Be It Till You See It

Lesley Logan comes back for part three of the Permission to Change series with a look at niches, alignment, and knowing when something you built has stopped fitting. She shares how a job she carefully curated turned into her own set of velvet handcuffs, and why a life that looks good on paper can quietly start to suffocate. Using stories from her own career pivots, she explains why realigning is not the same as failing. What looks like quitting is often just proof you are ready to grow.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.

In this episode you will learn about:

• The importance of giving yourself the same permission slip you give others.
• How to extract yourself from a trap without burning your whole life down.
• Your past niches give you real data, not vibes, to move forward.
• Stepping into alignment creates permission for the people around you.
• Why the people who truly get you will support your evolution, not question it.

Episode References/Links:

• Permission Series Part 1 - https://beitpod.com/ep676
• Permission Series Part 2 - https://beitpod.com/ep677
• Ep 709 ft Megan Applegate - https://beitpod.com/ep709
• Submit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questions

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSI

DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipment

Check out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper’s Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipment

Be in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlist

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-survey

Be a part of Lesley’s Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/

FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/

Resources:

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Lesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/
• Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQ
• Profitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/

Follow Us on Social Media:

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/
• The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilates
• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/
• The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses

Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:01  

In your life, a lot of things that worked will stop working, and that is not a sign to force it to work. It is a sign to get curious about what will work, so you can get back into alignment.

Lesley Logan 0:13  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast, where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousans of people around the world, and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity, and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring bold, executable, intrinsic, and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and be it till you see it. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Lesley Logan 0:56  

Hey, Be It babe, we are back with more episodes for that Permission to Change series because you requested it. You asked. We've had two already. You can go back and listen to them, or you can listen to this one. They all stand alone a little bit on their own. This one is actually because this one's a little more nuanced in that it's about niches. Niches is typically thought about as in the niche, the riches are in the niches, like what your business is, but it doesn't have to be that you're an entrepreneur and a niche could actually be a habit or a daily routine or a role in your family. So I think that there's a way too. Whenever you hear niche, you can think of alignment versus alignment, right? And so I want to talk about that. But thanks for being here, this is a solo episode week, so we'll have two episodes in our Permission to Change series. This one, and we'll have another one. They'll kind of go together, and I like doing these. I hope you like listening to them. If you hate them, let us know. If you love them, I would love to hear that too. If there's anything you want us to talk about more, we can do that as well. So I wanted to say, I think a lot of us, at the time that you're actually listening to this podcast, the age that I imagine you are, you have built stuff in your life or in your career or a daily routine, something you have created a role in your family or in your friendship group, and on paper it looks really good, and maybe even for a while, it felt really good. At some point, good things we can outgrow them, right? Can feel a little suffocated, frustrated. You want to change it. What I will say is, some of us will end up burning our whole life down, but that's not actually a good idea. Sometimes it is, but most of the time we just need to extract ourselves from the situation, like surgically remove that and evolve it. Right?

Lesley Logan 2:53  

 I'll have a couple stories for you. So one I've told before, one I've told in different ways, different topics, but it's really applicable. So I had really created a good job for myself. The company I worked for, I was known in it. I was successful. People in power knew who I was. I'd impress them. I had a pretty locked-in schedule. I had power and control, and I could do a lot of things, right? And I was on a day off, and I saw an alert on my phone from a boss that I h a d, and it just sent me into a panic attack because while I had created, curated everything that I thought I wanted, I had been doing it for quite some time and had just gotten a little stale and suffocating and stressful, and I didn't know that you could create your own velvet handcuffs, but that's what I did. And I will say in that instance I did not blow everything up. I actually sat down with Brad and thought about, well, what do I want to do if we could snap our fingers, and then how do we carefully build that up so that I can extract myself from this thing that I've curated? Because you outgrow it. I will say that job was really great when I needed it.

Lesley Logan 4:17  

In 2010, I had left my full time salaried job, and I was like, "How am I going to make it?" And they're like, "Do you want this job?" And I was like, "Oh, that is how I'm going to make it. Yes." So it had been a lifeline when I needed it, for sure. And then I had created this niche for myself where it felt so great. And then there was parts of my life that I wanted to evolve, and I couldn't because of this trap that I had, my good- on- paper trap that I created. And I think it can be really difficult because we want to move faster. Ladies, w e don't want to ever be seen as a quitter. Everything should look successful, so we often don't remove ourselves from things because how can we explain that to other people? It's so embarrassing. In fact, it took me a long time to get out of a relationship with a partner that I knew a year prior to I really wanted to get out of, and a year prior to that we even took a break. But because it looked good on paper, and leaving there wasn't a good enough excuse in my ADHD brain. How am I going to do this? What are people going to say about me? All this different stuff, right? It really put me in a position where in 2013 I did blow up my life because that's the only way I felt like I had the confidence to actually get out of it. Like I had to do all of it at one time. Looking back, I probably could have done it a little differently, but I'm so grateful. You cannot take anyone's rock bottoms away.

Lesley Logan 5:52  

I share all this with you because, my loves, too often as recovering perfectionists and overachievers, we often are like, "Well, I said I would do this. I've been successful doing this. This is the thing that I do, so I have to keep doing it. Right?" If you always host Thanksgiving dinners, and it's become a slog, this is your permission slip to no longer host them. If you are always the one setting up dinners with all the girls, and it just feels like no one ever will do it, your full permission to stop. We are allowed to change our mind, to change what works for us, because we are changing all the time. Hello, your body is changing. Your body's changes are signs that even your desires for what feels good in your work and life will change. So we got to give ourselves those permission slips. We give them to other people. Why not ourselves?

Lesley Logan 6:43  

So, the thing I think about when I think of a niche is it really is meant to teach you, right? So, like data collection, right? Whatever job or project or event you did, there is data, actual data, not just vibes to go back on, and leaving my cush job that I curated for myself was not failure. I left on a high note, and a lot of people thought I was silly to leave, right? But I had this data that I have built every single studio I've ran for them. I have turned it around, so I can do that for other people. Right? So I don't need this cush job anymore because I can do that for other people with my own business that I'm creating. And after 10 years of doing that, I felt like I had to evolve again. If you have noticed the change we made at Profitable Pilates, we started doing that in 2024. Big announcement in 2025. Here we are in 2026, and we have another evolution of it. And it's not because I don't love what I'm doing and I'm not good at it. It's because how I am as a coach has changed, and so then the products that I offer have to change. But because I was in that niche, because I did it for so long, I have the data to back up that not only can I make those changes and still help people and still have an impact on people and still make it affordable for people. But I can do it and be successful at it.

Lesley Logan 8:25  

So when you have, when you are, whatever that role is in your family or whatever that project is you've always been doing or whatever, or that business you've been doing, you have data from every single time to show you that you're really successful doing those things, and so you can apply that success and that information and that confidence to everything else you're doing, anything else you're doing, right? And I think we can be really hard on ourselves, especially my ADHD friends, because it looks like we can be flaky because we bounce from one thing to the next. But our brain isn't, we're not flaky. Our brain is literally looking for a dopamine high. So, what I highly recommend, my ADHD loves who are listening, is if you feel like you're bouncing all around all the time and you haven't actually dug into a niche to get that data, then you do need to get systems in place. You do need to get some support from an ADHD expert who can help you put systems in place so that you can get the data from a niche, and then you can find better alignment in other places. You can apply that to where you are drawn to for better alignment. Doesn't mean you have to stick with something you don't like. No, I'm not saying that at all. But you do need to have systems in place so you can get the data, so you can get the confidence, so that you can move on. So you're not seeing yourself as a flaky person, but instead someone who has information and is making better decisions, right? There's, it's a nice way to reframe it. I do think that a lot of us are afraid to change our routines, our habits, our titles, our roles, because we are afraid of what people will think. They'll think we quit, or we must have failed, or there's something wrong with us, and so that creates like a social anxiety. We often feel like we have to figure out a way to articulate it in a way that people can understand us, but my love, that's just your perfectionist talking, because I actually think that the people who truly love and care for you don't need you to be perfect. They need you to be honest, and when you evolve, when you step into alignment, you are actually giving other people permission to do the same.

Lesley Logan 10:43  

So, for example, when I became a Pilates instructor, everybody told me to charge less than these other people because they've been teaching longer than me, like $5. And I was like, "That's so okay. Yeah, I get that. Like, they have more experience than me, but like I'm gonna have to work more hours to make the money I thought I could make doing this." And then I was like, "Well, who are you basing your rates off of?" And they're like, "Oh, we're basing our rates off of this person over here." And I was like, "Well, who are you basing your rates off of?" And they're basing this person over here. And I was like, "Well, when did you raise your rates last?" And they were like, "Oh, I just lowered them because of what's going on with the economy." I was like, "Holy fuck! Everyone is basing their rates off of someone who isn't even giving room for anyone to be underneath them to grow."

Lesley Logan 11:26  

My loves, every time you step into alignment, you are creating a permission structure for those around you, r ight? The rates I charge for sessions allow people who do have less experience than me to make a livable wage, right? So, if people around you don't understand what you're doing, one, that's okay. They're allowed to not understand. You do not have to explain it to them. And two, if they're judging you for it, they're probably not your people, right? So, permission to change friend groups, and I know it's hard as an adult. It's hard to make friends, right? It's truly difficult. There's a reason why my husband and I are best friends, and I know people think that's so weird and whatever, blah blah blah. But honestly, in today's world, for how our lives are, if he wasn't, I would probably not see my friends very much. So it's really nice. But he gets me, and I get him, and we get to give each other reminders to evolve. And hey, you're out of alignment. So the people around you should actually be like, yeah, I saw this coming, and not like, why did you do that? Because if they truly get you, they will see that you are out of alignment, and then this thing you're doing is stepping into alignment. If they are worried about how this affects them, then they'll be a little frustrated, and that's okay. They're allowed to be frustrated. You don't have to do things for other people ever. In fact, if you go back to our slowing down series, you will discover that the more you are curious, the more you are able to see what's going on around you. The easier it's for you to see, like, oh, these are my people, and oh, those aren't my people. That doesn't mean you ditch them. It just means that you don't do things for their benefit. You do things for you, and if it doesn't benefit them, it's okay. It is okay, my people pleasers. It's okay.

Lesley Logan 13:27  

All right, so this is a quick episode, but I just wanted to say that in your life, a lot of things that worked will stop working, and that is not a sign to force it to work. It is a sign to get curious about what will work, so you can get back into alignment. This podcast has evolved; the niche of this podcast has evolved because you have, you, the listener; me, the host. We have evolved. So, in order for this to keep working, it has to be in alignment for what we need, right? So, if you allow me to step into my alignment, you have to allow you to step into your alignment. Can't have standards for other people that we won't give to ourselves. We can't give freedoms to other people we don't give to ourselves. You are so worthy to change things that no longer feel aligned. You're allowed to extract the data from the experience you've had to build up your self-trust and your confidence, so that you know that going into this new thing, you're going to be successful over there too. Because you were successful here, you can learn new things. Look, you did it over there. Goes back to that episode with the guest we had, I believe Megan Applegate, who is like a resume builder, right? She's like, you need to take stock of all of your accomplishments, every single thing you did, even if you're a part of a team, because it's all part of helping you have self-trust and confidence that you can do new things. You can apply that to a new job, apply it to a new niche or a new role, or a new event.

Lesley Logan 15:00  

All right, take some stock, take some data collection time this week. We'll come back with another episode helping you find your superpower. So if you're someone who realizes you're out of alignment and you're not sure what alignment is, we're going to talk about that, so you don't have to start all the way over because that's not always ideal either. So send this to a friend who needs to hear it. And until next time, Be It Till You See It .

Lesley Logan 15:20  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 16:02  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 16:07  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 16:12  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 16:19  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 16:22  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

Being an adult is hard. Having ADHD makes asking for help harder still. Lesley Logan opens up about a doctor's appointment that ate up her entire day and left her more frustrated than when she started. She is honest about how exhausting it is to ask for support, and just as honest that finding real purpose does not require a grand plan. Because wins do not have to be huge to count, sometimes they just have four legs.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.

In this episode you will learn about:

• Why getting diagnosed with ADHD was its own difficult thing.
• A doctor's appointment that left Lesley feeling unsupported.
• What a Friends episode has to do with Lesley fostering a dog.
• Who actually earned the win this week according to Lesley.
• Her mantra for the weekend and why she wants you saying it.

Episode References/Links:

• Submit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questions

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSI

DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipment

Check out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper’s Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipment

Be in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlist

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-survey

Be a part of Lesley’s Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/

FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/

Resources:

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Lesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/
• Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQ
• Profitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/

Follow Us on Social Media:

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/
• The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilates
• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/
• The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses

Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

It's Fuck Yeah Friday. 

Brad Crowell 0:01  

Fuck yeah. 

Lesley Logan 0:02  

Get ready for some wins. Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. 

Lesley Logan 0:50  

Oh my god, I do love these. I hope you do, too. They're super fun, they're quick, they're easy, they make us feel like human beings, and they truly are here to help us do more of what we love and be it till we see it. And in doing that means we're not perfect, and so sometimes I think people think, oh, it's so easy for her, blah blah blah blah, or she makes it look so easy. Nothing is easy, my friends. Every day there's a new obstacle, okay, every day there is some sort of fire to put out, there is something going on. And so I am hoping that with the "I need a moment" added to this episode, and then my win, it's helping you see I get pissed off at things too, things don't always go my way as well, because we're all humans just trying to make our way through this world. 

Lesley Logan 1:33  

So today's rant is this. All right. So, I have ADHD, and I mean, obviously you can hear that I have ADHD, and I knew that going in and getting diagnosed with ADHD and getting the support for ADHD was going to be its own difficult thing, because I hate phone calls, I hate doctor appointments, I hate this stuff, and now I have to have a monthly appointment. So, super excited because one, got the appointment, got the medication I needed, went to the second appointment, everything is good. Was told I get telemedicine, phenomenal. So excited. Then, then my doctor moved offices, and I had to start all over, and I had to go in because I couldn't do telemedicine with this person, because she'd never met me before. Gonna drive 25 minutes through construction to get to her. The person at the front desk, did they greet me? They're like, "No, go fill out the tablet over there." Right? She's like, "Oh, you can fill out the tablet over there." So I fill out the tablet that I'm there. Super annoying, because then I went to the bathroom, and then I'm waiting in the waiting room, like a person does, and then they call me in to do all of my weights and my blood pressure, and ask them all these questions, and they're like, okay, we need to go have you do a urine sample. And I'm like, but I just went to the bathroom, why didn't your girl, who's sitting in the front desk, tell me don't pee? So I'm frustrated, because with technology being added to these documents, great. Okay, maybe that's one less person. I didn't have to stand there and wait while she finished her phone call. I don't care, because now I have to sit there and wait until I have to pee again, so I can leave. I'm just frustrated because it's really hard to get the help you need, and then when you get the help you need, and you're like, nailed it, this is going to be great and easy, and make my life easier, they go and make your life harder, and then they add on to it. And so, at any rate, being an adult is hard, and it's like the people who make the rules for people with ADHD don't understand what it's like to have ADHD. Like, everything about that appointment is more than, I had to cancel the whole day because I had to do that. I was like, I can't, I can't do anything else today after this. This is too much. This is too stressful, too much of my brain. 

Lesley Logan 3:41  

Anyways, I know my ADHD people, I know you feel me, I know you get me. So, what's the win? The win that I want to celebrate with you guys this week is that we fostered another dog. So, if you've been listening to all the FYFs, you've heard me talk about Darla. I think one of them... we fostered another dog, and I'm gonna call it a win this week, because you know what, there's a lot going on, and fostering this dog is a gift. I remember the Friends episode where Phoebe's like, there's no good, there's like no selfless deed, like every good thing you do is for selfish reasons. 1,000% on this case. Okay, so fostering this dog is so much fun, because one, I get this new dog in the house, which is just so fun. She's so cute. I get to love on her, and I get the dog love from her. And then I get everyone who's like, "Oh my god, it's so sweet of you to foster." It's like, it is so sweet. So I get words of affirmation, I get to feel like I have so much purpose. Like, all of a sudden fostering a dog has become my way of, I make myself feel so good about myself, but you can do that too, you can go foster a dog and feel so, you'll have the same feeling, I promise you. If you have felt like, what's my purpose in life, go foster a dog, you will all of a sudden feel like, wow, I'm one of the best people on the whole planet. 

Lesley Logan 5:00  

So, our win. This is the second dog we're fostering. Really, the win is Bayon's, because Bayon got along with her, and at first, it looked like she was gonna drive Bayon crazy, but I think she's (inaudible) around Bayon, she's like, I don't know if I like him, I think he's too much for me. But she is cute, she's got a great waddle. Hopefully, by the time you hear this episode, she's been more than adopted, and my goal of this year being a foster dog house is, we're two now, we're at two, and that's that's the win. All right, see, wins don't have to be huge, they can be that you're volunteering, you have a lot to brag about, because it inspires other people too. 

Lesley Logan 5:38  

All right, here we go, your mantra for the weekend, ready? I am a beautiful person, both inside and out. I am a beautiful person, both inside and out. Babe, you are a beautiful person, both inside and out. Believe that. All right. Share our podcast with friends who need to hear it. Send your wins into the beitpod.com/questions. You can also in that link send where you'd like topics for us to have on, different experts you'd like me to interview, or want me to do a solo episode on, or if you like the solo, just give us some feedback, let us know, right? If that's too much for you, you're like, oh my god, my ADHD won't allow me to do that, well, then talk about the pod, or join OPC and be a member of our OPC platform, because that's where we hang out, and we can do Pilates together and support you in all that you're doing, all right. Until next time, Be It Till You See It. 

Lesley Logan 6:23  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 7:06  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 7:11  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 7:15  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 7:22  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals. 

Brad Crowell 7:26  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

Lesley Logan and Brad Crowell break down the conversation with recruiter and resume writer Megan Applegate, founder of Career Blueprint Solutions. They unpack why a blank LinkedIn profile can make even strong candidates look like they don't exist, how to frame your resume around the value you deliver instead of a list of duties, and why staying comfortable quietly keeps your career stuck. They also share a four-step plan for positioning yourself for the promotion you already may be qualified for.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.

In this episode you will learn about:

• Applying for roles even when you don't check every box.
• Why a blank LinkedIn profile makes strong candidates look invisible.
• Recognizing the cost of comfort and why discomfort means you're growing.
• How speaking your imposter syndrome out loud can be really helpful.
• A four-step plan to position yourself for your next promotion.

Episode References/Links:

• upLift First Time Teacher Training Program - https://xxll.co/uws
• eLevate Live Q&A - https://lesleylogan.co/elevate
• 2026 Summer Tour (powered by Balanced Body) - https://opc.me/tour
• OPC Pilates Flashcards - https://opc.me/flashcards
• Pilates Posters - https://opc.me/posters
• Project Marilyn – projectmarilyn.com
• Megan Applegate on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganapplegate
• Megan Applegate on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dreamjobahead
• Career Blueprint Solutions - https://beitpod.com/careerblueprintsolution
• Ep 226 ft Ryan May McAvoy - https://beitpod.com/ep226
• Ep 691 ft Clare Solly - https://beitpod.com/ep691
• Submit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questions

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Resources:

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Lesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/
• Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQ
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Episode Transcript:

Brad Crowell 0:00  

Growth is only possible when you realize that getting uncomfortable is where you actually need to be, and that can be, well, uncomfortable, scary, a little bit scary, but you may already be doing some things that will help take you to the next level.

Lesley Logan 0:16  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Brad Crowell 0:59  

All right, let's do this. So today is the 710 Megan Applegate. Take it away there, Lesley.

Lesley Logan 1:08  

Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap, where my co-host life, Brad, and I are going to dig into the strategic convo I had with Megan Applegate in our last episode.

Brad Crowell 1:10  

Oh yeah, it was strategic.

Lesley Logan 1:17  

She is a resume whisperer 

Brad Crowell 1:21  

and LinkedIn Queen

Lesley Logan 1:22  

Yes, which we all need, me included. But I just kind of, I'm like, you guys, if you have been one of those people who doesn't apply for a job because you don't qualify for all parts, you need to talk to Megan, because she's a badass. Anyways, before we get into that, you can go listen to her right now, and then listen to us talk about some stuff before we talk about Megan.

Brad Crowell 1:39  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 1:40  

Today is July 23rd 2026, and it's National Gorgeous Grandma Day. So, today we celebrate the incredible grandmothers in our lives each year. This special day encourages us to recognize their timeless beauty, unwavering love, and invaluable wisdom. As we're reading this, I'm just thinking about my two grandmas, and I'm just gonna say,

Brad Crowell 1:58  

invaluable wisdom, 

Lesley Logan 2:00  

unwavering love, I'm not so sure, I will give them their... timeless beauty... my grandmother was beautiful. Both my grandmothers are beautiful in their own way. One looks like an actual grandmother from the day I was out of the womb, and the other one had tattooed eyeliner and purple hair, so.

Brad Crowell 2:17  

Amazing.

Lesley Logan 2:18  

Anyways, invaluable wisdom. Show your appreciation by spending quality time, showering them with gifts, or simply telling them how gorgeous they truly are. Seriously, if your gorgeous grandma is still here on this earth, pause this now and call her, and then come back, because we're going to talk about Megan Applegate. Brad inserted that very seamless, and it's in there. He knows I don't read these things before we get them on the air, so I'm like that one reporter, Keith Olbermann always makes fun of him, because he just reads whatever's on the teleprompter. I would just get myself in so much trouble because I would just read what's on the teleprompter, but then I'm like, what?

Brad Crowell 2:49  

Hilarious.

Lesley Logan 2:49  

Unwavering love and invaluable wisdom. Well, one of my grandmothers, the first time she drove, she backed the truck into a tree and left the engine running until it died, backed into a tree, and so she never got a driver's license. So that was some wisdom.

Brad Crowell 3:05  

Never drove again, that's hilarious.

Lesley Logan 3:08  

She was a stubborn one. Anyways, you guys, I have a teacher training program that I've been talking about online now, so I have to share it here. If you listen to the FYFs, I've been kind of hinting at a project that I've been working on for quite some time, and I'm really proud of the work I'm doing. Now we can actually share it, so it's all true. It's called upLift, and the L is capital in that, because I like to be cute. It's going to start probably early next year, and you'll be able to find an epic teacher trainer near you that will host my program. So if you know someone who wants to become a Pilates instructor, or you're listening to this and you've done some instructor training but not a full comprehensive, you're going to want to get on the waitlist to go through the upLift program, which is xxlll.co/uws. Now, if you are already comprehensively trained and you would prefer to train directly with me, then you actually want to be in my mentorship program, or some people call it a master's program, and you want to go to eLevate. We already have done a live Q&A call, because it happens on July 9th.

Brad Crowell 4:13  

And that's what, oh. 

Lesley Logan 4:15  

This is July 23rd, 2026. I just said the date, it's National Grandma's Day, so looking at Brad in real time trying to make this sheet. So anyways, you missed the live call, but you can still watch it and hear all about it. If there's any spaces in 2028, go to lesleylogan.co/elevate. Now, if you're like, "2028, that's so far away," look, if you just want to go through the training that I've created, upLift is going to be for you in 2027 and you can be with one of my educators. If you want to be with me, then you want to be in eLevate. If you want to be an upLift educator, you need to go through eLevate, so there's all that. Okay.

Brad Crowell 4:48  

If you want to be an upLlift educator, yes, you have to go through eLevate as well. So, if you have questions about that, just. 

Lesley Logan 4:54  

If you are like, "This is my first time. Why does everyone rave about the show? What the fuck are they talking about, the grandmas and Pilates?" Just keep listening, it gets better. Okay, stick to it. We're gonna "be it till you see it" for you. Our summer tour is literally around the corner. We are leaving next week, I think, or maybe in 10 days. Yeah, so at the time of this recording, the first two stops are sold out. The third stop is in Nashville, and it has the workshop space left. Knoxville is our rooftop mat class repertoire. 

