cool people doing cool things the values of the podcasts
are all around finding cool people to chat with and and this is a bit of a an opportunity for any of our listeners to suggest either themselves or someone else they think might be a good fit for the podcast or to throw some some topics or some lines of thought that you think we might get a little bit out of discussing so if you have any ideas have any suggestions please throw them our way but here's 35 minutes of myself and Mr. Simon Cooper talking about how things are my personal and business goal is to
be just a little bit better every day I believe everyone especially normal people have a story to tell the Virtus podcast exists to help us all find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the journey experiences of each of our guests and we're back due to popular demand the Virtus podcast has returned and by popular demand I mean like three people in you and your mom so I was a big fan she wanted it to come back it's uh it's been a little while what's six six months six months on the hiatus we've decided to
make a comeback rather than talking shit and having no one listen we figured we'd have we'd talk shit and have yeah share with the world what's been going on a lot it's been a big year hasn't it in terms of developments at Virtus personally for both of us yeah it's been lots what's happening well it's been the most and we're not just gonna do a recap of the year or what we are I guess the plan for this little chat today is to kind of dive into what's been happening both of Virtus and in our
lives and kind of set a little bit of a plan for the podcast going forward and and just to kind of catch everyone out with what's been going on but what's been the the most memorable part of 2019 so far mr. Simon Cooper well mr. local models this thing well universities complete which is a big milestone and a boy so knocked over the Masters which is really cool it was what was the feeling like after being a lifelong student now to move into the real world what's the thing it nothing really changed the the void
that was left by uni work was just filled with other things so I was able to dive in a little bit more at Virtus so you had a hole and you filled it yeah yeah so I mean at the same time it was kind of the time I finished University and then we underwent all the changes to our business model and client experience I guess at Virtus so I guess my time was filled up with we've prepared for that and I guess planning on what the next 6 12 to 36 months look like at this
yeah I guess it's a pretty interesting time of it us with you know we're about to hit our first first full we're about to hit our fourth birthday and you know I guess everyone hears all the stats about like how many businesses fail in the first year and then how many are there three years in and I kind of feel like we went through a bit of a an interesting I definitely felt like I went to an interesting education like fast-forward education for last 12 months of like all the things that could possibly go wrong
and being able to to mitigate those and you know roll with the punches a little bit to some extent and you know spend the most of the first half of this year setting up our new business model and then executing it on the first day of the new financial year it's it's a pretty cool kind of feeling to know that we're still kicking yeah that's the thing it's just this kind of entrance next evolution and the last four years has been kind of iterations that we've gone through with like personnel with a business model we
have how clients experience our services yeah and so this is kind of changes a bit of a bigger leap but we are just sort of entering the next stage of our development yeah I feel like we're growing up a little bit as a business and actually creating systems and processes around how we because our goals remain the same we've wanted to help people get to where they want to get to and help make their worlds and then you know through reverse osmosis or whatever it's called help make the whole make the whole world a better
place and now we've actually got a tried-and-true system that allows us to do that regardless of the personnel on the floor coaching wise which is kind of cool I think we've definitely looked internally more and rather than try to push our message out to as many people as possible we just kind of contracted a little bit and I think I if you ask us 18 months ago where we would be we were we were wanting more planning for a bigger boat yeah bigger more you know but we shifted our focus inward yeah decided to solidify
where we were at and yeah get good at the stage get it good at being us and not trying to be a big-box gym or or anything like that like it's it's really easy in business you just want more and more and more but what I've realized is kind of you add yeah to you know 100 grand revenue but you add 101 granny or yet 99 grand any expenses it's it's questionable whether it's worth it or not yeah I think our we look back at our values and our values are all around you know freedom
and community and connection and education and performance and if we can I just mixed up our values and my values anyway but I guess the three values we come back to a vertice a community community connection kind of the same one performance and education and what allowed us to do that to the best of our abilities is you know the reason why we change change the model yeah I guess those are the three pillars that we base everything that we do in and we've built build a team in a place where we can kind of
live out those values and and service the people that we we care about and the community in a way that is true that yeah yeah so for you guys listening that I guess maybe haven't been around in vertice for a little while you know the changes we've made have been to to give access to all of the coaches but to really drive home the one the quality of our coaching but also the the quality and the ability of everyone to access our community so you know we've tightened up our onboarding process so we do a