Brad Crowell 5:26  

That is gonna be so fun. I'm really looking forward to that.

Lesley Logan 5:29  

Same, me too. And then we'll be back in Greensboro. We've never been in Greensboro in the summer, so this is really exciting. It's a really cool studio, it's an old mill. And then we're gonna be in Augusta, Georgia, and then we're gonna be in Atlanta. Look, the time we're recording this, it had three spots left total at that stop, and then someone just bought one, so there are two spots left at the time of recording, which is,

Brad Crowell 5:48  

in Atlanta,

Lesley Logan 5:49  

in Atlanta, Then Huntsville, Alabama has five spots left today, which is not today when you're listening to this, so check. Then we have Birmingham, Alabama, and then Jackson, Mississippi, both of those had two spots left today. And then we have Frisco, Texas, which is north of Dallas. There was room, there's plenty of room in the workshop there as of today. Not plenty, but there's room. El Paso, we're gonna have a Spanish,

Brad Crowell 6:12  

This is gonna be really cool.

Lesley Logan 6:14  

translator, in Spanish. I've.

Brad Crowell 6:16  

It's our first stop in El Paso to teach.

Lesley Logan 6:19  

Yeah.

Brad Crowell 6:19  

So really, really excited about that. And yeah, first time having a translator in the United States.

Lesley Logan 6:03  

I'm so excited! I've had translators before, but this is gonna be so fun, but not in the States, so this is gonna be great. So we are in El Paso, and then we're gonna be in Tucson, a couple spots left there, and then Vegas, and that's half sold out. So all this is the bragging to say, get your tickets, what are you waiting for? opc.me/tour

Brad Crowell 6:30  

opc.me/tour 

Lesley Logan 6:32  

It is powered by Balanced Body, which means we have gift certificates, prizes, and we're bringing Contrology equipment for you to try out. So, you're going to want to go do that. And then, if you are new here, don't forget to check out our Pilates flashcards. We'll have them at the tour, but you can actually get them from us. I had someone ask me, "Is it better to get from you directly or from Amazon?" And I said, if you like giving Jeff Bezos money, you can get it from Amazon, but if you want to give a small business, a family-owned team money, which means the money goes to, first of all, if you buy flashcards from us, we give money to the Nevada SPCA, and we give money to our team, and all that good stuff, and we can keep making these flashcards, you go to opc.me/flashcards. So, anyway, she said, "Of course, I love supporting small businesses," and I said, "Thank you." And then we also have posters, and people have been asking about this. You want to know something? Don't buy the ones on Temu, they stole mine. You are welcome, while we are waiting for them to take that shit down, to go find them and leave a shitty review. Tell them that they're stealing, because they fucking are. But you can buy ours that have good images.

Brad Crowell 7:49  

Tell us how you really feel.

Lesley Logan 7:50  

I'm so fucking pissed. I'm pissed, but I have my "I need a moment" on the Fuck Yeah Fridays now. I think I've mentioned it already there. But at any rate, opc.me/posters is where you get the posters, and you kind of want both, just saying.

Brad Crowell 8:04  

Kind of want both.

Lesley Logan 8:05  

And the posters ship from wherever they print around the world. So, my peeps who live internationally, the shipping on the posters is not going to be terrible. The flashcards, so sorry for where you live, but we do have people in high places like Canada and Australia, and we are working on some others

Brad Crowell 8:22  

Working on the UK,

Lesley Logan 8:23  

working on the UK. We've got a couple of options. You know what? Think time travel, things move slowly. Just gonna say it, my brain moves fast, but things move slow. All right, as you know, we talk about a charity, and this week's charity, who's up, Brad?

Brad Crowell 8:36  

Yeah, this week we are featuring Project Marilyn. This week we're highlighting Project Marilyn, a Las Vegas nonprofit fighting period poverty right here in southern Nevada. Founded in 2019 by Wendi, I am gonna butcher this name, Schweigart,

Lesley Logan 8:52  

or Schweigart,

Brad Crowell 8:52  

Schweigart, and named after her late mother, Marilyn, the organization,

Lesley Logan 8:56  

Who was probably a gorgeous grandma.

Brad Crowell 8:57  

Well, clearly, she must be a gorgeous grandma because she had a daughter, so.

Lesley Logan 9:02  

Well, she had a daughter. Her daughter might not have a daughter, but her daughter is giving. 

Brad Crowell 9:05  

Oh, she's probably a gorgeous grandma.

Lesley Logan 9:06  

Her daughter is giving period supplies for free to all these kids around here, so she kind of has a lot of grandkids. 

Brad Crowell 9:13  

Yeah, the organization makes sure everyone has a healthy, dignified period by providing monthly bags of tampons, pads, and hygiene wipes to people who cannot afford them, supplies that are among the least donated and most overlooked basic needs out there, and programs like SNAP and WIC won't cover.

Lesley Logan 9:29  

It's like your food stamps.

Brad Crowell 9:31  

Yeah, so what started with one woman honoring her mom has grown into a real local force, a volunteer crew called the Period Posse, back-to-back best nonprofit recognition in the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Best of Las Vegas Reader Poll, and a tripling of its reach in just the last couple of years, all while staying lean and locally run. If you've ever taken a clean, dignified period for granted, this is the chance to make sure someone else can, too.

Lesley Logan 9:57  

Also, so many of us who have all the access to all the period supplies in the world have had moments where it doesn't feel dignified, and so if you're like.

Brad Crowell 10:06  

Also, we charge a lot for that too. It's very, it's taxed.

Lesley Logan 10:11  

It's taxed, it's fucking annoying. If men needed period supplies, they'd be fucking free, and I know it feels like we harp on that, but truly, it would. The fucking female razors are more expensive, and they're the same fucking thing, they just make them pink and charge more. So, if you are like, "Guys, why did you do a Las Vegas one?" I actually have had connections with Project Marilyn. I've been at different charity events that they're at, they do really great work. If you are in Las Vegas and you go to their website, you can actually find out where they have locations for free period supplies, like the local library. You go and you just say, "I have a package from Marilyn," and they will just give you free period supplies. Isn't that the cutest thing? 

Brad Crowell 10:35  

That's pretty cute. 

Lesley Logan 10:37  

There's another organization that sponsors them that's more national, and that is the Alliance for Period Supplies, and they are doing really great work trying to do different things in the legislation, and also work on ending period poverty. It looks like this one works with smaller organizations to keep getting the supplies out there.

Brad Crowell 11:09  

Yeah, go to projectmarilyn.com M-A-R-I-L-Y-N if you want to donate, or if you're looking for something a little more national, the

Lesley Logan 11:17  

allianceforperiodsupplies.org. Just so we're all clear, 76% of Americans believe period supplies should be free of charge at public schools and public universities, and you know where they were free my whole adult life? Equinox. I could get free period supplies at my fancy gym.

Brad Crowell 11:34  

Did not know that.

Lesley Logan 11:35  

Yes, I could, you can. So it was perks of being a member. But anyways, I just really like this, I like the idea. I think if we could help, it would also be great if these period people businesses would stop making the tampons in crinkly, loud paper, so these poor girls don't have to hide it in their sleeve and it crinkles, and then everyone knows what they're doing. Stop making things embarrassing, and also teach boys to not be assholes about it. All right, now we're good. I'm off my soapbox.

Brad Crowell 12:02  

Hey, if you have a charity that we think we should feature, or if you have a question that we might answer on our Sunday YouTube lives, go to beitpod.com/questions that's beitpod.com/questions and you can leave us either a win for the Friday episodes, or a question, or 

Lesley Logan 12:17  

No questions. You can leave a charity. The link is so outdated, but we're not changing it, because it's living there. The questions we answer on Sundays on YouTube. 

Brad Crowell 12:25  

That's what I was gonna say. So you can send in your question, and we'll answer it on YouTube on Sundays if you want to.

Lesley Logan 12:31  

All right, I guess, yeah.

Brad Crowell 12:32  

So stick around, we'll be right back. 

Brad Crowell 12:35  

All right, so let's talk about Megan Applegate. She's the founder of Career Blueprint Solutions, and a recruiter, resume writer, and career coach who has spent the last seven years helping high achievers land the roles they actually want. After a 20-year career in hospitality, she pivoted into recruiting and built her business from the ground up. Today, she guides clients through the realities of modern hiring, from getting past the applicant tracking systems to positioning themselves on LinkedIn so the right opportunities come directly to them.

Lesley Logan 13:06  

Yeah, I was really excited to have her on because, you know, not everyone who listens to this wants to have their own business. A lot of people who listen to this want a good job, and there's so much uncertainty in the world with AI and all these different things. I'm tired of hearing the statistics, even though we've known it for years, where women are just not necessarily applying for jobs because they don't hit all the boxes they think. She has really navigated the change in how you apply for things, how you position yourself, and she's quite good at it in a way that made me feel like, "Oh, I could fucking have a resume." I mean, I'm not gonna do it, it's like writing my bio, just makes me cry, but for people who need that... We just had Clare Solly on, talking about exiting a career, exiting a job, whether it's your choice or someone else's, and so I just thought this is a really great resource for everyone who was really inspired by that episode. Something I love that she said is to understand that as you grow, you will naturally pivot your career or business, and I thought that was really cool because I think it's really easy to compare ourselves to past generations where we feel like our jobs are not linear, so then we look spastic. It's like, no, actually, it just shows that you are learning, and that learning is taking you into another direction, and your curiosities are taking you to different places. She said it's important to stay relevant by constantly questioning your methods and asking, "Should I do this differently?" I think that is a great thing that we could be doing because it forces us to actually keep our brain young and involved in what's going on. Sometimes we just get so set in doing things the same way, and there might be a better, faster way, or a way that actually challenges you, or a way that you could learn something new, because if you are learning every single day, it really does keep you current and up to date on what's going on, makes you more hireable.

Brad Crowell 14:56  

Yeah, I mean, it's easy to just sit back and be like, "Okay, I got this. It's rote," and so you're not actually staying on top of the industry and the changes in the tech and all that stuff.

Lesley Logan 15:08  

Well, it's also hard. We have so much things to do.

Brad Crowell 15:13  

but one of the things that we do in our company is we challenge our team and we say, "Hey, look, you are the expert on video editing, let's just say, so when you're out there scrolling through Instagram, and you're in your world doing your thing, and you find a tool that you think makes sense to help you with this job, that's the kind of thing that you're going to come across where we are not. If it's relevant, then you can bring it into the conversation." What does that tell me as the employer? "Oh, this person is paying attention, they're trying to be more efficient or find better tools," and that goes a long way. Honestly, if you're a Pilates teacher, this is effectively continuing education. It's the same kind of thing.

Lesley Logan 15:56  

Well, and also, it's interesting because, speaking of Pilates education, I announced the teacher training yesterday before I recorded this, and I had immediately someone going, "Well, is there going to be workshops after the program?" And I was like, "Of course. Also, first, people have to go through the program," so there probably won't be that until after 2028, and maybe even longer, because they won't know what continuing education they want to do. What I loved about what Megan was saying is, yes, keep learning every day, and go with what's exciting for you and challenging you. because the thing that happens is, too often we are like, "I have to learn everything," and then I got people taking both perimenopause and

Brad Crowell 16:40  

pelvic floor 

Lesley Logan 16:41  

and neurological

Lesley Logan 16:43  

and scoliosis and 

Lesley Logan 16:44  

neural, so those are, and then your neurological stuff, and then you've got people who want to like study, like NFL people, and it's like you, that's too many different types of people, you can't be an expert, you'll get overwhelmed, and that's going to stress you out, so you won't know what you're most interested in or who you're attracting. Then you get good at what you're doing, and you're like, "Oh, I trust this expertise," that's what Megan said, and then you're gonna go, "Oh, I'm gonna go over here and learn this thing," right, and take every day, as she said, and learn. So I think it does take some time. You got to get good at your job so you know what the job is, and then you got to go, "I could do this better, or faster, we could be doing this over here," and when you do those things, your bosses do pay attention, and then you have to make note of that because it's going to help you if you want to switch jobs. It's totally fine to switch careers and switch jobs because you might be intrigued. Anyways, I want to get into what you love, so. 

Brad Crowell 17:35  

Well, I mean, it rolls right into it. I was going to focus on what she was talking about, the cost of comfort, right? And so it's effectively the same thing. If you're like, "This is rote, I don't have to think about it, I'm just clocking in and clocking out," there is a cost to that. Basically, what she said is that it equals staying stagnant and the same. When you're comfortable, growth is only possible when you realize that getting uncomfortable is where you actually need to be, and that can be, well, uncomfortable, scary, a little bit scary, but you may already be doing some things that will help take you to the next level. When you are thinking bigger, thinking outside the box, when you are applying other things you're learning to your current job, it's going to shift and change, and it might be a little bit uncomfortable. You might actually have to go have a conversation with the person that you work for and say, "I had this thought, what do you think about this?" That actually brings to their attention that you're thinking, forward thinking, but it also helps when you're uncomfortable. It's consistently challenging and challenges you in a way where imposter syndrome can be easy to have sneak in, so you're constantly pushing against that. It's a muscle, the more you practice being in an uncomfortable place, the stronger you will be when you're battling the imposter syndrome.

Lesley Logan 19:13  

I just had someone tell me that they're putting off doing this one thing because they just had this imposter syndrome around it, and they're like, "I'm already doing this thing over here, if I take the final test, then I don't know, if I fail, it would just kill me." And I was like, "Oh my gosh, you have imposter syndrome. You have gone to extra workshops, you've done a comprehensive training. There are shitty teachers out there who've done one training who are stealing my lines and someone else's lines and putting it out there, and because of their sexy outfit, need thousands of followers, and they're asshole teachers. You are a great teacher, and you're letting imposter syndrome keep you from finishing? No, no. Next time you have imposter, think about the asshole teacher who does not care as much as you out there making the money you're not making." Sometimes you have to figure out that there are people who are not deserving of the job or the thing or the role or the raise that you need and want and deserve, and they're getting it because they're not getting stuck in the imposter, they're not letting the wall hit them.

Brad Crowell 20:12  

Yeah, I think imposter syndrome is so tough because it's almost always an internal conversation. It's very rare that someone else is like, "You're not qualified to do this." Now, there are haters on the internet that are gonna leave comments that say that, and those people can take a long walk, but this conversation typically happens hidden in your own head. In those moments, you could speak it out loud.

Lesley Logan 20:38  

Oh yeah, if you say it out loud, it does sound really... it does sometimes sound a little silly, it doesn't have as much power. You're like, "Whoa, what a weird thing to think."

Brad Crowell 20:46  

Yeah, the other day I was battling an internal conversation, and I thought, "What's the worst that could happen? Like, what is the absolute worst scenario in this fear that I have?" And then I spoke it out loud, like, "Oh my god, everything could come crumbling down," or whatever it was. Then I thought about, okay, well, what if that did happen? What would happen next? What would happen after that? I'd have to get back up and start over. And would I do it? Yeah, I would. It would probably not be fun or exciting, but now I would go back into it knowing all the things that I know today, and I would skip every mistake that I made the first time through doing whatever the thing was, because I already have the lived experience and knowledge, right?

Lesley Logan 21:37  

Yeah.

Brad Crowell 21:38  

So yeah, imposter syndrome, when you speak that out loud, that can be really helpful.

Lesley Logan 21:43  

Yeah, I like that idea. I think it's just also so easy to get in your head and say those things for yourself because someone somewhere along the lines told you it, or made you feel that way. Now it's just this thing. Honestly, when I was studying with BJ Fogg about habits, unraveling those thoughts is really difficult to do because you have to be aware that you're having the thought at the time to unravel what's the prompt that's happening. But at some point you do become aware, and that's where just speaking out loud will be helpful because it does take its power away. 

Brad Crowell 22:15  

Yeah. 

Lesley Logan 22:16  

And if you were to tell your best friend you were having that thought, for fucking sure they would be like, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Brad Crowell 22:17  

Are you kidding? What's going on here?

Lesley Logan 22:26  

Like this one thing I went to, they made us all write down the things that we say to ourselves, you know, the shitty things we say to ourselves, and just write them down, and then. 

Brad Crowell 22:34  

Read them out loud.

Lesley Logan 22:36  

Get this.

Brad Crowell 22:37  

Come on.

Lesley Logan 22:37  

They, even worse, they asked for two volunteers, and these two girls stood up. 

Brad Crowell 22:41  

Switched.

Lesley Logan 22:43  

They made them switch the letters.

Brad Crowell 22:45  

Oh my god. 

Lesley Logan 22:45  

And then, read it, look the person in the face and read it. "You're ugly, you're fat, you don't know what you're talking about." I'm crying. "You don't know what you're doing, you made these stupid mistakes." And they can't get through the letter because they are crying because they're like, "Well, it's not true, this isn't her." And they're like, "It's not true for you, you're crying because you know..." Anyways, oh my god, it's so awful, but it works. 

Brad Crowell 23:10  

That's powerful. 

Lesley Logan 23:11  

I don't know, maybe it's drama, but you gotta speak it out loud.

Brad Crowell 23:17  

Gotta speak it out loud. All right, well, stick around, we'll be right back. 

Brad Crowell 23:23  

All right, welcome back. Let's dig into those Be It Action Items. What bold, executable, intrinsic, or targeted action items can we take away from your combo with Megan Applegate? She said, "Shift your perspective to view your resume like a sales document that paints a picture of your value." Now, there's so much in that one sentence, shift your perspective so that you view your resume like a sales document that paints the picture of your value. After listening to this interview, it was really interesting because one of the things she kind of slid in there but one of my biggest takeaways, was she said, "I get these amazing, fantastic candidates for roles, and as a recruiter, I recruit them to then place them," and she said they have all the things, they look good, they are successful, they've got an amazing history, they've got the resume, but then when they go to their LinkedIn, it's empty,

Lesley Logan 24:13  

right,

Brad Crowell 24:13  

and it makes them look like they don't exist,

Lesley Logan 24:16  

are not on top of their shit, they're not present,

Brad Crowell 24:18  

yeah, and so it was really interesting, because we coach people all the time when they're like, "Do you have to post on Instagram? Like, no, but yes, because you don't have to post every four seconds on Instagram. But if someone in your neighborhood is like, "Oh, I'm looking for a Pilates teacher, and they look up a blank Instagram profile, they're gonna be like, 

Lesley Logan 24:36  

Is it open? 

Brad Crowell 24:36  

Is this person real? You know, I'm not sure.

Lesley Logan 24:39  

Yeah, you don't have to post daily, but you could post once a week, even every other week, as long as it looks like, oh, they were around.

Brad Crowell 24:44  

Yeah, honestly, even once a month, it's just that there needs to be something there for them to see. 

Lesley Logan 24:49  

For them to see the experience that they're going to get. 

Brad Crowell 24:51  

So, with the LinkedIn thing, though, she said you want to be positioning yourself as a thought leader,

Lesley Logan 24:58  

yeah,

Brad Crowell 24:59  

and I thought, oh, that's really. Interesting. What does that mean? What does it mean to be a thought leader?

Lesley Logan 25:03  

Our guest, Ryan May McAvoy, kicks ass up this on LinkedIn. If you want to see an example besides Megan Applegate, Ryan May McAvoy will blow your mind. She is a thought leader in the HR world. So, I think about her all the time.

Brad Crowell 25:16  

Yeah, so how do we do that? What I would say is, if you had a second teacher in your studio, or even if it's a home studio, let's just pretend you have a second teacher, right, and you tell the person here at my studio, "This is how we do the thing," whatever the thing is, when they come in the door, we have a smile on our face, we treat them with whatever. These are thought leader kind of thoughts, where you're sharing your perspective, your expectation, what you want to do. It doesn't have to be a super long 20-page article, it can just be quick snippets of things that you expect or do for your space, for your clients. Honestly, once you get started doing this, it comes easier down the road because you start to get the hang of it, but it allows you to have an ongoing timeline of events on your LinkedIn profile. If and when you ever did need to build a resume, she said this is great because if you treat your resume like a sales document that paints the picture of your value, where are you pulling the resume stuff from? If your thought leading is about a win that you just experienced, "Today I sold a 10-pack," and it doesn't seem like it's a big deal for people who don't understand the industry, but it's a big deal. What does it actually mean? It means that a client made a decision to better power their life and all the things, and I get to be here guiding them through that experience, right? You could be saying, "All right, cool, now that was my first 10-pack, now I've sold 20 10-packs to different clients," and it kind of operates like a description of your career in a way. If you're marking these wins right, celebrating these wins and turning them into some kind of a thought that you're just sharing on your profile, then later, if you ever have someone look at your profile, it looks like you're a real person.

Lesley Logan 27:21  

Yeah, I love that.

Brad Crowell 27:23  

Yeah, what about you?

Lesley Logan 27:24  

Well, she had a four-step executable plan for career advancement, so I thought that'd be fun to repeat, which is start by deciding if you want to stay in your field and specifically understand where that next promotion is. So the next step will actually help you with that, but I thought, what a great action step you could take right now. Then search the internet for relevant job descriptions to find the key language, the KPIs, and the keywords employers are using. This way you can start to see what wins you have that are around those things, because you might already be ready for the promotion at another company, or you can actually strategically position yourself for a promotion in your own company. Look at those descriptions to figure out what they're saying and what they need and the problems that they've solved, so you can position yourself as a solution. That goes back to Brad's thing on your resume. Then update your resume and LinkedIn to signal where people can find you so they can reach out for that specific role. So you're literally taking all the things that your next job wants, and then fixing up your LinkedIn and your resume so it's ready, and then you... I don't know, you turn your light on, and that's what they call it, right? They turn a light on on LinkedIn.

Brad Crowell 28:32  

I have no idea.

Lesley Logan 28:33  

I think you do, and then other people, and that's how Clare Solly got the great job that she has.

Brad Crowell 28:39  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 28:39  

Yeah, you turn your light on, right? Is that what you do? 

Brad Crowell 28:42  

Open to work. Yes, turn your light on.

Lesley Logan 28:44  

Yeah.

Brad Crowell 28:45  

Most likely looking to activate the open to work feature. So, I don't think they call it turn your light on, but it's called open to work.

Lesley Logan 28:51  

I guess you can't call it turn your light on because it sounds like Roxanne. What's the one. 

Brad Crowell 28:56  

That's exactly the one that you referenced in the interview?

Lesley Logan 28:58  

What's the song? Turn your light on. What's the song?

Brad Crowell 29:03  

Are you talking about Santana? Put your lights on.

Lesley Logan 29:06  

No.

Brad Crowell 29:07  

"Turn your light on." The Overtones? I don't actually..

Lesley Logan 29:12  

I guess Roxanne would go, "Don't turn the light on." And then, but there is, there's a song. It's in my head. It doesn't matter. 

Brad Crowell 29:20  

I tried find it, because you referenced it, and I did not find it. So, there is a Judas Priest song, turn your light on.

Lesley Logan 29:26  

I wonder if I know Judas Priest. Ah, so the ADHD fails. It's like it's in there, it's in there. You guys, I'm Lesley Logan.

Brad Crowell 29:34  

And I'm Brad Crowell. 

Lesley Logan 29:35  

Megan Applegate had some great tools for you as well. So, make sure you go to her website and check her out, because she definitely has some really great tools. You can go find her on LinkedIn and do all that stuff. Listen to her on the episode, because she's brilliant. So, if this really resonates with you, I'm Lesley Logan.

Brad Crowell 29:48  

And I'm Brad Crowell. 

Lesley Logan 29:49  

You should send this episode to a friend who hates her job right now.

Brad Crowell 29:51  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 29:52  

That's who this episode goes to.

Brad Crowell 29:53  

It's who it's for.

Lesley Logan 29:54  

Megan's episode goes there. This one is an interesting introduction to me and Brad. Thank you. Go Be It Till You See It.

Brad Crowell 30:01  

Bye for now.

Lesley Logan 30:03  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 30:45  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 30:50  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co. 

Brad Crowell 30:54  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 31:01  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals. 

Brad Crowell 31:05  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time. 

Megan Applegate spent twenty years in hospitality before becoming a recruiter, resume writer, and career coach. In this episode she and Lesley Logan dig into why finding work feels so different right now and what still gives people an edge in their career. Megan shares grounded strategies for standing out, rebuilding confidence after a setback, and getting noticed by the right people. Whether you love your job or are ready for a change, this conversation gives you real steps to feel ready for what is next.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.

In this episode you will learn about:

• Why the old resume playbook may no longer get you hired.
• Mapping job descriptions to prove you already qualify for the role.
• The old colleague trick that quietly dissolves imposter syndrome.
• Optimizing your LinkedIn so recruiters can actually find you.
• What you should never say when an interview gets uncomfortable.

Episode References/Links:

• Gecko Hospitality – https://www.geckohospitality.com
• Megan Applegate on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganapplegate
• Megan Applegate on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dreamjobahead
• StrengthsFinder Test – https://high5test.com/cliftonstrengths-free/
• Career Blueprint Solutions - https://beitpod.com/careerblueprintsolution
• Ep 691 ft Clare Solly - https://beitpod.com/ep691
• Submit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questions

Guest Bio:

Megan Applegate, Founder of Career Blueprint Solutions. After a powerhouse 20-year career in the hospitality industry, Megan did the unthinkable: she walked away from the familiar to build a recruiting and career development empire, with zero formal training and no financial safety net. Today, as the Founder of Career Blueprint Solutions, she uses that same "all-in" grit to help high-achievers navigate their own pivots. Known as the Recruiter Insider, she deconstructs the hiring process through her proprietary T.A.P. Protocol, moving professionals from "guessing" to "certainty" and helping them architect a legacy career that matches their true market value.

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Resources:

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
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Episode Transcript:

Megan Applegate 0:00  

I think most people just don't know these days what the strategy is, and to know that there's so much that they do that's probably already at that next level in the first place.

Lesley Logan 0:15  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. 

Lesley Logan 0:57  

All right, Be It babe. We're gonna get into it, because this episode is great. This is for those of you who are like, "Oh my god, I don't love my job, but I don't want to work for myself," or, "Shit, I'm out of a job and I need help." We have the resume queen, I literally called her a doula, she is so great. I learned so much. I don't even need a resume right now, or probably hopefully ever, I love what I do, but I know many of you do. No matter what your role is in this world, there are tips for you here. I don't care if you love where you're at, you're going to want to listen to these tips or write them down. They're so, so tangible, tactile, things you can actually do and check off and feel good about yourself. So, here is Megan Applegate.

Lesley Logan 1:41  

All right, Be It, babe. I'm really excited. We haven't had a topic like this in a long time, and it's definitely time to be talking about this topic. And we have the best guest I could even think about, because I was doing a lot of research on this one, and I'm really excited because Megan Applegate is here, and she is... well, I'm gonna let her tell you everything that she does. So, Megan, what do you rock at?

Megan Applegate 2:00  

Yeah, so thank you for having me, Lesley. I'm very excited to be here, and I'm one of those people that was a 20-year veteran in the hospitality industry, and thought I loved what I did for so long until I realized that I didn't. And when that happened, I didn't really know, and next I had something fall in my lap, and now I've turned into a recruiter, a resume writer, a career coach, and entrepreneur in the last seven years. So a huge pivot, huge turn, but I love what I do now. It's completely different. It's a beast in both ways, right? Good and bad, if there is a good or a bad, I don't know that there always is, but I love what I do.

Lesley Logan 2:48  

Oh, Megan, I agree. Nothing's ever as good or as bad as we think it's going to be, but there's always the good and the bad. But hold on, 20 years in hospitality? I mean, I don't even know how one person lasts in hospitality. That's a long time to deal with the people.

Megan Applegate 3:01  

Yeah, yeah, it is.

Lesley Logan 3:04  

Was it like, did you have to deprogram, or did you have to remind yourself you're not in hospitality anymore? How did you, you know what I mean? It's hard to make a big shift to shift careers.

Megan Applegate 3:15  

Yeah, I would say yes and no, only because part of what turned into a different career involves hospitality, so it made it a little bit easier when I was approached with the opportunity to get into the first business that I own and do, and then from there it came into a second one that I own on my own now. So, with that being said, I still actually love hospitality. I still love the people, and I know it so well. But now I get to recruit in it and help people find jobs in it. So it's almost like just taking what I already knew and learning a whole new sector of it, which I think is cool.

Lesley Logan 3:56  

Right, right, like going to a deeper level on that. So, instead of being, I guess, B to C, where you're working with the people in the hospitality, now you're working with the people who are going to work with the people.

Megan Applegate 4:08  

Correct. Yeah, on the recruiting side, it's both. It's finding the clients that need us to help them with the headhunting, finding these top talented professionals, and then also being the advocate and that career agent for the candidates, and understanding both sides of what that looks like. A lot of people only know one side and they don't know both, and so it's almost like an advantage to understand how to help people navigate that knowledge that you otherwise have, right? Because.

Lesley Logan 4:41  

The hirer is like, "We need these people who can do these things."

Megan Applegate 4:44  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 4:44  

And then the people are like, "How come no one's looking at my resume? How come people don't see the greatness that I have?" And really, you're kind of a mediator slash negotiator slash doula.

Megan Applegate 4:59  

Yeah, it's been an interesting adventure. I'm seven years in deep with this change, and it's proven to move me in all kinds of different directions, which I'm excited to get into.

Lesley Logan 5:13  

Yeah, I would love to get to that. Before we dive into some stuff, I do want to chat about... seven years is a long time to look back at who you were and how that was. When you were leaving hospitality and coming into this, or maybe you fell into it, were there things that you had to work on with yourself to step into this? "I'm now the entrepreneur, now I'm not working for this company, I'm working for myself." How did you help yourself change that mentality?

Megan Applegate 5:42  

Yeah. Well, there's all kinds of emotions. I think there's so many we could talk about, right? It's very sticky. You're excited but scared. At some point I didn't trust myself. So, there was a lot of working on understanding that you just have to keep trying new things to see what will work, and to trust your expertise and what you're learning to do, and I think that was a big lesson for me. I think, as an entrepreneur, I just had this vibe of, like, now I get to be as successful as I want to be, right? I'm going to make so much money and all these things. Because when you're working for somebody, there's a cap on you, and so when you change into that mode of "I'm so passionate about what I do and my expertise," when you don't see that happen overnight, it can be a little daunting, you know, to be like, "Wow, hey, is it me? Am I doing something wrong? Can I not trust myself? Am I not..." I mean, there's so many things, because if you've never owned a business, how do you know, right? So, I think there's a lot of that that went into setting the ground rules of understanding you just have to take every day, every day, every day, and learn and learn and learn, and you will pivot and pivot and pivot, and I still do to this day. I think, "Can I do this differently? Should I do this differently?" I think I'm on my third version of the newest business I have, just because I keep learning.

Lesley Logan 7:18  

Yeah, I understand that a lot. I love that you share that. When you work at a place, you get to leave at the end of the shift or the day with your salary, going, "Okay, I did the things I was supposed to do on this day," or, "I'm behind on two things, okay." But when you are working for yourself, you really have to define what "done" is and what success is, because otherwise it can feel like it's too easy to go with vibes. I've been working for myself for so long, and I still have to remind myself to not go off vibes. My husband's like... I'm like, "Oh my god, things aren't going really well right now." He's like, "Let's look at the data, because vibes... no, we're not doing vibes right now. Data is always better." 

Lesley Logan 8:04  

Okay. So, one of the reasons why I have you on is because I do feel like right now there's a lot of uncertainty when it comes to finding work. If people have a job, they're staying whether they like it or not, which always bothers me, because we shouldn't let employers treat us badly or be in a place that's not right for us. But there's a lot of uncertainty, and then there's people who are wanting to switch careers and look into something else, and this is Be It Till You See It. I wanted to pick your brain and talk a little bit about how can people who are seeking out work highlight themselves, or what should they be thinking about? I don't know, that's 17 questions, Megan. You are the expert here. I haven't had to fill out a resume in so long.

Megan Applegate 8:47  

Yeah, well, neither have a lot of the clients I do work with, truthfully. Things have changed and shifted so much lately in what looking for a new job is and what that strategy is. It used to be like if you had longevity, you had great companies on your resume, and you had a few connections, then it would be super simple. And now people come to me, and they're like, "The game has changed, what do I do?" Because it is, especially with AI and all of the platforms that are involved, and all this weaving in of... you can't just rely on what you've done in the past. Right now we're in a huge employee market where it's very competitive to look for a job. People are being flooded because you make it so easy to apply to jobs these days. You just hit the easy button, right?

Lesley Logan 9:47  

Yeah, I just heard this ad where you can almost pay for this extra thing so you're the first person, you're on the top of the pile. You remember how you used to be able to pay to be "A" on Southwest Airlines? Like, pay to get your resume to be the top of the pile on those online things. I was like, "Oh my god, this is just like... that's only the people who have the extra money can do that."

Megan Applegate 10:09  

Well, honestly, and I don't even know that I believe that, really knowing what I know about how that works. And so it's all about understanding that you have to be a problem solver, and you have to realize that if you can paint the picture... it's like your resume is a sales document. We are so in tune as humans to not understand what we are actually really good at, and no one seems to understand that they need to keep track of all of these wins. You get in a job and you just get so focused on what you're doing in one lane that we're never thinking two more steps or two more years down the road to be like, "Am I documenting? Do I know what I want to do next? Am I continually networking with people? What am I doing right now that is above what every other person is doing?" If you're not constantly thinking about that and understanding that you're creating your own brand, you just get stuck in the hole, and then five years later things have changed, and you're like, "Oh my god, what am I doing?" And it's very scary. You're thinking, "Well, I have all this experience, and I meet this job description that's online, but yet no one's calling me." That's where I have realized, in my experience, there's so many nuances around getting through the ATS system, getting by the recruiter who looks at your resume for 10 seconds, finally getting to the hiring manager, and then trying to convince them in that one-third of your resume of why they should call you. There's so many different things. I wish I had a magic bullet just to say "do this one thing and you'll be fine," but unfortunately it's a strategy. It's truly a game these days.

Lesley Logan 12:04  

And it's so... you're like... so on the podcast every Friday, we celebrate wins. I think they're really important. Most people won't send a win in until they've completed something, and I'm like, "A win is, you know, you got up today." Sometimes that's a win. But I love that you highlight: are you documenting things that you're doing or things that you've learned? Because I have found, since I don't have to build a resume, one of the things I have to do is submit to get CECs for things that I train people on. So I have to show that I've had education from these places, or to teach this workshop, "When did I learn that thing?" And if we're not taking time for just a little document, just some running note like an achievement or a compliment you got at work, I love this, because then, with the help of AI, you can really put your wins together in a nice, concise little paragraph. You could do that, but if you're not documenting, it's really hard to remember what you did two years ago. Especially when you're not happy at your job, you're forgetting that you had a win.

Megan Applegate 12:59  

Yeah, and it's not just always about what you do individually. It's about looking at what you're doing as a team. And people think, "Well, I can't take credit for that," and I'm like, "Why not?" They just get very down in the weeds of what should be on a resume, and it becomes this long laundry list of things that are not relevant, and I think that that is one of the biggest things is before you can build that, you have to know where you're going. I mean, who is your audience? Who are you talking to?

Lesley Logan 13:33  

So then do we have to change our resume for every single application?

Megan Applegate 13:38  

No, no, you don't. No. And honestly, a lot of people have that in their head that they have to. There's definitely things you can tweak within the resume, just keywords in general, if that fits more specifically to one thing versus another in your industry, if it's this job versus this job. But no, you shouldn't have to change it every time. You just need to have a point of view. You need to be somebody that solves problems, and you need to know who your audience is, and you need to know where you're going. If you don't know, then again, how can you put together your narrative of what problems do I even need to set to solve?

Lesley Logan 14:29  

Yeah, I agree. And I love this, because this episode's coming out after my girlfriend and I chatted about exiting a job, either on your terms or not on your terms, right? And so we had a really good chat about that, and this is such an even greater follow-up because ideally you're thinking about this before it's not on your terms, right? Ideally you're doing this while you have something else, because there's a lot more confidence while you're getting paid to go look for something else. I always say it's easier to get another job while you have a job. I guess I worry about some of my people who have that fake imposter syndrome, I call it fake because they are successful, they have done amazing things, and for whatever reason, they either lost the job that they were in, or their life changed and they had to take a pause in work, and now they're coming back into it. As you said, the game has changed. It's like when people realize the dating game has changed; now the resume game has changed. Is there a pep talk to give people? How do they know where they're going? How do we get them off the ground and go, "You are good, let's pull out these wins." Are there things that they can do?

Megan Applegate 15:34  

Yeah, I mean, I think that just understanding... I always tell people when I work with them, I'm like, go out on the internet and find... Well, first of all, before you even do that, what excites you? Let's just dive down a little bit further into, "This is what you do, but do you love every single part of this, or do we want to focus on what you truly let go and then you just succeed with? What motivates you? What are your strengths?" Finding that is number one, especially if you're thinking about pivoting. I think there's nothing wrong, I mean, I did it, and yes, it was from a 20-year career into entrepreneurship, but I work with a lot of people that will pivot into a completely different industry. And when we work on that, we start with that: what makes you tick, what would you love to do every day, and get them excited about that. Then once you kind of understand that, you can actually go out and start to truly find those jobs, find where those jobs are, look at those job descriptions, and map what you are really good at with what it's saying. I think that will a lot of times pull people out to be like, "Oh, okay, so I do have a lot more wins and what it takes to get a job." I also say find a colleague, find an old colleague, somebody that can remind you how great you are, because, like you mentioned, the imposter syndrome, that is a huge wall that people bump into all the time. I get comments about a resume that I redo for someone, and they're like, "Megan, are you sure this is even me? I feel like an imposter here," and I'm like, "Yeah, it is you. You just don't understand that it's okay." This is the one time that it's okay to vibe on yourself. Sometimes we don't see it because we're in it all the time, we're in the weeds of our own everyday life, and therefore because we live that, we don't see ourselves as an expert because we just assume everyone has the same kind of knowledge that we do. So I always tell people, find what's important, what you love, find somebody... most people have a BFF at work of some kind, right? Even if it was a couple jobs ago, ask them for coffee, ask them just to be like, "Hey, can you help me kind of energize and re-remember all that I did that was amazing," especially if you haven't written it down.

Lesley Logan 18:27  

I love this, because one, everybody wants to be helpful. People just want to be helpful, right? And you're not asking them for a job, you're actually asking them, like, "Hey, can we just go over that time we did some things? I'm struggling here." People want to be your cheerleader, and you're gonna give them this opportunity. I think this is a brilliant... I remember years ago, my husband and I were trying to apply for a Global Entry card, and they wanted your last 10 years of addresses. Of course, when you're apartment living, that could be 10 addresses. I remember Brad asking one of his roommates, "Hey, do you remember our address here?" And the guy's like, "I don't know, check eBay." And it was like, oh, hold on, there's this place that's holding all these addresses that I had things shipped to. But sometimes we just have to ask someone. The thing is, they're not in it.

Megan Applegate 19:10  

They're not stuck in your everyday life that you just live in and assume that everyone else knows what that looks like.

Lesley Logan 19:20  

Yeah, yeah. Do you think the internal barrier that people get stuck on is the imposter syndrome? Is it not believing in themselves? What is on the inside of people that makes them realize or think that they're not able to do this, to put themselves out there and get a job that they deserve?

Megan Applegate 19:40  

I think it's partly that, but I don't think it's fully that. I think most people just don't know these days what the strategy is, and to know that there's so much that they do that's probably already at that next level in the first place. So that's why I'm always saying go find some job descriptions. If you're a senior whatever, and you want to be a director, go find what that looks like, and then find where you have correlations to it. Because I think that once you can do that, it helps kind of boost that confidence to be like, "Oh yeah, you know, I can do that," or you kind of understand where your shortcomings are and you can work on, "Okay, so I need more leadership experience," or what have you, if I want to get to where you're going. But if we just kind of stay where we're comfortable... we always talk about we're comfortable, but what does that equal?

Lesley Logan 20:44  

Yeah.

Megan Applegate 20:45  

Right? It equals stagnant in the same.

Lesley Logan 20:48  

Yeah, yeah.

Megan Applegate 20:49  

So getting uncomfortable is where we need to be..

Lesley Logan 20:51  

Well, also, that's so funny that you said that. I would never have thought... that's like a total 'be it till you see it.' Look at the job that you'd want to have. What are they asking that that person has, and then you can recognize where you have it and where you don't. But also, there's that statistic that women won't apply unless they're 10 out of 10, and men will apply at a 4 out of 10, or whatever it is. But I love that, because you can really see, and that will help you highlight, "Oh, hold on," it might even jog your memory of the things that you've done and really pull it up there. I think that's a brilliant strategy that I would never have thought about, because it's like, "Oh, this is a job that I've done, so this is a job that I'm ready for." But a lot of people are thinking they have to get promoted before they can go somewhere else to get the job that they want, but you might be able to step into a role at a level that you want to be at because they actually need what you've already been doing.

Megan Applegate 21:46  

Yeah, and that's a huge part of the recruiting side that I've learned, too. If you want to be recruited for a promotion, and not only what you're doing taking you from one job to another that's the same, you have to have the right signal, if you kind of think about it that way. From a recruiting perspective, not necessarily just a resume where you're actually sending resumes out and that kind of thing, there's so many things that we can do from promoting your own brand, and part of that, especially with LinkedIn, is who... again, we go back to that audience. Who are you trying to signal? Are you signaling to anybody? Are you even visible? Can you get recruited, and if you can, does it point to where you want to go next, or are you stuck in just the laundry list of what you've done? Is it forward-thinking to that next role, or are you just in the past?

Lesley Logan 22:49  

Can we go this route? Because, first of all, LinkedIn is like a thing. I work for myself.

Megan Applegate 22:56  

You're like, I'm not on LinkedIn, I don't know. 

Lesley Logan 22:58  

And everyone's like, "Lesley, you've got to be on LinkedIn, because all those women there would do your Pilates classes online because they're busy and amazing." And I'm like, I don't even know how to break through on LinkedIn. But one of my girlfriends, the job that she has now, which is like a dream role, which I can't say what it is, but if I did, everyone would be like, "How did she get that job?" It's because she turned her light on on her LinkedIn. She had it pointing towards what she wanted, not what she was at, and she got it. Someone was like, "Hey, you should apply for this," and then she fucking got it. I was like, "That's how it works?" I had no idea. I would have thought a thousand people were applying for that job, you know? And they might have been.

Megan Applegate 23:46  

Yeah. Well, but it's true. I mean, honestly, there's so many people that have a profile on LinkedIn, and they might have a picture, and they might have the basics, and that is it. And I'm like, "Why even bother, truthfully?" It's funny that you say that, because I'm the opposite. I am very, very strong on LinkedIn because of what I do, but yet, Instagram, I'm like, "Oh my god, what am I doing?"

Lesley Logan 24:15  

Honestly, Megan, I really should just learn how to be on LinkedIn, because that might be the safest, quietest, non-stressful place to be.

Megan Applegate 24:24  

It is. I will agree with that. I do see that sometimes people, if you're a little bit controversial in what you say in advice, some people will get on there. But honestly, those are the times where it just goes, "Oh my god, all of a sudden 15,000 people just saw this because of this one jerk."

Lesley Logan 24:46  

That's great.

Megan Applegate 24:46  

I'm pretty sure Instagram could do the same thing, but yeah, LinkedIn is huge, and people don't always see that. I know it's social media, not everyone loves it, especially the older generation, which a lot of times are the people that I work with that get to the point of, "I've been in my job for so long, and I'm just struggling to even get an interview, and what's going on?" So I work a lot with that age group, and they're like, "But I don't know how to be on LinkedIn, I don't know how to be online." I'm like, honestly, you don't have to be active all the time. You just have to have a profile that signals the right thing, that's completely optimized. It uses the right keywords for that job that you want. Have a background image that says your name and your contact information, have a headline that says what you want. Just teaching people how to understand what, as a recruiter, I'm looking for, and what pops up when I'm looking. So you can just do that. You don't have to 

Lesley Logan 25:53  

be active that much because the optimization will do the work for you, because recruiters will find you. And as long as it doesn't look like you've been distant for seven years, it's been updated, it's not as much as like, "I have to post on Instagram almost daily if I want to stay relevant." I don't think you have to do that on LinkedIn to get a good job.

Megan Applegate 26:13  

No, you don't, because again, there's one side that's the recruiter piece of it that just tells us who you are. Maybe even just sharing things once in a while. You don't even have to have your own feed that says a lot. If you want to become a little bit more of an executive level, I would say posting some, just so that you could be a thought leader. Specifically, your expertise will help you even more, because it just shows you have a voice, a perspective, and you're active. A lot of times when I find somebody, they might look good, but then I realize after talking to them that it's from four or five years ago, and they haven't touched it since, and it's not even updated, right? I'm just like.

Lesley Logan 27:03  

Yeah, because you don't want to waste your time either. Okay, so you know people are... there's a lot of worry that AI is going to take all of our jobs, and I'm sure at some point it probably will. But is that something that people have to be worried about, or is it again just figuring out what they want to be doing, and then selling themselves above, or do they have to understand how to use it? What is the working job-seeking market right now? What's the misunderstanding about that, that if they just kind of understood it better, they would be able to be hireable or have the dream job that they're still looking for? Because I do think people might be worried that their dream job is gone.

Megan Applegate 27:41  

Right. Yeah, I mean, that's totally valid, and I agree with you. I can't say that won't happen in some cases. I don't see that happening to an extreme where we're all gonna all of a sudden be unemployed. I think for me, and what I try and help my clients with, is understanding AI, you have to treat it as your friend. You cannot think about it as a negative, because it just is what it is, right? It's here to stay, and if we just push against it, we are just pushing ourselves further down the line of, "I can't, I won't, it's terrible." We have to look at it like, what do you need to do to maybe upskill, so that you give yourself more variety of what you can do in your lane, right? And really, you might have to think about what does that look like. I'm not a prepper personally, that's a lot for me even to think about. But in this realm, in job searching, and in the strategy, and just not even just when you're out of a job, but in general, if we look at the whole of what should we be doing in our world of career advancement, even if we have a job, we have to always be thinking about where does my path lead next. Who can I connect with? Where can I build my brand? Where can I be an expert? Where can I upskill the skills or something I want to do, so that you're always putting yourself to have an option, right? The option, or multiple options, ultimately is the goal. Because when we don't, and all of a sudden shit happens and you get laid off, and you're just like, "Oh, hell, what am I doing?" If you would have put yourself in a position to be ready for that, even if it was a year from now, for people to find you, to have your resume updated, to be present on LinkedIn, to be networking, to have an idea of where you want to go, get in front of having some of those skills, then your life will be so much easier.

Megan Applegate 30:00  

I love, I agree. I mean, like, it's not, you don't have to be like the prep, or like, the world is gonna fall down, but also, like, having, having, I mean, that's what I mean, just like, have an idea of where you want to go, where you want to grow, and keeping that in your mind's eye, because also you don't want to be at a job that you don't like either, like, that's just gonna suck, and suck you dry. We've been talking a lot, like, to help, like, the employee out. I do want to, like, we do have people who, like, are employers, and I will say, like, recently we had a hire for a role, and we've had the same person for so long, and they went, they're like, "I'm going on maternity leave forever," and I'm like, "That's so nice for you. Okay, great, thanks for letting me know now." But it took, I will say, it took us so long to hire someone because everyone was using AI to answer everything. We love that you can use it, but we actually would like to know what your personality is like. We hire on personality around here, because sometimes you have to do different roles, like sometimes you have to step in and fill for someone. So great, but who are you? Do you fit with the family? What are some things that employers should be doing to have their light on correctly so that they're really attracting? Because that's hard. It was frustrating how many people... Are you using AI on the call right now with me? Are you literally? You're not even answering the question, you're reading the answer.