30-minute chat with anyone that wants to join and we then we do 360 minute one-on-one sessions basically with the goal of getting to know that person and for that person to get to know us as well as possible and then after that rather than having 400 coaching options which we've had the past we've got to we've got our vertice group training which is you come in have fun move the needle with a whole big group of cool people and then there's the vertice athletic development which is have a program written for you by a performance
coach and then come in through you know many times throughout the week as many times as you'd like throughout the week and and execute that program under the the watchful eye of a performance coach but with the added value of having you know two three four other humans who are all chasing progression to hang out with and and spend time with and and train with it's been a really cool from my point of view it's been really cool to see all of our community embrace different coaches ones they might not have spent a lot of
time with previously and for our coaches to be able to get to know you know community community members that they may not have spent a lot of time with prior yeah well now that the new client comes in and they're hiring vertice as a collective yeah just hiring a single coach and that's the only point of contact that they have it's opened it's opened up the whole community I think and now athletic development members get to interact with guys in the in the group training and and rather than being just a face at the gym
that they see it like with fostering connection between them and at big community events that will hold it just creates more powerful more powerful community definitely definitely in that in that community aspect of it I think he's just becoming more and more important as it's so so easy to disconnect from people around you and you know one of the things that we're speaking about let's be about this morning over some breakfast with a few other guys is just you know you don't have to be the loudest voice in the room we don't have to be
always talking to be a part of a community you can just be that that person that embraces it takes it all in and enjoys it and you know gives out the high-fives and the pats on the back but you don't have to yeah that's a share your last story people take different roles in the community right it's not it's you don't have to be the extroverted guy who comes in and is the life of the party everyone has their their role that they play within the within the group I think it's important that people don't
bring in expectations of they've got to be a certain way to feed into the community like if you are you embrace your your own personality and your individualism then that just adds an extra sort of layer to the community definitely yeah like everyone adds value in different ways like some people it's a it's a smile some people it's a hug some people it's a kind word some people it's 500 kind words really quickly all at once and I guess that's the that's the beauty of of any communities is you know there's the the extroverted people
and there's the introverted people and there's the people in the middle the ambiverts who learned that word today someone is a nice mix of introvert and extrovert absolutely play on which I think we all are in different yeah different ways but I am excited to to celebrate our fourth birthday and yeah in a couple of months and kind of get the crew together and have a an opportunity to connect outside of the four walls of the gym yeah what does it mean to you four years it means I didn't fuck it up completely yeah I
don't know it's I guess it's something I haven't really reflected on yet because we're not there hey things could still go wrong yeah I don't know what does it mean to me I think it's like I gotta give the heart all the hard work we put in early on a lot of the credit like creating something out of nothing is a difficult thing to do but at the same time it's the collective that's done it it's it's I'm probably I'm probably most proud of all the people that well the caliber of people that we've been
able to to connect with and attract and and it's almost like anyone that goes through our onboarding process now is the perfect fit for vertice because we seem to - in in some ways like it weeds out what we put out and how we talk about ourselves yeah it kind of weeds out people that we aren't gonna be a good fit yeah and the people that don't want to grow and improve and and connect and all of those kind of things so they quickly figure out whether there they'll be a part of it or not
yeah if they come in and they there's no there's like a disconnection or dissonance between between people then it's sort of feet it's like natural osmosis naturally figures figure yourself out yeah I think what like what it means to me is just it's one of those things that it's easy to do and it's easy not to do I think is to contribute to something bigger than yourself and like it means everything to me like my last been so entrenched in vertice over the last five years and then you know PT before that and all the
other extracurricular activities I did it's been so entrenched that there was for a period of time there I think I'm better at it now but for a period of time there there was no break between me and vertice it was all just kind of like that was my life but now I kind of feel as I'm able to step back and appreciate and see how the how the wheels turn without me necessarily needing to do much yes we cool place to be cultivated a team who are all committed to creating this thing together and everyone's
invested in it and they're all out there for the reasons the right reasons yeah and everyone's got a part to play whether it's you know whether it's you know mom or the fears or Mitchie or you or me or you know anyone else or any of our any of our clients you know someone there some of the trains once a week or someone that trains six days a week like everyone's got their thing their part to play and their thing to add and it's it's um sitting there this morning we had we had an awesome crew in at 6 a.m.