Megan Applegate 31:30  

Oh my gosh, yeah, that's hard. I have a lot of clients that started utilizing video more than anything else. And again, I know I could still be reading AI somewhere in this office, right? But we are making people do a lot more video interviews so that you cannot hide behind the phone and things like that. People can see you. We've had clients that are insisting that the candidate basically record themselves for 30 seconds to a minute so that they can send in a video that is not necessarily anything to do with the job, but like, "Who are you? Do you have a personality? Would you fit in? And why would you potentially want to work for us?" And I'll be honest, the candidates are pushing back. They're like, "Wait a second." And I get it a little bit, because we don't want anyone to think that someone's hiring on appearance, right? Because that's the danger zone.

Lesley Logan 32:49  

Yes, correct.

Megan Applegate 32:50  

But at the same time, you will eventually be in person with somebody if you're good at interviewing, and you shouldn't just hire somebody over the phone like that. I do see that's where things are going, where they're almost not giving a chance, they have to be in person, they have to show their personalities in order to be vetted, to even be accepted. And getting away... it's one thing to have the technical piece of it, you got to have these platforms, you got to know this, you got to know this. But I think gone are a lot of the predictive index personality tests that you take, and it just says whether you're a great score or not, which I'm just like, man, those suck, right? Why? But anyways, I think that people are going away from that and just trying to get a little bit more personal.

Lesley Logan 33:55  

Yeah. I love that. For a lot of the work that we've had to hire, sometimes it's just a project-based thing, if people won't get on a camera with us, it's like, "Well, I can't hire you, because how do I know you're the one doing it? How do I know you're not outsourcing it to something else?" I don't want just random people working with me; I want to be working with the person I'm working with. And so that has been an interesting thing, how many people are like, "Oh yeah..." and it's like, "Okay, then no." So, on the job descriptions, we'll do an interview, you have to answer me on camera these things, because we don't want to waste anyone's time. I don't want to waste time with, "Oh, fill this out." And then I will say, for us, we still do a StrengthsFinder test, but after we are pretty sure we're gonna hire them. Because we actually just want to know what are your top five strengths, just so we can fit. Especially if you're my assistant, you cannot have the same strengths as me, because it's not gonna work out.

Megan Applegate 34:53  

Yeah, no, and I think that's a great approach. One of the companies I work with actually utilizes that when we're looking for recruiters. They're like, make us do something similar, but it's based on the recruiter approach of what makes a good recruiter, right?

Lesley Logan 35:15  

Yeah.

Megan Applegate 35:15  

So it's not a break or make; it's like, "Here's how to manage this person.

Lesley Logan 35:20  

Yes.

Megan Applegate 35:21  

Based on their personalities.

Lesley Logan 35:22  

Yes.

Megan Applegate 35:23  

Based on whether they're more extrovert, or they're more systems-driven compliance, or are they just gonna do whatever they want." So I think that there's definitely value in that, as long as it's truly not a make or break. I have a client we're working with right now where they have to take the assessment first, and that will determine whether they even get their first interview.

Lesley Logan 35:47  

I think that's terrible, because I'm a terrible test taker, so that would make me very nervous to get past that to get to the interview. I think I would be better after I did the interview, once I knew you don't want to know the person, anyways. 

Megan Applegate 36:01  

Hopefully there was so much to be said, you know. We go in a million different directions, but real quick, when you get to the actual interview side of this whole strategy here, I mean, there's so much to be said about personality, how you can connect with people, how you can make yourself memorable, how you can leave impressions, and people will make decisions on that over anything else.

Lesley Logan 36:27  

You are 100% correct. 

Lesley Logan 36:28  

I'm definitely someone, I had to give myself a rule of 24 hours. I have to wait 24 hours because I would just get wooed by people. I need 24 hours because the thing that bothered me about them will come to me in 24 hours. But can we real quick, for people who are interviewing, who get nervous, who have sweaty palms... we already know that if you have a confident stance you're more likely to get the job, but also, are there things people should not say in an interview?

Megan Applegate 37:01  

The only thing I tell people not to say is just don't bad mouth the last employer. Don't place blame, don't say, "We didn't make this because of this person." Nobody wants to hear that, even if you have horror stories and you really want somebody to truly understand and feel for you about what you've been through with your last job. It's kind of a gimme, but you can't do anything like that. Everything has to be positive. And I think sometimes, especially if it's a bad situation, the less you say the better. People are so scared to go in and be like, "But I was fired," or, "Something happened," and I'm like, let them ask you about it, don't bring it up. And then when they do, you state a fact, and then hopefully you point the direction and you move past it. You don't state the fact and then give the laundry list of why. If they want to know, they'll keep asking, and you just have to keep being truthful, honest, transparent, and not placing blame. If you did something wrong, say it, but you are the only one that's seeing that fear there. If you can just be like, "I am gonna say what it is, and then we're just gonna move on," I think that helps a little bit.

Lesley Logan 38:33  

Yeah, because also it's not like the people who hire you haven't experienced either losing a job or exiting a job. They're human beings too, you know what I mean? They've had people that they love that they hired that got fired, these things happen. So I think that's about not letting it be, "Oh, let me over-explain this thing."

Megan Applegate 38:55  

It goes back to their resume too. People get really specific about numbers and details, and I'm like, "I need metric-driven information to make it seem like you've got solutions and you're solving problems and all this stuff," which is proven to help people with resumes. But they'll be like, "I don't know about 15% or was it 30%?" and I'm like, nobody will fact-check you, I promise. Don't overthink it. No one is going to be like, "I'm going to call and I'm going to find out if this is true or not." Don't lie—I don't mean that. Don't inflate where it's like, "Really? I question that." But it's more of a psychological impression. You just have to get out of your own way sometimes around that and meet me in the middle, is all I'm saying. Don't be too much this way, and don't be too much this way. You have to be in the middle.

Lesley Logan 39:58  

Megan, what are you most excited about right now?

Megan Applegate 40:02  

I am most excited about starting to potentially think about building my own team with the career coach side. I don't think I fully mentioned this before, but the first piece of what I do with recruiting is with Gecko Hospitality. It's a national, recruiting, hospitality-specific firm, and it's a franchise model, which is how I got into it. It was a little bit easier when I first started the business for North Carolina and Missouri. And then from that, four years in, came the baby of this second business, coming into the resume writing and the career coaching and that side of, "Oh my gosh, there's so much that people don't know, I need to help them." So that piece of it, I'm starting to get to the point where I'm ready to build a little bit of a team there. So that's exciting.

Lesley Logan 41:01  

That's so cool. I'm like, "Oh my god, I'm not even looking for a job, and I want help with my resume from you."

Megan Applegate 41:10  

I'm sure you went through this too years ago, of just like, "Okay, I can't handle this anymore," and recognizing that starting a business from the ground up, there's so many things to do. You have to know what you're good at and what you're not good at, and figure how to hire people, or at least get help with those things. It took me a long time to realize that; I was just like, "I can do it all." No, you can't.

Lesley Logan 41:33  

And also, you have to do it all sometimes so that you can hire the right people for it. But also, in order to grow, you've got to, unless you just like it where it's at. But if you want it to be more, you want to help more people, and I actually feel like we're at a place where you're going to have more people who are going to need help with their resumes of standing out. Because with the changes and the companies that are adopting AI, people are going to need to really be thinking about what other things they can highlight that they've done, because there's a ton of stuff that AI cannot do well, you know.

Megan Applegate 42:09  

Absolutely. They can put a well-structured sentence together, but what information do they have to be able to do that? And then you don't sound real, and that's a problem, like you said.

Lesley Logan 42:25  

I was watching some ads, and I was like, "AI wrote that," because no one talks like that. No one actually goes "however," and no one says "quippy" in everything that they say. This one girl on Instagram was like, "Oh, I love what you're saying," but you are reading a script that you ran through AI with your idea, and I think I would have just liked your raw idea, because I would have been able... you know what I mean? I would feel like I was talking to a girlfriend; I feel like I'm talking to a bot. Anyways, oh my gosh, well, I'm so excited for you. We're gonna take a brief break and find out how people can work with you and get their resume helped, and their career coaching and all that stuff, and then your Be It Action Items.

Megan Applegate 42:56  

Awesome.

Lesley Logan 42:57  

Okay, Megan, where do you hang out? If we've got people who are like, "I should start talking to her now, because I don't know where things are gonna be next year," where can they work with you?

Megan Applegate 43:05  

LinkedIn, as we talked about, is probably the best place to find me. I've got a couple different businesses, but just find me, Megan Applegate, on LinkedIn. My Instagram handle is @dreamjobahead, and my website is careerblueprintsolutions.com so, those are the three areas.

Lesley Logan 43:22  

I love it. I love it. We'll link everything below, you guys. This is definitely an episode I know people are going to send to friends, because everyone has a friend who is needing this help right now. You've given some really great strategies, actually. But we love to end with a bold, executable, intrinsic, or targeted step people can take to be it till they see it. What do you have for us?

Megan Applegate 43:40  

I think we kind of talked about some of it, but if you want my four tips in terms of actually being ready for a job, I would say understand where you want to go, that is number one. Actually go out and figure out, "Okay, I've been in this industry, do I want to stay, and if I do, where do I want to go?" Always understand where that next promotion is. Once you figure that out, go out onto the internet, find those job descriptions, save them, find the key language, the KPIs, the keywords, whatever you want to call it, figure out what they're saying they need and the problems that they solved. Then go to LinkedIn and find two to three people on LinkedIn that have that job, look through their profile, and hopefully it's pretty complete, and figure out what they're doing. Then you have to go and update your resume and your LinkedIn profile to signal where people can find you so they'll call you for that next role.

Lesley Logan 44:47  

So doable. Like, actually doable, one step at a time. One step leads to the next step, you can't skip ahead, and then you're gonna turn your light on. 

Megan Applegate 44:56  

Turn your light on, be visible. Absolutely, love that term. I'm gonna start utilizing that now.

Lesley Logan 45:05  

Is it Roxanne? "You don't have to turn your light on," that's the wrong song. There's another song. Brad will tell us what it is on the recap. Megan, you are a gem. I really do appreciate this, because I've had so many people come on and tell people, "Go and follow your dreams, follow your bliss," but some people, their bliss is working for companies and being in a role and doing the good work. This is the first time I've been able to really support them in actionable strategy, so I just want to say thank you for being you and being the blueprint career coach that you are. I feel so grateful. My loves, we already said it, but I'm gonna say it again: send this to a friend who needs to hear it. Leave a review for this podcast. Go check out Megan Applegate's website and her on LinkedIn, that's a great way to start your LinkedIn journey. 

Megan Applegate 45:54  

Go find me and then copy what I did.

Lesley Logan 45:56  

Yeah, there you go. Sometimes that's the way to do it, right? It's already done, you can just follow along. If you have questions about this, feel free to let us know; I'll happily send them off to Megan. We'll connect you, but you guys, you don't have to sit there and wait for something to happen. You can actually start making changes before you're ready, and that is exactly what Being It Till You See It is. So, thank you so much, Megan. And until next time, everyone, Be It Till You See It.

Lesley Logan 46:22  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 47:05  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 47:10  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co. 

Brad Crowell 47:14  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 47:21  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 47:24  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time. 

In this Fuck Yeah Friday episode, Lesley Logan makes the case for celebrating the small stuff instead of holding your wins hostage until everything feels perfect. She shares an honest rant about technology that overpromises, a candid retirement-planning win with Brad, and a listener who finished all ten Spring Training classes. She digs into why tiny, bite-sized celebrations are what actually turn good intentions into habits. It is a warm, grounded reminder that the thing you just did is already worth honoring.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.

In this episode you will learn about:

• How modern tech overpromises while quietly making life harder.
• What Lesley and Brad's real retirement plan looks like.
• The listener streak that shows why consistency wins.
• Where confidence support actually comes from, and why.
• Why holding your celebrations hostage backfires on you.

Episode References/Links:

• 634 ft Gregg Lunceford - https://beitpod.com/ep634
• 481 ft Steve Selengut - https://beitpod.com/ep481
• 352 ft Tess Waresmith - https://beitpod.com/ep352
• @lmarieinsta - https://www.instagram.com/lmarieinsta
• Submit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questions

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSI

DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipment

Check out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper’s Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipment

Be in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlist

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-survey

Be a part of Lesley’s Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/

FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/

Resources:

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Lesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/
• Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQ
• Profitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/

Follow Us on Social Media:

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/
• The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilates
• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/
• The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses

Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

It's Fuck Yeah Friday. 

Brad Crowell 0:01  

Fuck yeah. 

Lesley Logan 0:02  

Get ready for some wins. Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. 

Lesley Logan 0:48  

Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It podcast. This is our Fuck Yeah Friday. This is where we share some wins, we get some mantras, we get to just be in each other's lives a little bit. I want to know what's going on with you. Send it to me, right? Send me in your wins, send me what you're working on. Send us the topics that you're wanting us to do solo episodes on, or get some interviews on. Also, I just want to say thank you to those of you who have bought flash cards or joined OPC recently, because your support of OPC is what powers this podcast. So, if you have not checked out what we have at OPC, we've got some really great work and get stuff for you, and so if you're Pi curious, Pilate's curious, we've got stuff for you, don't have to be a Pilates expert to join OPC, is for people who want access and accountability to their Pilates practice, and so big thank you, big shout out to all of you. 

Lesley Logan 1:33  

Okay, maybe I should welcome OPC members who join, who are Be It Pod listeners, I don't know if I should do that, but maybe you should do that, maybe we should do a little shout out, so you can hear your name. It's fun to hear your name. It's fun to hear your name on a podcast, especially this one, because it's top 1% podcast, right? Okay, so my "I need a moment" is that I'm currently sitting on my phone because it won't stop dinging, even though it's on do not disturb, and my frustration and my rant is, okay, what? What is Do Not Disturb for if I get disturbed on it, and it's like, oh, well, if your favorite, so your favorite thing get through, because, of course, I want my husband to get through, but then it dings on him texting me, and it's like, well, why, why are you doing this? I do Do Not Disturb for a reason, so how do I get to totally turn off, but then you can't have it turned off, because what if someone has an emergency? Then Brad did something to his phone, so nothing gets through, which means literally there was one day when our websites went down, his sister and I are trying to call him, and I'm doing the double call, and all this stuff. We got to the point where I almost sent my father to the house to wake him up, because we're like, "We need to talk to you, and we couldn't get through. So I'm annoyed that Do Not Disturb work so badly that my husband has turned his phone to a place where we can't even call through, and it doesn't work at all for me, and that my phone is beeping, and I have to sit on it. Why do this podcast? Because in those last episodes, you probably heard it dinging, and I apologize for that. That's annoying. But, why? The thing about technology that pisses me off is, don't tell me it's great, and it's making my life easier when it's making my life shitty. You know what I mean? But then, if we don't have it, then it's like, well, that's gonna suck, right? That will totally suck.

Lesley Logan 3:06  

So, anyway, all right, now a win, because if you get to complain, you have to have a win, and when you're not, we talked about this last week, the win does not have to be in the same complaint, doesn't have to be from that, because that I don't want to talk, I want to be like, oh, so and so died, but the win in it is, that's terrible shit, that's not it at all. My win is Brad and I adulted, we talked with our wealth managers, and things are looking good, and that's, you know, that's nice, because it doesn't feel like the world is doing well, and I am an elder millennial, and I want to be an elder millennial who gets to retire like I am, I want to retire, not today, don't freak out, but I want to be someone who gets to retire, that feels like a great.. we don't.. we've had guests on this podcast who talk about having your retirement persona. Let me tell you what it is. It is owner of a compound with my Golden Girl lifestyle, and all of my DINCs, dual income, no children couples, each having their own motel room, and then we have this massive Pilates studio slash gym, massive restaurant-style kitchen that we all get to cook in, so no one has to cook in their place, and no one has to have all these different, they just have a, their motel room is like their their place of living, their personal space, but then we have all these communal spaces we can take care of each other, because who else is going to take care of us? So, my win is that we're at least investing in a way that I was going to allow us to retire someday, more money would be better, but we're doing pretty good, considering what's going on in the world today. So, that's a nice win. 

Lesley Logan 4:36  

So, now let me pull my phone out, so I can read one of yours. This is @lmarieinsta. I did all 10 Spring Training classes, and joined OPC! That's insane. @lmarieinsta, way to go. 10 classes, huge. I watched the ones that I wasn't in because I had to do the thing, and if you did, those were hard. Way to go, way to do all 10, proud of you. See, you guys, that's a win, right? When you're like, I committed to something, and I'm going to do what I can, and then you celebrate that you did it. We've got to normalize celebrating that you did the thing you want to do. It doesn't mean that you did this, shouldn't make a massive project, like I'm into spring training, and I'm celebrating that I did the spring training. That's the thing, right? Some of you are holding yourself hostage on celebrations that you're like, "I don't get to celebrate that I signed up for this language class until I can speak fluently. No, you have to celebrate, you signed up for it, you have to celebrate that you went to it, to celebrate that you quizzed yourself on it, to celebrate that you study a little extra, you have to celebrate these things. That's what makes them habits. That's why we do this. It's why we celebrate. So you get a little dopamine high, and then it makes it easier to do more things for yourself. People are always seeking out confidence support. You want to know where confidence support comes from? From doing the thing that you said you would do, and that's why you got to make it small. You got to make it bite-sized. You got to make it things that you can do. 

Lesley Logan 5:54  

So, your mantra: I am a reflection of love and kindness. I am a reflection of love and kindness, a reflection of love and kindness. Yes, you are. All right, Be It babe. Thanks so much for listening. I hope you are loving these Friday episodes. If you have any questions about OPC, what we do there, our flash cards, how to use them, you can go to onlinepilatesclasses.com or you can reach out to us. We'll be happy to answer them. We have phone numbers you can chat to. Okay, until next time, Be It Till You See It.

Lesley Logan 6:24  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 7:06  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 7:11  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 7:16  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 7:23  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 7:26  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

In part one of this two-part safety series, Lesley Logan digs into why so many people tie their sense of safety to the money in their bank account. She traces where that wiring comes from, unpacks the difference between financial security and real emotional safety, and gets honest about the seasons every business and every life moves through. With warmth and a few hard-won stories, she offers a grounded way to feel steady.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.

In this episode you will learn about:

• The 1974 credit law that still shapes women today.
• Why one slow week can make you feel like sinking.
• Where real safety lives when the money disappears.
• How broken promises to yourself erode your confidence.
• Reframing a hard season as evidence of a new season.

Episode References/Links:

• Ep 352 ft Tess Waresmith - https://beitpod.com/ep352
• Ep 649 ft Tess Waresmith - https://beitpod.com/ep649
• Ep 53 ft Launa Jae - https://beitpod.com/ep53
• The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks - https://a.co/d/0aNfSwP7
• Submit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questions

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSI

DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipment

Check out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper’s Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipment

Be in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlist

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-survey

Be a part of Lesley’s Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/

FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/

Resources:

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Lesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/
• Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQ
• Profitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/

Follow Us on Social Media:

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/
• The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilates
• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/
• The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses

Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

What we have to do is find a paradigm shift, and move away from I feel safe and my bank account is X, to I feel safe right now because I know how to navigate whatever comes. 

Lesley Logan 0:05  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast, where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained 1000s of people around the world, and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity, and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring bold, executable, intrinsic, and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and be it till you see it. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. 

Lesley Logan 0:44  

All right, Be It Babe. Welcome back to our safety series. Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed a little discussion about money and certainty and security, and where it actually comes from, and what's going on, and all these different things. And I hope we can have a great conversation about it, so you can send in any aha moments, wonders, wins, to the Be It Pod at beitpod.com/questions. Also, DM us on Instagram and let us know what your takeaways are, or if you have more questions that you want us to do a third episode or fourth episode on this. 

Lesley Logan 1:31  

Alright, so today we're going to talk about becoming your own safe harbor, and that's just because, again, we talked about how it's so easy for us to put safety and security in what our bank account says. And for good reason, we know money makes the world go round and you have to have it to pay your bills and to be in a safe place, and so yes to all those things, and also really understanding what is secure and safe to you, so that on those bad bank days you don't just throw everything out the window and go "I suck at all of this." And I think this podcast, a lot of things stem from confidence, either having it or not. And what is important is that I think it's really tricky how self-confidence actually works because it comes, as I mentioned last episode, from doing the things you said you would do. So, I think some people look at someone like me and they go, "She's so confident," and then you think, "Oh, she knows this is going to work out." And actually, what if confidence was not that everything will work out, but knowing you can handle it even if it doesn't? That is the type of confidence I want you to have, because that's where I think security and safety really come. And I will just say, I know we have a lot of listeners at all different ages, we have a lot of young listeners, and so you might be at a different point in your life where you haven't had a lot of bad days that you've survived yet, or maybe you've had, I definitely did, but there's still this feeling that when bad things happen, they're the worst things in your life. And I'm over 40, and I know a lot of listeners here are over 40, and we have survived a lot. We have survived 100% of our bad days, as I've said in the last episode. Some of you have survived divorces, a lot of you just survived grief, career pivots, parenting challenges, health changes, and so I actually wanted to say, because you've survived all those things, I don't think you have to go find more self-trust, more confidence. I think you can remember you had it, you have it. I think it's about going, "Oh my god, there she is, there it is. I put it in the back of the closet over there, I forgot." You know, and so I think my first homework assignment for you from this episode, to get a strategy around how amazing you are, to have certainty and the safety that you are amazing, is look back at your history, go down memory lane, get out the data if you own your own business and look at how much you have done, look at the adaptability that you have. We tend to look back and think of all the good stuff, and so then when bad stuff happens, we don't want to go back there because it hurts or it stings. But if we go, "Whoa, I survived that." You guys, like I've talked about on the pod a few times, I don't think you guys realize I truly did leave someone, became without an address, couch surfed, totaled my car, then found out the studio that I rented space where I made my income was closing. Oh my god, I should have felt the most unsafe in that moment.

Lesley Logan 4:16  

And I was like, "Oh no, I've been here before," because I had been homeless before, and what I actually just need to do is figure out where the studio is going to be, so then I can find the apartments, then I can get a car. That's all. I made a plan. So you got to go back and you got to look at the data of what you have survived, so you can see that you can do this, you can do anything, and also most of the bad things that happen are never as bad as the worst things we've had. But we conflate them, we catastrophize them, and so they all feel as the same bad, but they're not. So I hope that little trip down my memory lane helps you realize I'm not the only resilient one here on this podcast. You are, you have survived 100% of your bad days. And if you would just pat yourself on the back, that's why we do FYFs, celebrate the wins of what you survived, because you learn something from it every single time, right? You don't do things the same way. 

Lesley Logan 5:33  

I also know that many of you listening to this podcast are do-it-all-yourself, and that feels safe to you, and I am that person. I'll just do it myself, and then it will get done the way I want, and then it'll be perfect, and I will have certainty and security and safety. But the reality is that we end up not trusting anybody when that happens. We think we have so much self-trust that we're the ones who can do it, and then we trust no one, and then we become actually more and more alone, and that is not necessarily what creates safety. That does not create long-lasting confidence, and I'm not saying that you have to have a business partner or a life partner, or anything, you can hire people, or you can ask for help, or, if you like a book, join a book club. There's just different things we can do so that we are not just doing everything all ourselves all of the time, because there's just too much in one life for anyone to do. Maybe you actually leverage AI to help you with the things you need to do. People are always better, but also, if you want to feel safe and secure, if you have these emotional up and down roller coasters where you just feel like you have certainty and uncertainty, chances are you might be trying to do it all yourself, and it's exhausting. You not only don't have anyone to trust in doing something, but then you start developing this inability to trust people. 

Lesley Logan 6:26  

And then another thing that is affecting us, if we are hyper-independent type people, we're in that trap, is we actually can get into a place of, "What if I lose everything?" We start to panic, and then we go back to that catastrophizing situation, and we worry, and it actually doesn't prevent anything bad from happening, but it does ruin your present moment. I had an incredible interview with an astrologer, Aleks Ceho, and we actually talked about intuition and how you can have an intuitive thought and bad things could still happen, but that doesn't mean your intuition was wrong. It means you heard your intuition and it gave a warning. Does it mean that you should have heard it a split second sooner? No, you listened, right? So it's just really important that we don't allow the worry of what could happen keep us from what is happening and enjoying that, because if we don't enjoy it, we don't learn from it, and then we don't have the muscle we need for when the bad shit happens. All right, that's how it goes. 

Lesley Logan 7:27  

So, we've had a couple of somatic experts on the podcast, Lauren Zoeller and Keri Ford, and if you are really into somatics, they are experts, you should go listen to their episodes. But I can tie it into Pilates, right? So, if you do Pilates correctly, you should not feel tension anywhere, because tension just creates rigidity. But you should feel connection, and connection to our muscles allows us to have flexibility and stability, right? So, our center creates some stability so that we can move our limbs, or our limbs help create stability so we can move our center. And so I think it's really important that safety is not the same as rigidity. In fact, a lot of us are thinking that tension and rigidity and these strict rules, "I'm going to do it all myself, no one can help me," it actually does quite the opposite. And what is rigid will eventually break, but what is connected can bend, right? Can flow and move with it. 

Lesley Logan 8:38  

I definitely can think back to a few times where my trying to control everything and how it went out just caused not only more stress on me, but just more stress on the people of my team because I could not articulate what was needed, because I was in such a fear state that I was actually just talking about what could happen versus what I wanted to happen. And so I will just say, if you keep talking, if you hear yourself talking about what could happen, what could happen, you are not focused on doing the things for what you want to happen. And so then guess what happens: the thing that could happen, because that's where your focus was, right? We had Brad Bizjak on the podcast, I think he brought this up on a podcast, where the most car accidents are in the rural areas and they hit a light pole, but there's hundreds of feet between light poles. How is this happening? Because they're focused on not hitting the light pole. Right? I want us to get out of the hyper-independence trap and actually move into some rituals for finding safety, that safe harbor. If you listened to the habit series, you know I like little tiny habits. So I want you to create micro-promises. I love the messy action, you're not not taking that, but you're not going big and bold and seeing what sticks to the wall. You're actually going to want to be taking tiny little actions, messy, right? Like, "I'm gonna do this thing and see how it goes," but instead of making this big all-or-nothing thing that can feel scary, especially if you're listening and you're over 40. If you're in your 20s, you can go big and bold and have the most fun, you should. If you're over 40 and you're like, "That stuff kind of scares me when you say that, Lesley," I feel you. That messy action doesn't have to be like quit everything. You don't have to quit it all. You can take a little micro-promise, you can make one little tiny action step today and see what that unveils and reveals. In episode 305, he said you can't see the whole staircase, but you can see the first step and you take it. So, take the first step, the first little action that you can know. It shows the next one, and then you'll start to see that you have the security that you're looking for to take more action and really build that trust in yourself, especially if you don't have it right now. Especially if you're like, "I wish I had the self-trust that you have." Well, then you have to take baby actions, you know, not the biggest mess, the tiny one, tiny, tiny. 

Lesley Logan 11:07  

You also have to make sure you're taking time to regulate your nervous system. Talked about this before, like oh my gosh, sometimes you feel stuck, but you just have a dysregulated nervous system. Well, sometimes you feel nervous, feels unsafe, but you have a nervous system that's picking up on something. And I said it in the last episode, but you have to actually have non-negotiable daily practices for yourself that allow you to feel safe and secure. And I wouldn't do fluffy shit, I wouldn't go, "I'm safe, I'm secure." No, what makes you feel that way?

Lesley Logan 11:38  

Does it make you feel safe to have a wonderful bedroom that has no phones in it, that has the right lights at night, that you shut the door? What makes you feel safe and secure? Does it make you feel safe and secure if you check the bank account every day or once a week? What are the things that you need to do so you can actually ground down, right? And if you need even more, then there's somatic work you can do. So there's logistical, like financial check-ins, lock the door, have a friend that knows where you're at at all times, and then there's the somatic one, which is like maybe doing some breathwork or Pilates every day, something that moves your body that takes the stress out of your brain and your body, and connects your mind and body back together. It's really easy to tell ourselves some funky stuff in our brains, right? 

Lesley Logan 12:23  

So, what we have to do is ultimately find a paradigm shift and move away from I feel safe when my bank account is X to I feel safe right now because I know how to navigate whatever comes, right? We have to really understand that there are going to be things that happen, and maybe it's not a bank account that makes you feel unsafe, but maybe it's a phone ringing, or maybe it's someone asking for a meeting but not telling you what it's for. There are so many different things that can all of a sudden make us feel like our boat, which was in a safe harbor, is now in a storm all of a sudden. So we, one, have to know what those things are about ourselves. For one of you it could be a bank account, for another it's a boss, for another it's a mentor. There are these different things that could happen that really just immediately dysregulate us and make us feel unsafe. So, if you know yourself, then you can go, okay, so then, what are the things that I can look to to be my north star, to be my compass, to be my anchor? What are those things? Because what ultimately will happen when you have those touchpoints is that you actually will stop fearing uncertainty, and you will finally have freedom to do all of the things you want to do, whatever that is. 

Lesley Logan 13:40  

Because the reality is that we have six needs as humans: we need certainty and we need uncertainty. And my ADHD people, you need uncertainty, you love a little bit of change. I'm ADHD, so I need certainty, and I don't like it, I want everything to be exactly the same, and I want it to be different all of the time. And so just so you know, this was a really hard, hard thing. I think I had to hit my rock bottoms a few times so that I could actually go, "Whoa, I have survived 100% of hard days." And if I want to move this company to where I want it to be, if I want to be as big as it can be, if I want to have the impact that I want to have, which is impacting tens of thousands of people who love Pilates, then I cannot feel unsafe when shit hits the fan. I cannot, because it will just ruin my dreams. I will not ever get there. I hope this helps. I really do. And one last thing that really helps me is like just sometimes when you say things out loud, even to yourself: I feel very unsafe right now. I feel very worried right now. I feel this. And then you go, why? And if you start talking to yourself about those things, you start to realize, oh wait, hold on, there's this thing over there, this thing over here.

Lesley Logan 15:00  

And if you, oh my god, send in wins and you hear them on Fridays with me on a shitty day, you might just hear about a win you had and go, "Oh wait a minute, this bad thing's happening, but I had that thing happen there, I forgot." So all of a sudden you go from feeling unsafe and uncertain to feeling very secure and having that self-trust reminder. I want to do that for you, so send in your wins to beitpod.com/questions if you have topics you would like these little episodes to go into, please ask. If you want to talk more about one of the things that I said in these two episodes. Ask so that I know, and I'll make another episode. We'll go deeper. These are for you. They're definitely not for me. I talk to myself all day, my loves. So I want these to be for you. I want these to change your life. I want these to support you in everything that you're doing, because you're doing everything well. You're doing a great job. You're doing better than you give yourself credit for, and the world needs you. You are the only person who can do what you do the way that you do it. All right, until next time. Be It Till You See It. 

Lesley Logan 15:54  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 16:36  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 16:41  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 16:46  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 16:53  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 16:56  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

In part one of this two-part safety series, Lesley Logan digs into why so many people tie their sense of safety to the money in their bank account. She traces where that wiring comes from, unpacks the difference between financial security and real emotional safety, and gets honest about the seasons every business and every life moves through. With warmth and a few hard-won stories, she offers a grounded way to feel steady.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.

In this episode you will learn about:

• The 1974 credit law that still shapes women today.
• Why one slow week can make you feel like sinking.
• Where real safety lives when the money disappears.
• How broken promises to yourself erode your confidence.
• Reframing a hard season as evidence of a new season.

Episode References/Links:

• Ep 352 ft Tess Waresmith - https://beitpod.com/ep352
• Ep 649 ft Tess Waresmith - https://beitpod.com/ep649
• Ep 53 ft Launa Jae - https://beitpod.com/ep53
• The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks - https://a.co/d/0aNfSwP7
• Submit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questions

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Resources:

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Lesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/
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Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

Emotional safety and security comes from boundaries. Sometimes we blame it on the money, but it's really the people we're letting in our brains, letting rent space there, letting treat us a different way. So, you have to have some non-negotiables. You have to have daily practices that keep you grounded. So, no matter when the numbers fluctuate, you do these things anyways. 

Lesley Logan 0:19  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast, where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world, and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity, and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring bold, executable, intrinsic, and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and be it till you see it. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Lesley Logan 1:02  

Hi, Be It babe. How are you? We're back with a solo series. This is going to be more of a safety series kind of a thing, but also talking about money and uncertainty. And I think I've had many of you in the DMs sharing how you're loving these solo episodes and sharing some of your wins and some of your questions and needs, and we thought that this would be a really fun series that we could probably build off of as time goes along. Where the series kind of starts is like, if you've ever looked at your bank account and then questioned your entire life, you're not alone, you're just not. The reality is that somehow we really conflated what is in our bank account with the certainty that we need in our life, and then we've equated uncertainty with feeling unsafe. This is not a money episode, although if you need to listen to some money episodes, our episodes with Tess Waresmith are amazing. But what I'm hoping that you get from today's episode and this two-part series is just that financial fluctuations are real, so you're not alone. It's totally normal to have that, and your financial fluctuations and personal safety are not always the same thing. They can be, and I understand, because not only have I been homeless, I have also seen what being unhoused over time can look like, and especially if you're a woman. So, I do understand that, but I do think it's important that we just have an honest conversation, maybe have a dialogue. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, because there's a lot of different reasons why financial security makes us feel secure when it's actually not. 

Lesley Logan 2:33  

In fact, in doing research for this episode, I was kind of like, I want to chat a bit about the history, especially in the States, but I think in most of the world, right? If you were a woman, you had to marry well so that you would have a house and, in air quotes, "safety and security." But if we read stories, we watch things like Game of Thrones, all these different things, we see historically how they treated women, but yet somehow we were conditioned that, well, that is the safe thing to do, and that's the safe thing to be in. The reality is, because women didn't have access to bank accounts, it was literally the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, women needed a male co-signer for credit. And so the reality is, like most of us listening to this, our mothers didn't even have access to their own credit card with their own name on it until they were probably sometime during the marriage to our parents or someone, right? So very few women had access to bank accounts. I had an eLevate member here who was sharing how her mother could not get money out of the bank account that her husband had to fix something because he was out of town, and this is like in the '50s and '60s, but that's not that far away.

Lesley Logan 3:46  

These are in the lifetimes of the people who raised us, and so, because of that upbringing in their minds, we have this generational feeling in our bones that money equals security. And so a lot of us, for better or for worse, have taken jobs or not taken jobs based on the security the money will give us, but that doesn't always mean that we are safe, right? That does not mean that the people that have that are going to treat you well, does not mean that that is the safest place for your personality and what your needs are. But I just want you to know, like, if you have that feeling and you're wondering, why can't I just let this go? Because I know there's money there. I know that I'm okay. I know that I have savings. I know this is a bad week, and this has nothing to do with who I am as a person. If you know that in your heart and it's hard to get into your head, you are not alone. It is this historical thing that we all have, and it's been raised into us. 

Lesley Logan 4:40  

I remember not thinking I wanted to date this one person, but all the women around me going, "Oh my god, he has a great job and a great car, he's got like a legitimate career path," because I was a retail girly, and so what kind of career path did I have? Right, that's what they're really saying, but I was too young to really get that. Another reason why we can have these feelings and conflate financial security with certainty and safety is like that idea of being a good girl, traditional conditioning, being polite, and don't talk about money. And so if we don't talk about money, then we don't know what other women are making in the same field, and so we don't know that in some areas we're being undercharged or underpaid. In fact, if you remember when the Sony emails were hacked, all these people were able to see how much the men were getting paid for less lines than the women were getting paid. What it really reveals is the men asked for money and women didn't, and the women weren't asking other people what they were getting paid, so they didn't know that there was more money to ask for. Because we have to be the good girl, and if we're asking, then there must be something nefarious about asking, and so we then are conditioned to be polite, right? 

Lesley Logan 5:46  

And so, if we go against that conditioning, we become an entrepreneur, we work for ourselves, we can constantly feel like we are in friction with society, like, "Ooh, am I allowed to negotiate? Am I allowed to charge more than other people? Am I allowed to have these boundaries, or should I just be grateful that these clients will pay what I want?" So then they can say that they want to come at a different time, and all of that stuff goes through our heads, and so you're just not alone, right? So this brings us to the brain and the business and the worth, but I know not all of you are working for yourself, so I want to just honor that you might be an employee, and there is some security in that, right? Like, our financial institutions definitely believe that if you have a W-2, you are more safe to give a loan to than someone like me. And I get so frustrated, not because I'm jealous of you or anything like that, we all have our different things that are going to work best for us. So, there's nothing wrong with being an employee versus being an entrepreneur. You should do what is right for you, but it does make me laugh that the bank thinks that's more secure when I know I can bet on myself, and companies can let go of people at any time. So we fool ourselves into what is technically, in air quotes, "safe" versus what could be safe, and it might be safer to be in a job, so just know that I'm not saying that. But in life every single day, there are these little tricks we play to make us think, "Oh, I'm safe now that I have this, now I'm safe," right? And we're not really getting to the root of what is safety, what is it, right? 

Lesley Logan 7:10  

So let's get into some brain, business, and worth stuff. Entrepreneurship, most people in our lives have told us how it is the most uncertain thing, and it is. I'm just going to tell you right now, absolutely everything is, none of us are actually psychic, unless you are, right? So, the reality is, it doesn't matter if you work for yourself or someone else, it is uncertain always what's going to happen tomorrow. We don't know. And so I wanted to say, being a small business owner is really hard. It's fucking hard to compete with companies that have way more money, and also in the way that the customers expect a small business to be, because these big businesses can have your stuff within four hours to your house, and I have to take four days, right? And I have to charge you for shipping, and they don't, and so it's really hard, right? And so you can feel like you're constantly two steps forward, seven steps back, three steps forward, two steps back. You're just like, oh my god, sometimes you feel like you're just treading water and going backwards.

Lesley Logan 8:07  

Revenues do fluctuate, like clients change and seasons shift, and the thing is, no matter what business you're in, people are always like, "What's the safest thing?" It's like, what are you talking about? Every single business has a season, we as humans have seasons, the earth, the universe has seasons. So, there are seasons for harvest, and there are seasons for planting, and there are seasons for rest, which means the money is not going to be the same all the time, right? And so, then, until you can get to a place where you can trust in yourself and the seasons, you end up in this nervous system trap where your brain reads the vibes of a slow financial month as just physical danger, right? And our brain is primed to prioritize survival, and that's not a good long-term strategy, because what ends up happening is you will constantly be doing these random things to get money versus taking time from a regulated nervous system space to make decisions on your business that will help with the long haul. I had a business coach who told me this. She said, "Your business should be boring. This is not a place where you get entertainment." And so getting to have a boring business is really great, but the boring business that I have means that I know that April is a terrible financial month for us when it comes to income, and so is July. They just suck, and if we don't have great months going into April, and then between April and July, we could be fucked, right? And so we can scramble, and we've had that happen, because there are years that are just, oh my god, thank god for this year, and there are years going, "Okay, am I going to keep doing this?" But what we have to make sure with our nervous systems is that we're never just going off of vibes, we do need to make sure we're going off the data. And if your bank account is saying zero, then we actually need to go into the data of what brought your bank account there to zero. Oh, you invested in yourself. Oh, you paid this thing out, but this is coming in next week. Sometimes we forget that we planned for it, right? So, scarcity versus fact is something else we need to just take a moment.

Lesley Logan 10:13  

That brings us to that. So, like, it's really easy to catastrophize a shitty situation and jump like, "Well, that's gonna make that bad, and then that's gonna go bad." We're not gonna have time for that. And I definitely do this. If you have read The Big Leap, you know that one of the best ways to get yourself out of your genius zone is to worry. And when you take the shitty issue that you have of, "Oh, my bank account isn't reading the way I want," and then you catastrophize it, not only do you create doom and gloom loop stories, it makes it really hard to look at the actual data. And the actual data might show, "Oh, all these bills got paid, I am debt-free in this area over here, and my paycheck comes in 48 hours." Okay, great, you are slaying, you are in fact the opposite of unsafe, you are so secure, right? But we can forget the things that we did, especially my ADHD, high-achieving, over-achieving, perfectionist people, it's really easy to forget the plan when we check something out and it just hits a little differently than we expected it to.

Lesley Logan 11:18  

And then we have to just also talk about, a lot of times as women, how we have been raised to feel worthy, as opposed to just knowing we are worthy, are very different things. You know, there is so much that we tie into our identity of like, are we a good sister, are we a good daughter, are we a good friend, are we helping the people in our house, all the unpaid caregiving labor that women do, especially the daughters listening. I do have an episode coming out with a statistician on good daughtering, but there's just so much unpaid labor. But then we wrap our identity on the revenue we create, but if most of our time is spent with unpaid things, then we think we're not worthy, but in fact we're the most worthy person that anyone in our life has. We are worth so much to them, but we don't feel that way, because we think our worth is tied into the revenue of what's in our bank account and not to what we bring to the table, which is probably just so much more.

Lesley Logan 12:04  

And by the way, the way that society is going right now, this is fucking awful, right? It's like every other day that I pull up my Instagram, and there's some guy who's shitting on some guy who should be shat on, to be honest, who's talking about like, you know, she needs to carry the bags and take care of all the things, and my work is having the response of bringing the money in. It's like that is not a team. I mean, yes, you've delegated tasks, but that's just not how it goes. And to be honest, I fear for that girl in that video that I saw. So he makes all the money, and then what? What do you get when he moves on to somebody else? There's no security in that, that's why it was so uncertain and so unsafe for women for so long, who could not get jobs, who could not have bank accounts, who could not have credit cards, who could not get their names on deeds, they were not safe at all, right? Because they couldn't leave their husband, because where were they going to go? How'd they get money? He could leave at any time, and they'd have nothing, right? And, by the way, he's not safe, a lot of people died mysteriously because divorce wasn't a possibility, right? So we have to remember, ladies, like we are so much more worthy than what we are being paid for because of the worth we bring to the people in our lives, what we do for them, right?

Lesley Logan 13:36  

So don't make your bank account a report card on your value, because that's not what it is. And you know, I feel this, 2023 was this weird year, because we had this server issue, a bot sent infinite traffic to one of our servers, and it overwhelmed our server, and then to get rid of the thing that that bot was attacking, it caused our website to run like it was 2005. And so we had to rebuild a 1,000-page website as quickly as possible, and it fucked with our SEO and all this stuff, and it cost so much money, because that was not what we were anticipating on spending money on. At the same time, we were trying to wrap up buying this house, so to make sure we had all this money in our bank, and it was just so stressful. We actually ended up having, and then we have to pay our taxes at the same time, because you pay your taxes so we could have the deed on the house, like all these different things were going on. And we had the money for the taxes, we were not expecting to build a website when we were planning for that, and so just all these things hit at once. And there was this one other unforeseeable bill that was not $100, it was like thousands of dollars. And it just in that moment when we're buying this house that I get to sit in and I love so much, I couldn't have felt more rich and poor at the same time. Like, I can afford this house, and yet every dime I have is gone to make all of this stuff keep going, and we did have to borrow and put a thing on it, and give it to pay our friends and family back, with interest. That's the right thing to do. And it can affect your self-worth. You can feel embarrassed about it, or you can go, "Wow, this is a fucking shitty time. I have a friend or family member who can help me. I'm going to do the right thing, and I'm going to be out of this," right? And so there's no reason to be embarrassed, and I'm still great friends with the people who helped me out through that time. That wasn't the first time in my life when I had to ask for help, and none of those things make my worth less, right? It just actually helped me through a tough time, and you would do that for someone else if you could, and there will be a time when you have to, right? 

Lesley Logan 15:44  

So the other thing when it comes to security and safety, and when you wrap it up with your money, my neurodivergent listeners, hello, I see you. We already live in overwhelm. There's already so much going on in our brain. Our brain is three steps ahead all the time, and so when you have some financial uncertainty, not only is it easier to go into catastrophe situations, but you can go there much faster than anybody else. You can amplify the heck out of it, and you could add shame and panic to that quicker than anybody. And the reality is that you have to fall into the data over the vibes, you have to pull yourself back. "Hold on, let's back it up, back it up. What is real? What do I know? What about this makes me feel unsafe, but what's actually true? What's the actual reality?" 

Lesley Logan 16:38  

And so, my perfectionists, that all-or-nothing mindset: "My business is failing." Just because you have a slow week. It's not failing. You're jt having a slow week. If you're in the first couple years of any project you're doing, you don't know the seasons yet, so it makes it really difficult. And if you are working for yourself or you're taking a hobby to be a side hustle, and you don't take the time to really get clear about your self-worth and what matters, and what is going to be something you can lean on for certainty in your business, and what will always be uncertain, and how you're going to handle getting the data so that you don't go off the vibes.

Lesley Logan 17:15  

If you don't do that stuff, you're just going to live in a constant state of emotional dysregulation and decision fatigue, and you're not going to actually be able to... you're not gonna have fun. I mean, I'm not saying that work is always fun, but it shouldn't make you feel like shit, right? Whether you're an employee for someone or you work for yourself, we have to figure out what are the actual things that I can say make me feel safe. How can I request those at my place of work or in my life if I work for myself? What numbers am I going to go off of so that I know what's going on, so that I have a bit more predictability, right? What will always be a little uncertain in this business? And where can I have certainty? Here's why I have certainty: I will show up every day and work hard. I'm so certain of that. I am so certain that I am very resourceful. If this shit hits the fan and spews it on the walls, I can find new ways of cleaning it up, even if every other tool is gone. Like, I am a resourceful person. I have certainty that the human that I am and the way that I put things out into the world, people will always want what I've got. Now, I have uncertainty in when they will want that. I have uncertainty in, if I put it out there, will people buy it? I have uncertainty of when people are gonna be ready for the thing I have to offer. All that's uncertain. I cannot predict when people are ready to buy. I can't choose the people who are ready to listen to this podcast, but I can predict that I will show up to work tomorrow, right? And so I think that's really important. 

Lesley Logan 18:47  

So that leads us into rewiring our brains for safety and those harder seasons, like we need a little toolkit. There's a difference between emotional safety and financial safety, they are two different things. And so while money can create stability, your emotional safety actually comes from internal self-trust, community, and boundaries. And I want to just talk about internal self-trust. That would be confidence. That's where a lot of people struggle the most, because they actually consistently, on little bitty things, failed to do what they said they were going to do. And because of those little tiny things, "I'm going to go for a walk in the morning. Oh, I'm going to get up and read this book. I'm going to journal..." and you don't do it, you are just carving out at your confidence, your self-trust, right? So it is important if you want to feel safe that you ditch the all-or-nothing mindset and commit to doing things that make you feel good in your life, or that you can do that are at doable dosages, right? Not like, "I'm going to work out every day for an hour" no one can say and do that, there's so many days I want to work, right? 

Lesley Logan 20:03  

So, also, emotional safety and security comes from boundaries. Sometimes we blame it on the money, but it's really the people we're letting in our brains, letting rent space there, letting treat us a different way. So, you have to have some non-negotiables, you have to have daily practices that keep you grounded, no matter when the numbers fluctuate, you do these things anyways. You guys, I have so much work on my plate, so many things that I am excited about and equally stressed about, and I do not start working on them any earlier than my day starts with work, because my non-negotiables have to happen so that I can do that with love, grace, energy, stamina, endurance, excitement.