this is my day today awesome crew in at 6 a.m. so I think there was 13 or 14 guys and girls training you know crushing their session it was a pretty experienced crew so I was just kind of watching and being like there's not a lot to correct at the moment I was just enjoying you know the just being a part of it and then you know it's common folk and smash seven coffees and you know we had a seven or eight of us at common folk having breakfast and and then everyone kind of left
and there a couple of us left over and we kind of just spent the the morning talking and diving a little bit deeper than normal and going through some stuff that we've we've been going through and and talking about that and then came back and coach 930 with six seven legends in there and then there was a big VAD crew at the same time and just people that want to be better and they just want to embrace the harder parts of the journey I guess and you know everyone every single person that I interacted with
this morning is there for a different reason but at the same time everyone's there for the same reason and it's it's a cool that's cool thing to be a part of and I like I don't feel it's the thing that I do anymore I feel though it's just a thing I'm a part of yeah the culture is just it thrives on itself yeah it's like the people come in and they sustain this culture of improvement and growth and excellence and contribution and it doesn't need much to kind of keep the momentum rolling yeah people feed
off each other and the the vibe when you walk into the place is such that like you are yeah pretty much and it's it's a cool place to be and being able to look back at this this year obviously being six months since we've talked into this microphone and you know it's one of those things that life tends to happen and and the podcast kind of fell off the wagon a little bit it wasn't there yeah it was more of a active decision to stop doing it more so then then we just didn't have time
or didn't want to but it was just okay our energy's got to go into other stuff for now and to be able to look forward with excitement in terms of what we're what's been building over the last four years and what the potential and possibilities are but at the same time just enjoying yeah being present in present yeah where are your like where have you probably priorities shifted over the last six months and looking forward well have a kid oh yeah so that's how I'm not naming him fuck window and we don't even know if
it's a him yet yeah so shock shock horror for everyone everyone really knows obviously well most people if you're listening to this and you didn't know it's been a big six months for you please send a please send through some some name suggestions his fuck window he's not having the dominant votes then like I I don't feel as though I'm a selfish person but at the same time I feel as though I'm a selfish person you can see what I mean I've always I've always just done whatever I want to do you know obviously I'm
I try and be aware of other people's wants and needs and things yeah but but ultimately you know as long as KP takes it off KP takes it off and yeah that's like you've all won like I wanted to go to South America so I just went I'm going to South America like those kind of things happened and and I feel as though you know in certain ways I'm coming in to the end of that point in my life like I'm actually really excited from a responsibility perspective and I probably won't be you know when I can't sleep at 2 a.m.
little fuck windows waking me up it's sticky sticky but I'm actually really excited to not to not be the center of my universe anymore if that makes sense yeah you know I'm excited to see what it does to me as a person and and how I interact with others around me and how I look at the world and the universe and you know obviously I have an existential crisis every couple of weeks but I feel as though that lack of meaning that the universe gives us we have to find our own meaning something I believe
in and this is gonna give me significant meaning like it just adds an extra extra layer of means your existence yeah well that's excess is not just like based on you anymore yeah yeah I like the whole the lens is just shifted completely and I feel that's kind of being a process like that anyway like we've heard it over the last four years like my my wants and need to become less important as the needs and wants of the business and the people in it and KP and as those needs have become more important like
it's obviously it's the answers but like both are important but yeah this you know now rather than looking at okay well what do I want vertice to be it's like okay what environment do I want to bring a kid up in like what kind of community do I want to surround us and like all of those kind of questions start coming into it and then it'll it definitely does you know show that we're kind of on the right path like when I kind of ask myself those questions and answer them it's in the one we're
already in like in terms of community wise and so yeah the the goalposts have definitely moved for me personally over the last six months or so since finding since finding out and you know we've we're lucky enough to have a lot of little munchkins you know crawling and rolling around at the moment and yeah there's been lots of a little little babies in our community and it's kind of cool to see you look at them and so Bowie and Jed this morning and my hazel Murphy yesterday and just saying them anything like holy shit I'm
gonna have one of these things it's it's scary cuz it's one of those no I think we've passed the point of no return but in terms of like not being yeah that's it like it's one of those things that happens to other people a way I've kind of been explained explaining it or talking about it or kind of processing it's like in my head it's like it's one of those things that happens to other people and now that's happening to us so like getting engaged to KP at the start of the year was kind of