Lesley Logan 20:46  

If I come out to those jobs out of fear, out of rush, out of like, "I gotta get this done," then, like, no. My daily practices that keep me grounded allow me to show up and have emotional security, so no matter what is going on with the finance of the businesses, I know that I can show up and move the needle forward in the direction it has to go. And then if you're like, "I have all those things, and I still see the bank account in a certain way," then we need a little bit of a gentle reframe, right? We need to say, "What if this season I'm in is not evidence of failure, but instead just evidence that I'm in a different season?" right? Like, this is just a different season. I'm out of the other season, I'm in the new season right now. What if we reframe how we feel about things, and go, "Okay, so I invested X, Y, and Z in this, and so because I made that investment..." as opposed to, "I spent, ...I made that investment, I now will have these things coming to me on these dates," and then tell them this is what I'm going to be doing, right? Like, we have to change how we talk about ourselves and talk to ourselves, and talk about what we're doing in a way that is not toxic and gaslighty, but actually a pick-me-up, actually makes you feel like things are possible. Because if you don't, you're never going to feel safe in anything you do, whether you work for yourself or other people. It's just not going to work. You're going to constantly feel like you're sabotaging yourself, right? There are seasons, there are ebbs and flows. It is a real thing. And so, if nothing changed in your life but what the money in the bank account is, then how would you be any less safe than you were the day before? 

Lesley Logan 22:26  

So, if you take nothing else away from our conversation today, I just want you to remember that your financial anxiety is not personal failure. It's part of a historical echo and a biological response, and you are building a system to help yourself in this world that wasn't built for us to have those systems, right? It's only in our generation that women are allowed to do the things that they're able to do, and so it is hard, and it is exhausting, and it is uncertain, and you're doing it, you're doing all the things. And so there are going to be days that feel like shit, but it doesn't mean you are shit. There's gonna be days that feel like failure, but you are not a failure. There are gonna be days that feel like they suck, but you don't suck, right? So, you have to take some time to write down what are the things that I can bet on, that I have certainty around, that I have security around. And when you're feeling like, "My bank account has shifted, and I'm fucked," you can look at those things and go, "Do I have these things still? Oh, I do. Okay, great. So, my bank account sucks, but I have all the things that I need right now." Knowing why we feel this way and why these things happen, it's helpful. It's half the battle. 

Lesley Logan 23:40  

So, I know most of us are over 40 here. I know we also have some young listeners, hello, babes, I'm happy you're here. And we don't just need mindset shifting, like, I hope that this got your mindset to shift, we are going to need a new framework for safety. We have spent decades thinking safety means controlling every variable and overfunctioning and building a fortress of hyper-independence. And I'm not going to take away your independence. I want all of you who want to just live your life of independence that way. But also, I want you to have wonderful, amazing relationships, and that means friends who lift you up. It doesn't have to be partners in life that support your amazing boundaries, that can help be that reminder that everything is okay when you forget. And what if true safety isn't about ensuring nothing ever goes wrong?

Lesley Logan 24:24  

I kind of really want to get us all to what if true safety is knowing that you are entirely capable of navigating it when it does, right? Like I said, I have certainty around, like, if shit hits the fan, I can be resourceful. I want that's the security I want for you. So, in our next episode, we are going to dive into part two of this conversation. We are shifting from the brain and the history to the somatic and the strategic, and so we're going to kind of just dismantle the trap of doing things all alone, even if you are all alone, so that you can feel like you are safe wherever your harbor is, even when your revenue is going to fluctuate. And I love this quote, and it comes, I've heard it many times, but I know we heard it on our podcast a few times, and one of them was Launa Jae, and it's, "You've survived 100% of your hardest days so far." You have. So we have to start trusting our track record. Until then, Be It Till You See It. 

Lesley Logan 25:18  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 26:00  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 26:05  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 26:09  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi..

Lesley Logan 26:17  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 26:20  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time. 

Lesley Logan's posters are showing up as knockoffs on Temu, and she has a few things to say about it. This Fuck Yeah Friday episode, she opens up about the frustrating side of building something people want to copy, then pivots to a hard-won win from a teacher training program she has been quietly building behind the scenes. It is the kind of week where she names what is frustrating and still finds the good happening alongside it.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.

In this episode you will learn about:

• Why complaining out loud does not cancel out a win.
• The frustrating reality of strangers profiting off your images.
• What six weeks inside a brand new program revealed.
• The mindset shift that lets you celebrate unfinished progress.

Episode References/Links:

• OPC Membership - onlinepilatesclasses.com
• OPC Flashcards - https://opc.me/flashcards
• Nevada SPCA - https://nevadaspca.org/
• Uplift Waitlist - xxll.co/uw
• @home_grown_pilates - https://instagram.com/home_grown_pilates
• Submit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questions

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSI

DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipment

Check out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper’s Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipment

Be in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlist

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-survey

Be a part of Lesley’s Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/

FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/

Resources:

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Lesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/
• Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQ
• Profitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/

Follow Us on Social Media:

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/
• The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilates
• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/
• The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses

Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

It's Fuck Yeah Friday.

Lesley Logan 0:01  

Fuck yeah. 

Lesley Logan 0:02  

Get ready for some wins. Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. 

Lesley Logan 0:48  

Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It podcast, my loves. It is our Fuck Yeah Friday episode, and this is our short and quick... it's that coffee chat with... although you're not with me, but I hope we're feeling like we're on a coffee chat. I'm going to share something I want to rant about, but then a win of mine, and then a win of yours. And the thing is, in life, you're going to complain. In life, there's going to be things you want to vent about. It's not toxic positivity to also see a win, not a win in the issue. I think that's where the toxic positivity is. I'm not saying you find a win in the problem that you're having, I'm saying you find a win that's happening in your life as well, and that's healthy, right? That's really, really good stuff. So, if you want to share your wins and send those in, you can send it to thebeitpod.com/questions. Also, this is where you can send your topics in that you want to make sure that we're either interviewing a guest on, or that you want me to do solo episodes on. I hope you are liking the solo episodes. I would love to hear more than some reviews, and if you love our podcast, and you want to support it, one of the ways you can do that is actually by being an OPC member. onlinepilatesclasses.com is where we have real Pilates for real bodies, we just want to do Pilates workouts that work for you, and we're really proud of the work that we do over there. And when you buy any of our flashcards, did you know that we take a percentage of what you purchased, and we give it to the Nevada SPCA? And while I'm talking about that, I have a cute little foster down at my legs, her name is Darla, and she is just a freaking... she is so cute, she's a little cow, and I'm kind of obsessed with her already. 

Lesley Logan 2:15  

So the rant has nothing to do with Darla. Here's our rant. One of my followers had sent, "Hey, did you know this person's using your images in a book?" and so we go on Amazon, we do a takedown, done. I rant about it. People go, "Oh, did you know that this person's using them in a manual?" Oh, and then someone else goes, "Oh, have you seen this book about you? Have you seen that you're in this book? Oh, I just found this book about you." AI books all ran about me. I probably ranted about this before last month, so I'm going to tell you the most recent thing that happened that is new, you guys: fucking Temu is selling my posters, and I'm really pissed off about it, because you can see my watermark on there. And also the review is about how shitty the quality of the pictures are. Yeah, because it's a knockoff, and so now you're making me look bad. So, those are not my posters, those are my posters on Temu, but I'm not getting the money. So, feel free to go over there until I get them taken down and talk about how shitty it is to steal from people. And so, then I told people, "Oh, go ahead and leave a review." And then guess what happened?

Lesley Logan 3:15  

Somebody left a shitty review on a fourth book that I didn't know about, that is me, so I'm just tired of people using my image, and I'm gonna rant about that once a month until we get these lawyers to do their work on it. So that's going on, that's that. So my win, my win is we are six weeks into me teaching a beta version of my teacher training program that I have been working on for new Pilates instructors and Pilates instructors who want to bridge. So if you've been wanting to learn Pilates and you've been looking for programs and you read my book or maybe didn't, but you're looking for something solid this fall, I'll be onboarding the educators for it, and next year they'll be able to start running their own programs. I'm not running them, I'm actually going to be guiding them on running them, because I run eLevate, which is my mentorship program for teachers, and I can't be everywhere, can't be everywhere at once, but I'm really proud of the work that I've done. So, the win is not that it's completed, because it's mostly completed. The win is that I started the beta program, we're six weeks in, and I'm fucking loving it. The group of people that are trusting me through this beta program, I'm so grateful for, ladies and gentlemen, you know who you are. It's really wonderful to get to teach them, but also really, really great to have them be part of how I curate this manual and this program, because they're all different types of learners, they're all in different experiences of life, and I'm really, really proud of the work that they're doing. I'm proud of the work that I've done, and if you are like, "Oh my god, I'm jonesing to do this program," we are creating a waitlist for people that I can send off to the educators, and also announce when there are educators. So if you are wanting to know when Uplift is available to explore an educator near you, I want you to go to xxll.co/uw. That's going to take you to a waitlist for people who want to learn and study the Uplift program, and so that's that. For the people who want to be educators, you have to be part of my eLevate Alumni group to be an educator. So, more on that later. That's not the win. This is not an ad, but I am just so freaking proud of the work that I've done, and the team has done, and that these people have done. So, I know two weeks in a row, the wins seem really, really big, but a couple months ago, I told you that I'm working on this thing behind the scenes, and I'm almost done. This is the thing, so you know, I've had little wins on this along the way. This is a bigger win of it, but there'll be more wins to come, because until it's complete and going, there's more wins to have. 

Lesley Logan 5:44  

Okay, one of your wins. Are we ready for it? This is from @home_grown_pilates, "I finally have the freedom and means to travel." Ah, what a win! What a win! I love that. You know what, that's a huge one. Jeez, but also just that you're celebrating that you have it, so many people would wait till they do travel, and that you are celebrating that you have just the ability to do it. Ah, that's what these wins are all about. That's what FYF is all about. So, thank you, @home_grown_pilates,, for sharing that, so you can inspire other people. 

Lesley Logan 6:20  

All right, let me get to your mantra. Every day I grow in self-acceptance. Every day I grow in self-acceptance. Every day I grow in self-acceptance. Yes, you do. You're doing it. You're doing it, and you're being it till you see it. So until next time, take care of yourself, please. If you can't support OPC by being a member, which means you're supporting yourself, then definitely share this podcast episode or one of our interviews that you love with a friend who's a hero, and if you don't have a friend, then you can leave a review. Those are all very helpful things. So, thank you so much, my loves. Talk to you soon.

Lesley Logan 6:53  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 7:35  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell. 

Lesley Logan 7:40  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co. 

Brad Crowell 7:44  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi. 

Lesley Logan 7:51  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 7:55  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time. 

Lesley Logan 8:09  

It's okay, you can sleep. I didn't mean, I didn't need to wake you. You're good. Oh my gosh, you guys on the pod team. I am fostering a dog, and she.. I clapped, and she was so sleepy, and now she's like, what? What does that sound? Here we go.

Lesley Logan and Brad Crowell recap the conversation with Julian Barnes, co-founder and CEO of the BFS Network and a leading voice on boutique fitness market data. They unpack what his numbers-first view of the Pilates business reveals about pricing, client commitment, and the confidence it takes to run a profitable studio. With twenty plus years guiding studio founders, Julian brings hard data to the soft topics most owners avoid.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.

In this episode you will learn about:

• What it really means to sell the transformation not the process.
• How to help clients see the cost as an investment.
• Where courage and conviction change who becomes your client.
• Signs the Pilates bubble is bursting and what survives it.
• Stepping into your authority so clients commit and get results.

Episode References/Links:

• OPC Membership - opc.me/beit
• eLevate Waitlist - xxll.co/waiitlist
• eLevate Replays - lesleylogan.co/elevate
• OPC Summer Tour (Powered by Balanced Body) - https://opc.me.tour
• OPC Flashcards - https://opc.me/flashcards
• OPC Pilates Posters - https://opc.me/posters
• Ep. 697 ft. Adrian Starks - https://beitpod.com/ep697
• Ep. 698 Adrian Stark Recap - https://beitpod.com/ep698
• Ep. 53 ft. Launa Jae - https://beitpod.com/ep53
• If I Die by Christopher S Lombardi - https://a.co/d/0eorMLTN
• Free Will - https://www.freewill.com
• BIPOC Resources - https://mhanational.org/bipoc-mental-health
• Submit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questions

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSI

DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipment

Check out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper’s Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipment

Be in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlist

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-survey

Be a part of Lesley’s Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/

FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/

Resources:

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Lesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/
• Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQ
• Profitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/

Follow Us on Social Media:

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/
• The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-g
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilates
• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/
• The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses

Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

You have to understand that if people are making decisions based on cost, they will always do that. You have to bring it back to the investment of the transformation they want to have, and how badly do they want to have that. 

Lesley Logan 0:13  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. 

Lesley Logan 0:55  

Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap on my coast in life. Brad and I are going to dig into the enlightening convo I had with Julian Barnes in our last episode. If you haven't yet listened to that interview, this will make a lot of no sense, because it was a different type of interview. It wasn't really an interview of what Julian does, it wasn't really a Be It Till You See It, it was very much a "let's talk about the Pilates industry." 

Brad Crowell 1:17  

Yeah, it was an industry debrief. 

Lesley Logan 1:18  

An industry debrief, and so. 

Brad Crowell 1:20  

It was kind of cool, actually.

Lesley Logan 1:22  

Yeah, and I also, coming off of the recap of Adrian Starks, it made me even more aware of our purpose when it comes to Pilates business coaching. Because I don't know if Julian asked me this when we were on camera or off, but he was like, "You like helping these small studios?" And I was like, "Because that's what accessibility is." There's got to be different types of Pilates studios, because people need different things, and everyone shouldn't be in a 14-person class.

Brad Crowell 1:48  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 1:49  

So, anyways, it's a really... if you are a Pilates instructor, or you have one, then they need to listen to both these episodes. After you listen to the amazing announcement of today, the holiday and the charity, and the other things, if you want to go off to an FYF or something else, I won't be offended. If you like the sound of this voice and you want to keep supporting it, and Brad, just the voice.

Brad Crowell 2:12  

Just the voice.

Lesley Logan 2:13  

You should be an OPC member. OPC is not for people who are obsessed with Pilates, I mean, it is, but it's really for people who just want easy access to real Pilates, and then a safe place to be imperfect, and to be themselves, and to be supported, and to be like, "It's okay if you missed a week, you're welcome back. We're all here for you." And if so, "Oh, you recover from injury. Oh, I had that one. Here are these things." It's where you get community support, and you're not alone. So, go to opc.me/40

Brad Crowell 2:39  

Yeah, actually, we got a new link for you. It's opc.me/beit

Lesley Logan 2:43  

opc.me/beit

Brad Crowell 2:45  

B-E-I-T

Lesley Logan 2:47  

B-E-I-T. I'm still waiting for my "just be it" things, given that everyone can distill people's shit around here. Why can't I just have "just be it"?

Brad Crowell 2:59  

I love that.

Lesley Logan 3:01  

It's okay, but we have "be it," and you can be it too, and you can be an OPC member while you're being it. I promise, I promise it helps. Today is July 9, 2026, and it's International Emergency Kit Day.

Brad Crowell 3:13  

That's right. It's Emergency Kit Day, y'all. This is a Boy Scout talking to you right now.

Lesley Logan 3:18  

Today is a day to raise awareness about being prepared when disaster strikes. An emergency kit, sometimes called a go-bag or disaster bag, is a portable kit that has essentials you and your family need to survive in case of emergency. They are easy to grab when you need to evacuate for whatever reason, usually a natural disaster. This day is a reminder to check your kit or build one today. It will make all the difference when an emergency happens. We have first aid kits, but that's what I thought this was, and it's clearly a go-bag, which we do not have, Brad.

Brad Crowell 3:44  

Yeah, we don't have. I don't have the movie duffel bag that's like, "Go, go, go," and you grab it on the way out the door, or the baby bag when someone is pregnant and has to run to the hospital, they got a bag ready. We probably could put one of those together. I think that would be wise. Don't let someone sell you a $300 go-bag. Put it together yourself.

Lesley Logan 4:07  

Just put it together. Just please put it together yourself. Photocopies of things are really great. If you learn anything from the fires of LA, it means you need to have copies of very important documents: birth certificates, passports, but also insurance policies, wills, whatever that is.

Brad Crowell 4:24  

I should digitize those and just put them.

Lesley Logan 4:25  

Can we have a digitized go-bag, Brad? Because I gotta be honest, we're gonna have to then remember where it is. Because I thought there's an emergency kit thing, and it was so funny, because you were asked if you had one recently by someone, and you're like, "Oh yeah," and I'm like, "Thank God they asked you, because if they had asked me, I'd be like, 'We don't have one.'"

Brad Crowell 4:47  

But not only that, if you have an emergency kit, go through it, because when was the last time you had it, or opened it, or used it? I went through ours, I don't know, six or 12 months ago, and I pulled everything out, and all the Band-Aids, the stickiness of the Band-Aids was just gone.

Lesley Logan 5:03  

Not sticky.

Brad Crowell 5:04  

Yeah, so I was like, "Oh wow, yeah, all this expired in 2005." So I got rid of all that and replaced everything. And then sure enough, somebody asked us, "Hey, do you have an emergency kit?" And I was like, "Yes," and I can stand by that everything is ready for you here. Yeah.

Lesley Logan 5:23  

And it's really funny because we actually have a really massive emergency kit in the bathroom by our studio in the house, and I was looking for Band-Aids in the bathroom that I get ready in every day. And then I was cleaning things up and getting ready for people to show up, and there's this massive Brad kit, and I was like, "Oh, we have a massive emergency kit," and I opened it up. No Band-Aids. Zero Band-Aids. That has not been updated. I'm like, clearly this is not a real studio, because. So go check your emergency kits, go create a digitized go-bag, because. 

Brad Crowell 5:56  

We want a digitized go-bag, and then maybe a real one that's like, if you got to run out the door and you need a change of clothes or some shoes or something. This is not

Lesley Logan 6:02  

This is not what the holiday is, what the holiday is, but there's that If I Die book. Have you seen this? I got asked for it on my Instagram. It's called If I Die or When I Die, and it's all these important things, and we should really fill that out.

Brad Crowell 6:16  

Everything You Need to Know Journal. If I Die.

Lesley Logan 6:20  

Brad's gonna find a digital one.

Brad Crowell 6:21  

I found it already. Yeah, well, this is a book, actually, by Christopher Lombardi. Collect all the information your loved ones will need to know at a difficult time. And he said, "When my father passed away, I wish I had such a book."

Lesley Logan 6:35  

Yeah, well, that's interesting. It's a little too much adulting for me in one day, but I like the idea of it.

Brad Crowell 6:40  

Yeah, there's also When I Die planners with pockets.

Lesley Logan 6:44  

Pocket.

Brad Crowell 6:44  

Yeah, that has little pockets in it.

Lesley Logan 6:46  

Oh, for things like my card, I have a card in Brad's office attached to the refrigerator from when my dad dies, a number to call for them to cremate him.

Brad Crowell 6:54  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 6:54  

I know where the card is.

Brad Crowell 6:56  

I mean, there's even Reddit arguments about this: I made an "If I die" packet for my husband. My family is now calling me morbid for this effort. I think it's smart.

Lesley Logan 7:05  

It's incredibly smart, and it's not morbid. And you are gonna be... here's the thing, we talked about grief two weeks ago, had nothing to do with people, but we're just gonna bring it back up, when someone is dealing with the loss of a loved one, the last thing you need to figure out is the fucking password to your shit.

Brad Crowell 7:22  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 7:23  

Don't do that to people. I'm watching The Pit, and that is a trap. You don't want to be dealing with that, plus what is their insurance? All that stuff. No, no, don't do that to people. And as I say this, Brad and I are hypocrites, because we have yet to sit down and do our fucking thing that his parents asked us to do three times, which is the DNR and the will thing, and all that stuff. So.

Brad Crowell 7:48  

There's a, we talked about this before, there's an organization called Free Will. Make your free will online.

Lesley Logan 7:54  

Okay, well. 

Brad Crowell 7:57  

freewill.com

Lesley Logan 7:57  

Well, this day just turned into a very helpful day, and my ADHD is really overwhelmed. Upcoming travel and events, you guys, eLevate 2027 is full, sold out, can't take another body, but you can join us today.

Brad Crowell 8:13  

You can join us today.

Lesley Logan 8:17  

At 1pm Pacific time.

Brad Crowell 8:19  

Is that 1pm? 

Lesley Logan 8:20  

Yeah. 

Brad Crowell 8:20  

I'm glad you know that.

Lesley Logan 8:21  

It's at 1 p.m. to learn about 2028 Elevate, and if you're like, "Well, Lesley, thanks, I'm going back to this on a different date," there's probably a replay up.

Brad Crowell 8:31  

Yeah, there'll be a replay. We'll put the replay up on the Elevate page, I'm sure.

Lesley Logan 8:35  

Go to xxll.co/waitlist, and if you missed it. 

Brad Crowell 8:40  

Then go to lesleylogan.co/elevate and that's where the replay will be.

Lesley Logan 8:45  

Yeah, summer tour is really close, a few weeks away.

Brad Crowell 8:49  

OPC Summer Tour

Lesley Logan 8:50  

Yeah. 

Brad Crowell 8:50  

Come join us in real life, I'm very excited.

Lesley Logan 8:52  

How many cities are we going to?

Brad Crowell 8:53  

13 or 14

Lesley Logan 8:54  

It's the reason we're recording prior to the announcement, so we don't know, but what I can say is it's probably mostly sold out, so you want to go to OPC. I can confidently say that.

Brad Crowell 9:04  

Yeah, I mean, we're getting close to.

Lesley Logan 9:07  

Well, because these are not conventions, these are literal pop-ups. These are small studios, we're talking small classes and workshops, and we do that so instead of having 50 people in a workshop, there's 25 and you can actually get to talk to me, and we get to take pictures, and we get to nerd out on Pilates. And the workshops are only 90 minutes. You don't have to take a whole day off, you can just take a part of a day off, and you get to be with other people. And Balanced Body is sponsoring our tour again, and so we'll have the Contrology equipment with us, plus some really fun prizes. So, opc.me/tour.

Brad Crowell 9:41  

opc.me/tour come join us.

Lesley Logan 9:43  

If you're new here.

Brad Crowell 9:45  

If you're new here.

Lesley Logan 9:46  

I make flashcards with Pilates exercises, and they have QR codes that take you to videos, and they have the setup and action on the back, and they have really cool tips that I gave you that are my words based on these things. If you like the way that I talk about Pilates, they're right there. And they've been edited by a contemporary trained teacher with contemporary women, and they've been edited by someone who's never done any of the stuff before. Shout out to the spine corrector, because after that, she wanted to buy one. So that's how good that deck is. So, go to opc.me/flashcards.

Brad Crowell 10:12  

Yeah, opc.me/flashcards

Lesley Logan 10:15  

And if you have the flashcards, do you know that we have posters, and you can get our posters at opc.me/posters? And you want to know something fun about the posters: we make no money on them. However, the shipping, because they're printed on demand, the shipping is cheaper because it's usually shipping to near you versus the flashcards, which come from us. By the way, my Aussies and my Canadians, we have distributors on the flashcards, so just reach out to us if shipping shocked the hell out of you. We have distributors in Australia and Canada.

Brad Crowell 10:44  

Yeah, awesome. Well, we used to do a question answer session here, but we're going to skip that. We've moved all the live Q&As over to YouTube for Sunday morning at 9 a.m. Pacific, and we shifted our focus here because we really like celebrating good works that other people are doing, and sharing about it with you all. 

Lesley Logan 11:06  

Being more aware about things, just the different things that exist out there, and the different ways we can support things that might be of interest. And so July is actually an awareness month of a lot of awarenesses. So when I looked up July month.

Brad Crowell 11:22  

It's a month of awarenesses.

Lesley Logan 11:23  

Yeah, one of the things that July is an awareness month about is the ADA laws, and it's like a Disability Pride Awareness Month. It's also an awareness month of mental health awareness for minority communities.

Brad Crowell 11:36  

ADA for non-Americans, it's the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA. So, yeah, and that was a big fight that started in California many years back.

Lesley Logan 11:45  

Yes, I learned a lot about it. It's very impressive. Yeah, and so anyways, I wanted to highlight the mental health awareness for minority communities on today's episode, because last time we did a recap, we actually did talk about mental health, and I just thought it would be a perfect time to bring that up. This charity is Mental Health America, and they actually have a lot of information and support for BIPOC mental health specifically. And if you go to mhanational.org, they actually have a whole section, because they do have a lot of support for the BIPOC community. Culture, ethnicity, and race all play a large role in the way that each person experiences the world and the types of mental health support that they may need. MHA's online BIPOC Mental Health Resource Center offers a wealth of information and tools to bring light to the unique experiences of Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities and empower and uplift BIPOC individuals on their mental health journeys. And I just thought that this is a really cool resource in case you need it, or there's someone that you know who needs it. Because the reality is, is that if you have had a different experience in this world, having a therapist or someone who can understand that is important, and it's key. And I just think that, how cool that there are people who are making sure that resource is easy to find. They'll have blog posts, but they actually have a whole resource page where you can find someone and find some help near you, especially with the shit going on in the world right now. Specifically in the US, I know we have a lot of international listeners, but they just fucked with the Voting Rights Act one more time.

Brad Crowell 13:15  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 13:16  

And we are back to Jim Crow era shit, and it sucks, because the answer to all this is that we all have to vote in November in a way that tells them to fuck off, but also, people of color have been trying to do that for a really long time. You and I were listening to what's his name, that amazing senator from Georgia, who's a reverend, and he's like, "I lived my whole life under that act, and now my children have to fight..."

Brad Crowell 13:44  

Raphael Warnock

Lesley Logan 13:45  

Raphael Warnock. "My children have to fight for their rights," and I just...

Brad Crowell 13:50  

Yeah, I mean, it's.

Lesley Logan 13:51  

Top of life.

Brad Crowell 13:52  

It's fascinating to hear him talk about that, where he's like, you know, I don't know how old he is, but he's an adult, he's a senator, he's been a pastor for a long time. He has two kids who are younger than 10 years old, and he said, "For me, because of the changes that happened in the '60s, I actually grew up in a more equitable time that allowed me to become a senator as a person of color," and he said, "Unfortunately, my kids are not going to have that."

Lesley Logan 14:23  

And what they're doing in Tennessee, where they just literally got rid of the one Black Congress person, just terrible stuff. And that's all just... even if you're like, "Well, that's politics," well, politics affects life, and on top of that, if your job and all these different things just becomes really heavy, we need to make mental health support seem like the same thing as you're gonna go get new toothpaste, or you get your things done, like you go to the dentist for cleaning twice a year, we go three. Mental health support needs to be as routine and normal as all of that, and also if you're BIPOC community, I think it's important that you have people who understand what you're going through, because it is different.

Brad Crowell 15:05  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 15:05  

And you're not alone. So, hopefully, mhanational.org resource helps you. If not, and there are other ones out there that you want us to highlight, please send it in. We would love to do that. We'd love to use the platform to do that to help people who need that.

Brad Crowell 15:19  

Yeah, so leave us a voicemail, 310-905-5534, or you can also share your wins for our Friday pod at beitpod.com/questions. 

Brad Crowell 15:31  

Let's talk about Julian Barnes. Julian is the co-founder and CEO of the BFS Network, the company behind the most comprehensive market research in the boutique fitness industry. He spent 20-plus years helping fitness and wellness businesses build the structure and strategy they need to grow, and he works directly with CEOs and founders of multi-location studios across the country. He brings a data-driven, numbers-first perspective to the work of building a profitable studio.

Lesley Logan 15:59  

Yeah.

Brad Crowell 16:00  

And it's really interesting too, because I mean, his background is law, and then he... I don't remember exactly how he got into fitness, but. 

Lesley Logan 16:07  

He told the whole story. It's very weird how he got into it, but. 

Brad Crowell 16:10  

He told us his story, but it wasn't, it was when we were.. we were talking about.

Lesley Logan 16:15  

Oh, sorry guys, it was definitely at dinner, but it was like, "Oh, he was helping this out, then he did this thing, there was his trainer." It's really kind of cool. Too bad that that's not on the pod, because it doesn't matter, because that was not what he wanted to talk about. But it really went along with Adrian Starks's finding your purpose kind of a thing. So, at any rate, just know that Julian is the evidence of doing that. If you listened two weeks ago, you know, it's interesting, because a lot of people think that studios are only studios if they have multiple teachers and group classes and things like that, and I think.

Brad Crowell 16:47  

Maybe the word "legitimate studio," right? Because they are still obviously a studio, a real studio, or whatever.

Lesley Logan 16:55  

But you and I see a studio as anything where a teacher is teaching in, and that studio could be a one-person show.

Brad Crowell 17:03  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 17:04  

And that person can teach small groups and groups and things like that. And so it was interesting to hear the different ways that, in air quotes, legitimate studios are doing things, the numbers they have. But on the non-data side, one of the things I love that he said was there's no transformation without the transaction, and this is really important, because for any business owner who is listening to this, people don't buy your process. I'll just be really honest with you, please don't tell them your process, no one cares. But they cannot get the transformation they want to have, the goal they want to achieve, without paying you the investment of what that is, that's just part of the deal. If they want to have better posture.

Brad Crowell 17:45  

There's no transformation without the transaction, yes, but let's, before we go further on that, can we take a step back? What do you mean specifically? What's an example of "don't sell the process"? Because how are people actually making a mistake with that? 

Lesley Logan 18:02  

What does thatlook like? They're saying, "We have classes on three days a week at 10 a.m. and your package of six sessions allows you to come two times a week." That's selling the process, right? "You come three days a week at 10 a.m." or "Mat classes are at 6 o'clock" or "At our studio, we have mat, semi-private, and private sessions on the Cadillac Tower." All of that's process. It's overwhelming information. It's words that they don't want to hear.

Brad Crowell 18:30  

It doesn't even mean anything to them.

Lesley Logan 18:31  

Even if they know what most of that stuff is. That's not what they actually care about. They care that you understand the problem that they have and where they want to grow, and that you are excited and a trustworthy person for that, and I think where a lot of people. 

Brad Crowell 18:50  

And that's what they will pay for.

Lesley Logan 18:51  

Yeah, as well. Yoga Works doesn't exist anymore, it's a perfect example. Their entire advertising model was "first two weeks free, your first two weeks are free." That's a process, right? They were not selling "get meditated in 14 days or less" or "de-stress from traffic," right? They weren't selling what you were gonna gain from doing the yoga for two weeks, whereas if they had actually talked more about how you would feel when you left the yoga class.

Brad Crowell 19:29  

Sure.

Lesley Logan 19:30  

I think more people would take them up on that for two weeks free, because it's like, "Wow, two weeks free, this class must be full." No, they weren't, and they're not in business. But I see this all the time in people posting about their Pilates stuff: "Hey, I've got, I'm opening up two spots on Mondays and Wednesdays." Unless someone already trusts you, that's unhelpful. Launa Jae, who's been on our show, has done this really well: "Hey, I'm opening in two weeks, I'm moving four spots for women over 40 who are tired of yo-yo dieting, and they want to actually make a change that lasts a lifetime."

Brad Crowell 20:03  

Right.

Lesley Logan 20:03  

You can hear the difference, right? "I'm accepting four new clients," or "In two weeks I will have four spots available for this type of person."

Brad Crowell 20:11  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 20:12  

That is listing the transformation someone's gonna have. She doesn't say, "And when you sign up, you'll have to do eight weeks of macro counting." No, she's not saying that, because no one wants to do that. That's too much information. Yeah, and then we get this a lot, because people will say, "Pilates is too expensive." People have been saying Pilates is too expensive since it was fucking cheap. People have been saying Pilates is too expensive since I started teaching, and people weren't even charging $1 a minute, right, for a private session. But you have to understand that if people are making decisions based on cost, they will always do that. You have to bring it back to the investment of the transformation they want to have, and how badly do they want to have that? 

Brad Crowell 20:51  

Yeah, that's the shift.

Lesley Logan 20:52  

Some people don't actually want to pay the investment that the transformation would cost, so those people will always be looking for a deal, constantly frustrated. They're the ones who are buying this silly tool this week, and the next thing over here, they're bouncing around. But there are people when, if you reframe it to the investment for what you want to achieve, as Julian said, the investment you want to achieve for your desired goal is going to be one of time and money, right? So you change the word to investment, and then in doing that, you're going to shift the mindset from cost to investment, right? Which is a really good shift you want to make in someone's brain, because they invest in things all day long. They invest time in scrolling on their Instagram, they invest time in being in traffic, they invest time on a lot of different things. So, how can we shift the investment of time and money to something that actually works for them? When I was teaching mat classes only, and I was trying to get people in them, I would say, "Stop spending time in traffic, spend that hour in Pilates and get home in 20 minutes after,"

Brad Crowell 21:54  

Right.

Lesley Logan 21:54  

So I had people literally come to my mat class two nights a week that I had it, and they loved it, because instead of sitting in traffic for 90 minutes, they did an hour of Pilates, and then it takes them 25 minutes to get home, same amount of time, but they actually got a transformation to go with it. So really shifting that mindset. And then when people do ask for discounts, you have to have some confidence in the product that you have. I keep telling our agency members, "You need to have courage and conviction in what you do," and that also means telling people how they have to be to be a client of yours. My trainer has so much courage and conviction, she is like, "You cannot be a client of mine if you can't commit to this many times." Yeah, and I really do think that if a lot more Pilates instructors said that, yes, they might have fewer clients in the beginning, but I actually think they would have more later, because the transformation of their clients that they're getting would get them more clients.

Brad Crowell 22:44  

Yeah, I think this is a perfect transition into what I was hoping to talk about, which is... there was a moment where he was talking about Steve Jobs and the iPhone, right? And he's like, he wasn't like, "Hey, do you think it'd be cool if maybe you guys might want..." none of that. It was like, "Hey, check out this amazing tool that we built that's gonna change your life

Lesley Logan 23:07  

Yeah.

Brad Crowell 23:07  

radically," right? And he said, so he was talking about confidence, right? And there's a difference between polling your audience and getting feedback, and how do you present the thing that you sell or do, right?

Lesley Logan 23:21  

Absolutely certain that there were NDAs signed of people who were looking at the iPhone before we got it. 

Brad Crowell 23:27  

Yeah, but Julian pointed out that you have to be confident enough that the universe will present you what you need when you need it, riht? 

Lesley Logan 23:35  

Yeah.

Brad Crowell 23:36  

And that is a scary thing. That is the "leap and the net will appear" kind of approach, right? And obviously, that's definitely something that gets severely tested, and Julian acknowledged that, for sure, especially when you have financial needs, and the wrong clients are coming through your door, but saying... y'all were talking about clients, and the clients that will stay with you for the long haul or not, right? And it's always a scramble at first, like we'll take anybody who comes in the door, but what if our messaging, like we were just talking about, was attracting the correct person who we want to serve and is excited to get the transformation? Yeah, they're going to stay with you way, way longer. And I am... I don't know if you picked up on it if you listened to the interview, but I was so proud because we had a bunch of agency members fill out his big questionnaire, and he compared agency members' stats against the industry stats. And what he said was that agency members retain their clients longer. Yeah, and I was really, really excited to hear that.

Lesley Logan 24:49  

Yeah and it's because our Agency members, even their process to become a client of theirs sets them up so that they're not getting these crazy wackos that just want to bounce from place to place. They are actually set up to make sure that they are the right client, they're advertised in the right place. One of our members is actually changing her website to being specifically their Pilates studio for women over 40.

Brad Crowell 25:15  

Cool.

Lesley Logan 25:15  

Right? Because she's like, "I'm tired of getting calls from 20-year-olds who are comparing me to this other studio over here. That's not what we offer. And even if they can't afford my intro offer, they don't like the classes because they're not for Pilates princesses." And it's like, right. So, there are women who are fucking tired, like, "I want to go to Pilates, but all these Pilates princesses are pictured." And so this client of ours has women over 40 pictured. That's going to matter so much to them, right. And so I am so proud of our agency members. They have solid businesses, and you have a business you can depend on, you're not going off what the trends are. And I really think that right now the Pilates bubble is bursting in several ways. One, Hailey Bieber just announced that too many studios are out there, and they're crappy teachers. Hailey Bieber wrote this. And then The Guardian did an entire article about how people are getting hurt all the time doing Pilates. And here's the thing: if you were doing real Pilates, you could not get hurt if you were actually ready for the exercise that you're doing. Most of the time, people are getting injuries because they're in large group classes that are not on real reformers, and or their teacher was not trained thoroughly enough, and so the teacher's boss is all about how fun the class is and how entertained and how packed the classes are versus the results that they're getting. And I think Julian would back me up on this. Going back to the transformation you want to have and the investment you have to have: I have to get you that transformation, which means you have to show up, but I have to have the teachers that are quality. And so I actually think between the recession that we are all expecting to show up and the fact that people are not going to see the results they want by studios where the people aren't trained fully.

Brad Crowell 27:04  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 27:05  

I do see the pendulum swinging now. How far is it? It's not going to swing that far if you are a solid studio that truly knows what you're doing and why you do it, and you're not begging people to take class for you by offering it for free, but instead you're like, "If you want to participate here, here's how often you have to come, here's the transformation we can provide you, and here's how we do that." You come every other week, I can't get you shit.

Brad Crowell 27:26  

Yeah, and being real with them. That's where that confidence comes into play, having the confidence to know that the universe will present you what you need when you need it. I remember trying to convince clients, I remember how much time I spent trying to convince clients that we were the right agency for them, or coaching group for them, or web development company for them, or whatever. And it always felt like I'm really good at that, but then we would land a client and they were just the fucking worst client. They never delivered the photos that they said that they had, or they never gave me copy, and so ultimately I'd start this project, we would take a deposit, start the project, and then get stuck, right? Or we would have clients come in, they'd pay us one time for coaching, and then they would never participate, and then they would disappear. And that just felt like such a waste of effort on both our time and theirs.

Lesley Logan 28:25  

Totally.

Brad Crowell 28:26  

That time payment didn't feel worth it. It certainly wasn't satisfying. We didn't help them, right? And so.

Lesley Logan 28:31  

It's also why we've even changed how agency operates now, because it definitely is only attractive to people who are willing to actually do the work.

Brad Crowell 28:39  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 28:39  

You have to do the work. You can't just do calls with me or Brad every quarter and whine and whatever, and then go, "Well, I got this action, I can go make a checklist, and I can feel like I did something new." No, Agency now requires you to ask a lot of questions, put your problem in there, go watch a course, come to an office hour, ask which course to watch, ask what next steps to take, like, you actually have to do the action. And the reason I love that more, even though it's definitely not a sexier sell, is that what we do actually fucking works. I know that, and the people who've listened to us have been with us for years, and when they do the work, it works. Period, end of story. And we recently were at an event, and I saw one of our ex-Agency members who paid because they wanted the transformation, but didn't want to do the work. And then this person would also do the things I said not to do all the time, and then they would come back with a problem. And it's like, "Okay, with the contract you've already signed, there's not a lot I can do, because you made a contract without asking our opinions, and then you signed it." And that person is like, "Yeah, I've just been so overwhelmed, and I'm closing these two studios, I'm doing this, I'm just downsizing a lot." And I just wanted to go, "I fucking told you." Yeah, but here's the thing: I have courage and conviction in how we coach and who we are for, and I know what we can do with people who will do the work. And that means, though, you have to also have courage and conviction in what you offer as a studio. And if that means telling someone, "I actually don't work with clients who are in and out every single week, unless they're gonna do homework, and if you're gonna do homework, it means you have to do it three to four days a week." You have to tell people, "I just don't work with those people, because I don't want to take your money, that's dirty money." Any studio that takes your money and tells you that they can get you what you want, and you're only going to come in once a week or every couple of weeks, is lying to you. If you educate people on that, I'm telling you, you will get a great client. And here's why I can tell you this with my own courage and conviction, with another story: I used to sell a teacher training program for Equinox, and I would always ask people, "Where are you in your research process? Oh, I'm the first person you're talking to? Great, let me explain to you how training programs are not apples to apples. Let me explain to you what it is that you need to be looking for, what questions to be asking." By the way, these are all in my book. "What questions to be asking, what you need to be experiencing, what these things are. When you go and look to other places, I want you asking these questions, because if they don't have answers that work with your life, it does not matter the price, you will be stuck. So I can tell you right now, based on the local programs that I know that exist, we are more expensive on paper, but here's where we solve a lot of those problems. Why don't you go back, do your research, call me back, let's do another thing." I could follow up with them, and there'd be people who say, "You're too expensive, that's too much time, I can't make blah blah blah." And then they would come back and they'd sign up, because they would go do the research, and they would realize that on paper, while we're more expensive, we actually have more things. So you have to have that with people, because if someone's gonna price shop, they're gonna price shop, but I can tell you why. "Oh, well, we're more expensive than them because we're three people, not 12." Hello, educate them. They don't know.

Brad Crowell 31:53  

Yeah, they don't know. 

Lesley Logan 31:55  

So you're getting resentful of them, but they don't know what they don't know. You have to say.

Brad Crowell 31:58  

Yeah can also say something like, "Our teachers have 600 hours of certifications under their belt," or something like that.

Lesley Logan 32:04  

Yeah, when people would do that when we were at the studios, like, "Oh, well, this is more expensive than the Pilates across the street." "Yeah, well, those teachers can only teach on one item, they can only teach on a Reformer, and that's all they're trained on. These are comprehensively trained teachers. These people did at least nine months to a year of training, they spent $8,000-plus, and they have access to all this equipment to get you the goals you want. But if you have to go off of that investment, I get it, go do it over there." Anyways, well, I could keep talking for hours, but we should get to the Be It Action Items, because clearly, I love Julian's data, and I love that we can help people. Knowing what the data is really helps us understand where they are in their business and what they have to focus on. Because you're not going to focus on new clients and retention at the same time. If you have great retention, you don't need new clients.

Brad Crowell 32:51  

Right.

Lesley Logan 32:52  

You know, you don't need as many anyways. Okay.

Brad Crowell 32:54  

Yeah. Well, stick around, we'll be right back. All right. So, finally, let's talk about those Be It Action Items: what bold, executable, intrinsic, or targeted action items can we take away from your conversation with Julian Barnes? He said on client commitment and transformation, Julian said that the first step in the transformation is transforming your daily routine. He emphasized that people need to adopt a new routine, one that says, "I'm coming on Tuesday morning, Thursday after work, and Saturday morning. I'm committed to this change," right? For studio owners, you are more likely to be successful if you present a prescription that gives your client the opportunity to adopt a new routine from day one.

Lesley Logan 33:41  

Yeah.

Brad Crowell 33:41  

Right? Like, think about it, if you've got a person coming in the door and you try to get them to make a change, let's say you've had a client for a really long time, and then you try to get them to make a change, do they make the change? Very rarely, right? People get annoyed at change, they get frustrated at change, they like what they like, they like what they have. But if you set that precedent right out of the gate, this is how people get change here.

Lesley Logan 34:08  

Yes, right, I love that. Well, also, I had a client who was always late, and they'd always apologize, and I had a client before them and after them, and I never gave them more time, and they weren't asking. I said, "Hey, don't apologize to me. This is on you. If you only want a 45-minute session, I have no problem with that. But if you want the full session, you have to ask yourself why you don't feel worthy enough to have a full session so that you can figure out how you have to leave work early. But that's the change you have to make. It has to be based on what you want, it can't be on me." And you know what? She was never late again.

Brad Crowell 34:41  

Yeah, it's a great example, because what Julian said, which I thought was kind of snuck in there again, he said, "Keep your power."

Lesley Logan 34:52  

Yeah.

Brad Crowell 34:53  

Right? We have power. The power is that we are the authority figure, right? And I mean, not in a tyrant kind of a way, but you can say to someone, "This is how it works here, this is how we see people have success here, and this is what we recommend for you."

Lesley Logan 35:10  

I think we'll just go into my action takeaway, which is like, if you're actively listening to what they have to say, you literally hear what they are, and you use those words, and you connect them to how your services are offered, then you have to step into the authority, because they came to your house.

Brad Crowell 35:26  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 35:26  

If this person came to your house, and you are a "no shoes in the house" person, would you just go, "I guess I'll let them wear shoes"? No, this is a no-shoes house, right? It's a no-shoes house. So, if you are like... I always tell people, take my shoes off, we don't, but you're the person who does, how come you can't be that at the business where you actually are an authority? This is where, I think a lot of people have doubt about the benefits that they can have, because they themselves have forgotten their own practice.

Brad Crowell 35:53  

Sure.

Lesley Logan 35:54  

And they themselves have not made any clients actually have consistency, and so they're not actually having the benefits to back up their power. But you have 100 years of Joe Pilates's work working to go off of. So if you are a new teacher, you have 100 years, literally 100 years. This is the year, this year is 100 years that he came to the United States to go off of this, and then you go... I'll give you the advice that I was given, and we'll wrap this up. My first week as a teacher at a studio at Equinox, this teacher said to me, "The best advice they can give you is to get one client and make them your own, like, make them obsessed with you, and you'll have all the clients." And I made those clients obsessed with me, and they did start getting results, results that they weren't getting with their other Pilates instructor, because I got them from... right, because that other Pilates instructor let them come and go. So, please, I was like, "Nope, you have to make up that session you're about to miss next Sunday. I'll see you on Friday. Let's do it. Let's go. I'll make the time." And it's because, one, I need the money, but two, I listened to that advice, and that advice gave me conviction and authority to sit here today and tell you, if you make people be consistent, they get results.

Brad Crowell 37:05  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 37:06  

So be the boss. They came to you.

Brad Crowell 37:08  

Yeah, they came to you. Don't give away your power.

Lesley Logan 37:11  

If you need help with that, if you need these pep talks, you should just go to agency.

Brad Crowell 37:15  

Yeah, this couldn't be an easier segue here. 

Lesley Logan 37:19  

I mean, so profitablepilates.com/agency go there. We have for sure, at the time that we're recording this, one amazing way to work with us. It's quite possible the second way, which is a secret, is available. I'm not sure.

Brad Crowell 37:31  

It's possible.

Lesley Logan 37:32  

possible. And if you don't see it, then you book a call with Brad, and you ask him which one is best for you and what's going on there. But we can help you. We can help you.

Brad Crowell 37:40  

We can certainly support you with these things.

Lesley Logan 37:42  

Yep.

Brad Crowell 37:42  

And you can keep your clients longer, too.

Lesley Logan 37:44  

Yeah, you get all the benefits that our clients get.

Brad Crowell 37:47  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 37:47  

And also, guess what? You get a predictable, boring business, which is so nice. Go be entertained by your streamers, not by your business. Okay, life's stressful enough. I don't need an up and down on my business to be what's going on, what I'm going my vibes off of. Okay, I'm Lesley Logan.

Brad Crowell 38:04  

And I'm Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 38:05  

Thank you so much. I hope this was fun. It was an interesting deep dive into the industry, and Julian, his company does some really great work that is on the data. So, BFS is the company. We'll put the links in the show notes. Share this with a Pilates instructor friend who needs to hear it.

Brad Crowell 38:21  

Yeah.

Lesley Logan 38:22  

And until next time, Be It Till You See It.

Brad Crowell 38:24  

Bye for now.

Lesley Logan 38:26  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 39:08  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 39:13  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 39:17  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 39:25  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 39:28  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

Plenty of Pilates studios look successful from the outside. The numbers tell a different story. In this episode, Lesley Logan sits down in person with Julian Barnes, co-founder and CEO of the BFS Network, the boutique fitness industry's market intelligence company behind the annual State of the Industry report. Julian brings the data from 500-plus studios across 46 states. Lesley brings the how. Together they break down the five numbers that separate a real business from an expensive hobby, and what it actually takes to keep clients for years instead of weeks.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

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In this episode you will learn about:

• The five KPIs that profitable studios track every month.
• Why referrals still beat social media for new leads.
• How to structure an intro offer that converts.
• The objection scripts that turn a maybe into a yes.
• Why holding clients accountable is what kills churn.