huge and I was like yep that's gonna be that's gonna be the big event of this year and you know over the last six months we've we've sold our house and we'll be homeless in 33 days so if anyone's telling a house in mornington three bedroom two bathroom that'd be great just let me know might need what might need to pull it a couple of friend cards out over the next couple of months but yeah may sell the house and find out that KP is pregnant you know obviously that shifts the the focus a little
bit in terms of like yeah I'm thinking a lot more I think about the future but I'm not like a massive for planner so now it's you got to try and think about it whilst also enjoying every second do you think your plans for where this is gonna be in the next 12 months has shifted I don't know you're probably a good person to be able to answer that like we talked about it most most days it's a bit like like obviously I feel as though I shifted in what I wanted for vertice maybe like
12 18 months ago and you know anyone that listen to the podcast probably started hearing about it maybe 12 months ago that rather than just getting bigger and wanting more and we spoke about this before but I want it to be better and I want to maximize our space and I want to get really good at being the size we're at and investing in our staff and the people that we see every day like like perfect world for vertice like we would have what's Dunbar's number it's like 120 people you know Dunbar's number says like
someone Google this for me but Dunbar's number is like a number of people that you can have an actual relationship with so there's like a limited number of people you can have a relationship with so you can't just have an actual relationship with 500 people I think because it's spread to thin you've all know Harry that's about it in seconds how I'm sure I really have meaningful connections with like I think it's 120 but I could be wrong coops gonna Google it so anyway I like I want to find out what Dunbar's number is not
I reckon because it's like a study from the 1960s and I'm just talking out of my ass here I can't remember exactly what it is it's a study from the 1960s where it showed how many people we can have actual relationships with and obviously the world's changed a lot since then having social media and all those kind of things we can keep connected a little bit more but did you find the number 150 150 there you go alright by British anthropologist Robert Dunbar in the 1990s oh no no see I was wrong you know I'm
like three accounts but basically if but the way I look at it is okay well Dunbar's number is 150 here's the deal I want an elite community of 150 people that we can surround ourselves with advertus and obviously surrounding businesses and and things like that and if we can find 150 awesome people which we're we're pretty much taking that box at the moment and just continue to to chip into developing ourselves and developing each other then we're gonna grow a pretty resilient yeah crew of yeah of humans if we can use those three pillars we
spoke about before in terms of community connection and an education and performance and we're all gonna perform better we're gonna learn more and we're all gonna be be able to move on this journey together and what what we do is yeah obviously it's a some people come into training in a transient nature where they'll come in and hammer out six months or 12 months and then move on if we can be a destination for for cool people with that then we're doing our job that's that's I guess our overarching goal is just to work by
those three pillars and attach meaning to them and be really good at what we do whether it's we the the best performance gym in the area or whether it's in the world or the like the premier mentorship for for students and for coaches yeah like if we get really good at what we're doing then we will attract the best and like we will connect with them and that will become our community and that includes online and offline because like you said like social media and online relationships make it so much easier to maintain these connections
yeah yeah you can almost like feel involved in someone's life before you meet them or when you don't see them all that often because yeah you might consume their content or see their videos or photos or yeah or whatever it may be so yeah finding ways to develop that in amongst our community that we people we see every day but then also people we we might hear from once a month or once every couple of months and yeah it's something that I'm excited for yeah and at the same time I'm excited and scared shitless to
kind of move into that next phase of my life but it makes me feel a lot more at peace knowing that the people I got around me yeah you know if if I get sick of it and want to leave I couldn't do at the gym for a day or two I'm sure I can look after him just teaching me spine motor skills okay sure as he as he as he grows just throw balls out of him and yeah throw balls out empty baby I say shit and just like just knock him over and things
like that and yeah and I I think it's my goals for Virtus have definitely changed from more more more to to the quality and and yet and that aspect of what we just spoke about and I guess it's I want people to be able to rock up to Virtus four or five times a week and and know that that's gonna be the best part of their day hopefully their lives are so awesome that it's equal it's just a normal part of their day but you know when you know we're all gonna have trials and tribulations
and struggles and and and problems and and issues and things that don't go away but if we can put ourselves in an environment where we know that we just need to rock up to get better then we're kind of kicking goals helps when you have a tribe of other resilient people who are all going through the same thing and willingly expose themselves to adversity yeah and I'm speaking of speaking of Jeff this morning share that to Jeff one of our one of our kingly humans he's we're just talking about the problem being the way and
he said the answer lies within the problem no matter what you kind of going through there's always gonna be an answer to find amongst the suffering and to you know to follow the the Buddhist thought process suffering life is suffering and it's just a matter of finding meaning and enjoyment and almost loving what you do and laughing in the face of all that suffering because you know it's gonna happen yeah what's the big like suffering or adversity is certainly gonna come our way right yeah and there's no way to avoid it if we want to
leave a rich life full of experiences that allow us to have these like moments of of joy but also of suffering yeah it allows us to evolve yeah allows to evolve and gives us perspective and allows us to kind of like helicopter our lives and look at everything and yeah and and it almost it shields us that those challenges shield us from from apathy and and and lack of like just not being it not giving a shit well I think it's almost the worst but love the opposite of love is indifference right Oh put that
on a t-shirt yeah if we move through life with without caring about the people we meet or without the experiences that we have then like we're leaving stuff at the table yeah yeah and yeah this this thing we're doing this life thing is gonna be super short so we may as well we may as well have a crack and enjoy it with cool people in the meantime yeah the world deserves to see what you have to offer oh two shirts two t-shirts yeah how good is that the power of change oh that's a name drop
yeah so so for those that aren't aware coop Randy's first two seminars over the last couple of months the the power of change how'd they go what'd you what'd you learn they were talking so it challenged me yeah it was scary but that was one of the reasons why I did it because it pushed me to adapt to something that I wasn't familiar with wasn't comfortable with and we had I think total we had maybe 30 30 people go through the two balls which is which is amazing and I'm super grateful to have those people
who are willing to commit to this thing with me and I think everyone took something away from it whether it was whether they're gonna carry that forward that's not to me yeah that's up to them right and they've got to be willing to put in the work after these seminars all these workshops but hopefully I sort of was able to communicate what I wanted to and expose the edges of what they thought was possible in their own lives what was what was the intention of like what were you trying to communicate to everyone I was
trying to communicate to them that the that the possibilities the possibility in their lives is like this Lewis so like what I said before if the if you're not seeking out peak experiences or seeking out your fullest potential then you are not you're doing yourself a disservice and you're doing the world of disservice by not pursuing that because like I said change and adversity is almost certain to occur and if we may as well be proactive with it totally if we willingly seek out those that adversity then we will evolve to a more well suited
version of us and then that person can go out and seek out these experiences that will continue to challenge us but continue to make us improve and if we are just settling for jobs that we're not happy with or relationships that we are fulfilling us then nobody wins yeah the world the people who see success in the world the people who go out and seek adversity no successful person ever in the history of the world has not experienced adversity like you think of them like anyone feel not the CEO creator of Nike had more adversity
than most yeah he reaches the reach you dog if you haven't yeah they persisted and ended up to creating one of the most successful companies in the world yeah and it doesn't you don't have to be someone to create a big multinational multi-billion dollar company it can just be in your relationships at home and if you want your relationships to improve or want more fulfilling relationships then you need to be willing to kind of go through the crucible with them yeah yeah it was like I'm passionate about this stuff and I want to keep talking
about it and keep have these conversations because friendly we had an excuse of and a microphone in front of us to talk about this totally yeah so yeah so so I guess the next couple of months where we're gonna dive not sure how deep but we're gonna dive hey Sammy keck we're back on the podcast right say hello hello everybody I'm just gonna check in to see if you still want to pump some iron yeah we'll pump some iron here like five too late time did earlier for 30 perfect say that this won't be up
today but Sammy and I are gonna go lift it for 30 today hello twins carry on the intention for the next oh yeah yeah so the intention for the next couple of months is to is to get the podcast up and running this will be episode 90 so at the very least we'll do another 10 episodes let's hit 100 yeah to hit 100 which will which will be a cool thing to to kind of achieve it's it's funny how you set yourself a goal and then when you hit it if you don't set another goal
you kind of Peter out and stop doing it like my goal was to initially was to do 52 episodes and crush that and did another 30 or so and then kind of the last 10 where didn't happen all that quickly there was a couple of week break and things like that in between it and and life started happening so the podcast took a backseat but I guess there's been a lot of movement a lot of change and a lot of conversation in the last six months and it seems like a good time with the the
impending birth of my air oh you want to meet your you wanted me to say fuck window didn't you it's a it's a cool kind of I'm looking at the next three months is a cool like period of reflection and and and self-awareness and things like that so yeah I've been writing non-stop since like the last almost year and it's uh yeah now seems like a good as good a time as they need to get this thing back on yeah back on the airwaves back into the mind the mind holes of the vertice family yeah
it'll be cool to do it just like a little 10 episode series see where that leads us and if we love it we'll keep doing it and if we get sick of it we'll stop yeah but our mission to you dear listeners dear dear listeners sweet sweet business loving listeners is for you to throw us some recommendations of who you want to have on we want to have these these meaningful conversations and if you're the person for the job then put your hand up if you know someone who would be suitable or who whose story
you want to be told then let us know mate love your work let's uh we'll see you on the next episode adios