Episode References/Links:

• BFS Network – bfsnetwork.com
• BFS Pilates Studio Benchmarks Report - BFSreport.com or BFSpilatesreport.com
• Facebook
• https://beitpod.com/thebfsnetwork
• https://www.facebook.com/thebfsnetwork?mibextid=wwXIfr&mibextid=wwXIfr
• Submit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questions

Guest Bio:

Julian Barnes is Co-Founder and CEO of the BFS Network, the premier growth accelerator and market intelligence company in the beauty, fitness, and self-care industry. He leads BFS' CEO Network — the premier peer-to-peer leadership network for multi-location, multimillion-dollar operators who are building to scale — and serves as Managing Director of the Global Leadership Council, whose members collectively operate more than 10,000 locations worldwide. He also serves as an Outside Director for a global fitness brand. 

Barnes created NYU's Institute in Entrepreneurship & Small Business Management and served on the US Tennis Association's Investment Committee, which managed a $200M portfolio. He holds a BA from Tufts and a JD from UNC Chapel Hill.

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Resources:

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Episode Transcript:

Julian Barnes 0:00  

You have to be confident enough, both in your own abilities and that the universe will provide for you the right way. You have to be confident enough to say no to the wrong person, so you keep space open for the right person, as you said, and you have to be confident that the universe is going to bring that right person to you.

Lesley Logan 0:24  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. 

Lesley Logan 1:05  

All right, Be It babe. This is really for my Pilates studio owners and teachers out there, people who want to open a Pilates studio. We are going to get deep in numbers, and you're hearing me talk a lot about my thoughts about the Pilates industry and how you are going to have a profitable Pilates business. So it's kind of fun. If you've never heard me talk Pilates business, and you want to hear my thoughts, you can. For those of you who are Profitable Pilates members, you're going to hear some of my favorite things to say, and I think you're going to be really impressed with how amazing your studios are doing compared to others. But also, I think it's really important to know what the stats are. What is going on in the Pilates history? It is changing. There are a lot of studios, but are these studios actually as successful as they look? 

Lesley Logan 1:28  

So, I think this report is really fun. If you watch it on YouTube, you're gonna see the visuals of these numbers. If you're like me and need to see them, you can watch it there. We'll also have everything in the show notes and in the blog as well. You guys are awesome. Here is Julian from the BFS Network. 

Lesley Logan 1:43  

All right, loves, this is gonna be fun. You guys get to hear me in my own element, probably a little more behind the scenes of what we do with other businesses, but we have an incredible guest here. We'll talk a lot of numbers, so if you're a visual person, you might want to watch this on our YouTube channel. Julian from the BFS Network, you are here. Hello, tell everyone who you are and what you rock at, because they're going to want to know.

Julian Barnes 2:18  

Lesley, I am here in your home studio in Las Vegas. This is not Zoom. This is.. I could touch your high five. Here we go. There we go. Awesome. Hello, everyone. My name is Julian Barnes. I am the co-founder and CEO of the BFS Network. I am based in New York City, here in Vegas to hang out with my good friend Lesley and Brad. We are the BFS Network. For today's conversation, the most important thing I'm going to share is we are known as the premier market intelligence company in the boutique fitness industry. We publish the State of the Industry report, which is the annual report, which is the most comprehensive report in our industry. A lot of data, a lot of KPIs, a lot of metrics, all focused on showing what profitable studios do. So I'm here today with Lesley, and I'm going to share some of the numbers, and she's going to tell us how to achieve those numbers.

Lesley Logan 3:13  

Yeah, I'm excited. Let's go, let's do it. I'm a visual person, so I'm glad you got a visual for us.

Julian Barnes 3:18  

So the first thing I want to just talk about is who participated in the survey. In addition to the Profitable Pilates community, this survey has been conducted over the last 18 months, 500-plus studios worldwide. Most importantly, it is the overwhelming majority, 89% of the studios that participated in the survey have three or fewer locations, and most of them have one location, individually owned, self-financed, no private equity, no investor. So we're talking about just the regular studio owner who bootstrapped and saved, and maybe borrowed from the bank to open, that's who's in here. There's no Solidcore in here, there's no Barry's, there's no SoulCycle. And if there are some independent Club Pilates franchisees, they're individually owned, they're not big corporate, so that's.

Lesley Logan 4:17  

Not one of those people who owns 75 or 100 sharing. Yeah, yeah.

Julian Barnes 4:21  

Exactly. All right, so that's who's in it. Also, there's broad geographical distribution of the survey, meaning 45% of the responses came from cities with a population of half a million or more, 45% came from cities 50,000 to half a million, another 10% are rural areas less than 50,000, 46 out of 50 states, so we have geographic representation, we have market size representation, one, two, and three locations, no PE, no investors, so we're talking about the average mom-and-pop small studio everywhere in this country.

Lesley Logan 4:57  

Okay, you know I'm gonna want to have dinner where the four states are, so we got a find studio close to. 

Julian Barnes 5:01  

It's like three S's. No, three N's. So it's North Dakota, Nebraska, and I forget the other two.

Lesley Logan 5:08  

Okay, I have a really great city for you, Nebraska solo owner, really pretty incredible, open for over 20 years. 

Julian Barnes 5:13  

That's what we need. Okay. So that's who we're talking about. The way we're going to rock today is talk about the BFS scorecard, which is six KPIs. I'm going to share with the listeners, all of you, the six KPIs that profitable studios track, and I'm going to tell you what those KPIs are. And then we're going to come back, and I'm going to ask Lesley how and what a studio should do to achieve those KPIs. So, I am the "what" today; Lesley is going to be the "how."

Lesley Logan 5:49  

Yeah. So, for those of you, this is how it was explained to me, and I think this is a lot of fun for my peeps to listen. He's gonna be that Steve Kornacki at the big board, and I'm gonna come in as Rachel Maddow or Chris Hayes. I mean, obviously I watch a news channel, so there we go. So I'm gonna come in with my opinion and my punditry.

Julian Barnes 6:07  

You don't have blonde hair, so you're not that other channel.

Lesley Logan 6:09  

I'm not. Also, these are still my cheeks, my lips, my eyes.

Julian Barnes 6:18  

All real, keeping it real. Okay, so KPI number one is number of leads per month, and Profitable Pilates studios generally are generating somewhere between 10 to 50 leads per month. The number one response is more than 50 leads, so 30% of the respondents generated more than 50 leads, and then the tie for second was less than 10 leads per month and 10 to 25. Less than 10 was 20%, 10 to 25 is 21%, so that's basically a tie. I don't know for sure, but if I had to guess, the studios that are generating more than 50 leads a month are probably mat Pilates with larger class sizes, and yeah, they need more leads.

Lesley Logan 7:09  

I think anytime you need more leads, it's probably better having more class-based classes. Yeah.

Julian Barnes 7:13  

Exactly. And so the studios with less than 10 or 10 to 25 are probably more of the Reformer.

Lesley Logan 7:19  

Yeah.

Julian Barnes 7:19  

So number of leads per month is the first metric to track. I'm going to run through these quickly, and then we're going to come back. Okay, so the first KPI is number of leads per month, and the highest response was more than 50 leads per month. 30% of the Profitable Pilates studios that we surveyed generate more than 50 leads per month, and I would imagine that the majority of those are Pilates mat classes, where they have more people in seats and bigger studios, and they need to fill classes. Tied for second was less than 10 leads per month and 10 to 25 leads per month, and that is between 20 and 21% of the people who completed this assessment selected less than 10 and 10 to 25. So number of leads per month is the first KPI that we're going to talk about. Second KPI is the conversion rate, and let's see if I can do this, because I'm not an idiot, is what I told you, right?

Lesley Logan 8:19  

You're doing great. So there we go.

Julian Barnes 8:22  

Conversion rate of leads to first-time visitors. I can't wait for Lesley to break this down, but it's one thing for someone to email you, to DM you, to IM you to say, "I'm interested, send me more information about your studio." It's another thing for that person to actually walk in the door, and so conversion rate of lead to first-time visitor, Profitable Pilates studios are converting at more than 30%. 54% of the Profitable Pilates studios are converting at more than 30%. So think about that: for every 10 leads, the best studios are getting three of those 10 emails to walk in the door, right? So, conversion rate of leads to first-time visitors. Now they came, they took a class, they bought the intro offer. The question is, what percentage of those people made a second, bigger purchase? They already purchased the intro offer. I like to think about it like this: you go to a restaurant the first time and you have a nice meal. My question is always, am I going to come back? And especially if you bring a friend with you, maybe it's your favorite restaurant, and you bring a friend with you to your favorite restaurant, and you pay for the dinner. The question for your friend is, did you enjoy your dinner, and did you enjoy your dinner enough that you would come back and pay for it? That second purchase, same thing applies with studios, so they bought the intro offer. Did they come back? And Profitable studios, 55% of Profitable Pilates studios convert to a second, bigger purchase more than 30% of the time. So see how small these numbers get: for every 10 leads, three walk in the door, and of those three that walk in the door, only one is making a next purchase. So Lesley's gonna break that down. She is chomping up the bits, waiting for me. 

Lesley Logan 10:13  

I can't wait. 

Julian Barnes 10:13  

All right, so those are the first three KPIs. Okay, so the last two KPIs we'll talk about are average member lifetime value, which is how long they stay, and so the largest category for Profitable Pilates studios, 28% of Profitable Pilates studios have a lifetime value greater than two years. The good news is, hence the name of Profitable Pilates, that 71% of the Profitable Pilates studios that completed this assessment have an LTV of more than two years, and that's really important. I'll let Lesley weigh in on why that's important, but the number is more than two years. You want to be an LTV more than two years. 

Julian Barnes 10:56  

And finally, the last KPI we're going to talk about today is churn, and churn means how often your members leave and you have to go refill that spot. You can't grow if you're constantly replacing someone in your studio. So Profitable Pilates studios, 43% of profitable Pilates studios minimize churn to less than 5%, but here again, the Profitable Pilates community that Lesley runs, 71% of the people who completed this assessment have a churn less than 5%.

Julian Barnes 11:31  

So let's recap. The five KPIs are number of leads per month, converting those leads from lead to first visit, converting the first visit to a second purchase, assuming the first visit is an intro offer, second purchase, then how long do they stay, and do you retain them by minimizing churn? Those are the five KPIs. That's what Profitable studios do in the Pilates sector. Lesley, now tell the people.

Lesley Logan 12:02  

Oh my gosh.

Julian Barnes 12:03  

Tell the people, Lesley, what they're supposed to do to achieve these numbers. How do they get these number of leads per month?

Lesley Logan 12:11  

Okay, so here's a really great... I just want to say I'm really proud of the people who filled this out, because my goal has always been for the people we coach for the long term. I'm like, your business should get really boring, like it should get really predictable. My goal is that some of our people need one lead a month because they actually don't have room, and they're actually referring out to other businesses in the area. That obviously is more of a smaller studio that doesn't have large group classes, but that is the absolute goal, because it's better to be entertained in your life, your business should not be so entertaining. 

Lesley Logan 12:39  

So what I would say is, for studios to have a really great conversion, if you don't know how many leads you're getting a month, that's important. You got to start there, and you want to know where they're coming from, because that really does help you understand where you're spending your time marketing. Everyone tries to sell you to the moon and back that you should be on social media. You might not need to be, depends on your community, right? Depends on how many people are there, and depends on how many leads you need. I know that sounds crazy in 2026 that I would tell someone that it's not about social media, but it's not, more and more people are not necessarily trusting what they're seeing on socials because of AI and things like that. So, you really want to have an amazing network of clients who love you, who refer people out, so you're getting strong, solid leads, because those are gonna be the ones that actually come in over just reaching out to see what's going on.

Julian Barnes 13:22  

You just said something I want to jump on. I didn't mention it, but we also asked studio owners what was their most effective lead gen tactic. You want to guess what that answer is, Lesley?

Lesley Logan 13:33  

Referral.

Julian Barnes 13:34  

By far, in every modality.

Lesley Logan 13:39  

Yes. And here's what people.

Julian Barnes 13:40  

It's two to one, like it wasn't close. And again, these are profit, not just Pilates, all modalities. The number one lead gen tactic is referrals. So when you said people don't trust what's on the social and socials, what do people trust?

Lesley Logan 13:56  

They trust their friends.

Julian Barnes 13:57  

They trust people they know, people who they know, like, and trust.

Lesley Logan 14:00  

So here's the thing: if you are a new business right now, or you need people right now, if you're spending all of your time marketing yourself through stuff online and buying ads, that's one way to do it. And you will get people. I'm not saying that doesn't work, but you will get more people quicker if you actually tell the people who know, like, and trust you, whether they're clients or not, "Here's what my studio does, here's who we help, here's how we help them. Who do you know?" If you say, "Who do you know?" it opens a loop. You open a loop, people aren't likely to say, "I don't know anyone," because they'd have to think about that. But if you say, "Who do you know?" it opens this loop, and they start being aware of it. And if their friend's like, "Oh, my shoulder hurts," they go, "Oh, I just heard about the studio down the street." People will refer you people, and those are the people who actually come in, more likely than not, than someone who's just cruising the internet and filling out the contact form. Whoever fills out the contact form, honestly, it's whoever gets to them first and doesn't bug them.

Julian Barnes 14:49  

Let's take the people behind the scenes for a second. Before this call, we were chilling out in your backyard, and is it safe to say that we have some fundamental disagreements about how studios actually operate some things, right?

Lesley Logan 15:27  

I think that's okay, though.

Julian Barnes 15:36  

I wanted them to know that the things you and I agree on are the most important fundamental aspects of running a business. The things we disagree on, I say they're on the fringe, they're just a matter of choice. But this, having referrals, know, like, and trust that, it is tested over time.

Lesley Logan 15:26  

Yeah, I mean, it's so true. And also, it just makes it a lot easier on you if you need clients today. You opened the studio recently, or you hired a new teacher, or you opened some new classes, you need people to fill those seats today, you will always have a faster rate of transitioning them into clients if you're going to your community and the people who trust you, because they will talk about you, they will have a trust transference. If you are waiting for people to fill out your contact form, then it's like, well, they wanted you at 11:00 PM last night while they were watching someone on some TV show doing what they thought was Pilates, so they reached out, but now it's 8:00 AM or 9:00 AM in the morning and they're at work. Then it's like, "Well, I'm too busy this weekend," so you got to get people when they're excited. 

Lesley Logan 16:07  

If you have a 30% conversion rate from the lead into coming in, that's great. I actually don't think that that's a terrible... I think if you have higher than that, you are doing great, but if you have lower than that, that's where I have concern. I feel like 30% feels very fair. Where I want you to really look at is from that, when they come in, if you have a lower than 30% conversion rate, you really do have an issue, because the numbers just get so small, and you're actually just wasting a lot of time. You're working really hard. And so I think this is where you, as an owner, need to look at what your onboarding experience is. How are you setting people up? Are you getting them with the right teacher? Are you the only person who's teaching them? Then it really is on you, what's going on?

Lesley Logan 16:47  

And this is where I think a lot of people make mistakes, because they try to sell Pilates, or whatever the modality is. People actually don't want to buy process; they want to buy the transformation, they want to buy the passion from you. And so this is where, if you're a studio owner and you're not the one who's doing these intro offers, they're going into a class, or they're going into another teacher's experience. You need someone who's got passion and actually can read the person, because you have to take what their goal is and what you offer and show how they get there. Nobody wants to hear, "Oh, you're going to buy the four-session-a-week package," because that's, no, that's a process. They want to buy in on the belief that you have that you can get them to where they want to go.

Julian Barnes 17:24  

You just said the magic word, and I don't know if people really heard you or want to go back. You said they want to buy the what, starting with the letter T?

Lesley Logan 17:34  

Oh, the transformation.

Julian Barnes 17:35  

Say that again.

Lesley Logan 17:36  

The transformation. They want the transformation, they want the end result.

Julian Barnes 17:38  

I like to say that there is no transformation without the transaction. There is no transformation without the transaction. So you have to ask the question, why are you here, and you have to actively listen to what they say, and then be prescriptive in your answer to the question. Okay, so you want X, Y, or Z. Great. Here's how you're going to get that: two times a week, three times a week. You're going to take this class, that class, this class, etc. You're going to give them a prescription, just like a doctor would give you a prescription, and tell them when they ask what does it cost, you reframe it. The investment for you to achieve your desired goal is going to be one of time and money. The time is twice a week or three times a week, and the monthly investment for that is going to be X.

Lesley Logan 18:29  

I agree so much, because if you can actually get them to understand that this is a tool to the transformation, and they can make that transaction, and you break it down, you can also be honest with them, and this is where trust is really built. Some people are going to come to you with goals that are not in alignment with what you do. If you actually tell them... for example, in Pilates in LA, every single person wants to lose five pounds, and it's like, "Well, here's what we know about science. Science would say, if you want to lose weight, it's a few different factors, and any fitness is part of the journey, but it's not the tool." The actual tool, especially if you're serving women, is: what are your hormones like? What are you eating? And then you can go from there. But if all you do is work out to lose weight, you might lose a couple pounds, you might change the metabolism you've got, but it's actually not going to get you to the goal. 

Lesley Logan 19:20  

And so this is where it's really cool for people, and this is what I coach people on their first-time sessions, is find out what they're there for, and then tell them you can or can't help them. So I would always say, "Here's how Pilates is going to be part of your journey, here's what we can't do, but here's what we can do." First of all, most people are lied to so much, or sold a bunch of smoke and mirrors, that they actually will like that you told them that. They might not buy from you, they might go to someone else, or they might try something else and come back, because they actually believe and trust you. I really do believe in being authentic here. And then when you're teaching the sessions, you need to actually tell them, "Here's why I've chosen this exercise for you, here's why this exercise is going to hit your goals." That's what people don't do, they just keep talking about Pilates this, Pilates that. Pilates is now on every corner, so maybe that worked in the 1990s or might have worked in the early 2000s, but it doesn't work today. You actually have to say, "With my eye, I'm seeing your shoulder is doing this, and you have back pain, and so what I'm seeing is because of this imbalance, you're gonna have back pain until we get this balanced. So, here's these three exercises we're going to do, and they're going to help you with this." You have to actually tell them, take them behind the scenes. I like to say that their first sessions, their intro sessions, are like going to a buffet. They get to see all the different options, and you're going to talk about all the different options, and then you're going to prescribe them, like Julian said, like, "Hey, okay." First of all, I never say, "Did you like that?" You got to just go with confidence. You're like, "Thank you for letting me teach you," because that gives gratitude, it lets them know the session's over, and then you go into, "You said you wanted this. Here's how we're going to get there. Here's the process." 

Julian Barnes 19:20  

Here's the roadmap.

Lesley Logan 19:20  

Yes. And then if they're like, "Whoa, that's too much for me." If you go through all the investment and all the time, and they're like, "That's more than I can spend right now," you can say, "I understand. We can take a little longer; instead of coming three times a week, we can do two times a week, or we can do this and this," but you have to actually help them find a way. I get it, some people don't work out, so that's not even the money, it's the actual going from zero times at the gym to coming three times. You're asking a lot, so this is where you have to be honest, and this is where I think our industry really needs a little kick in the pants, and a nice one. People that are with me a long time have heard me say this: if you aren't going to hold people accountable to their goals, you're going to become a to-do that they move around all the time.

Julian Barnes 21:28  

1,000%. And remember, they came to you. You didn't go find them.

Lesley Logan 21:34  

Yeah.

Julian Barnes 21:35  

Even if you did, even if you went to the local farmers market, you didn't force them to give you their email. 

Lesley Logan 21:40  

Yeah.

Julian Barnes 21:40  

They gave you their email. They walked into the door. You have to ask them why they walked in, and you have to actually listen, so you can connect what they said with what you're going to say. You know what you're going to say, you know what your packages are. The question is, can you connect your packages to the goal they told you they want to achieve? It is not about giving permission, you are the person in the position of authority.

Lesley Logan 22:09  

Well, that's the thing. You just said you are the person in the position of authority, and that's where people don't see themselves.

Julian Barnes 22:15  

Retain your power.

Lesley Logan 22:16  

And so when people come to us, I have to constantly remind them that you're so worthy. If you have people who are late canceling and you're not charging them, I promise you, you're losing that client. That's not a client you want, by the way, but it's also you're losing that client because when push comes to shove. 

Julian Barnes 22:31  

They're not committed. 

Lesley Logan 22:33  

Right. When their budget has an issue, when something comes up, they're like, "Oh, I'm going to cancel my Pilates," because they're not actually seeing results, because you didn't hold them accountable to get results. I think this is where people really have to actually remember there is such a thing as you being in relation to them, and there is a camaraderie, but you're also the expert. They came to you, and the only way that they can exchange the energy is to pay you that worth, but you have to hold them accountable so that they get those results. And when you get them the results, that's why you don't have churn, that's why your churn is so low, and that's why you'll have clients for life. And by the way.

Julian Barnes 23:05  

We're gonna come back to that. 

Lesley Logan 23:05  

Okay I just want to say, I think a lot of people go, "Oh, this person came to me, I hope they like me." You can't be like that if you want a business that actually works and doesn't stress you out at the end of the day. You have to actually have the authority, because you are the expert. They don't know.

Julian Barnes 23:21  

You have to be a little bit like Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs said you don't ask the customer what they want; you tell the customer what they need. None of us raised our hand and said we want a phone, remember the Blackberries and the Treos, and we want a contact management thing, we want to surf the web. No one said, "I want that." He presented it to us and said, "Here, isn't this cool?"

Lesley Logan 23:45  

Yeah, right. I think that's where, I understand some people's first-time sessions are in a group class. I would argue that that's a harder way to sell things. I would absolutely say, if you are a class-based studio and you want to have clients for life, you should have some sort of onboarding that allows them to be either on their own or in a very small group of other people who are also on an intro, so that you can actually find out why they're there and actually tell them how these exercises on whatever equipment you're teaching them actually help them reach their goal. Because if you just put them in a class with a bunch of other people, first of all, they get lost, and the experienced people get annoyed if the teacher keeps teaching to the newbie. You're going to lose people; they're going to start going, "I'm not getting challenged here, I'm going to this studio over here." So, I really do believe in an onboarding journey. And, of course, people are going to say, "Oh, this studio over here will let me in." Great, you should go to that studio that doesn't have any worries about you getting hurt and doesn't want your sessions to be personalized. No problem. I understand you want to get started. I actually believe in villainizing a little bit of the thing that you are not doing, so that you can actually tell people, "Here's why you wanted to work with me. Here's why you want to trust me, because I actually care about why you're here, and you're not just a number on my Reformer, you're actually a person whose impact I want. I want you to have the transformation you wanted." But I also think when they're in that first session, whatever it is, a week or a session, I really do think if you don't tell them what you're seeing in their body that's keeping them from the goal they want to have, you are missing out on an opportunity for them to understand how smart you are and how much of an expert you are. If you tell me that you want to have better posture and I'm seeing that your hip is up to one side, you have to tell people, "Oh, I noticed this, no wonder your posture is having problems. So here we're going to do these exercises." I always said this, but I think it's really where people miss out. This is where teachers keep it to themselves and they actually don't tell the client what they're seeing; they just pick exercises, but the person doesn't know why you're picking that. So, you have to peel back the curtain, so that they can see that you're in there with them, you're a partner in this journey, and you're gonna hold them accountable to hitting the goals they want, and then when they hit those, you're gonna set new ones.

Julian Barnes 25:40  

Right. All right, so let's talk about KPI number three: percentage of new visitors who purchase a membership or a bigger package. So we're talking specifically about people who purchase the intro offer, they finish the one week or the two week or the one month, whatever the intro offer is, they finished that. Did they pull out their credit card and make a second purchase? What should studios do, owners, and instructors do to increase the probability of a yes?

Lesley Logan 26:11  

I love this question so much. I'm going to take us back a little bit. So I want to go back to the intro offer. You need to pick an intro offer that actually fits the goals you need. If you need a lot of clients, the intro offer needs to be very simple, very easy. I wouldn't even give people two weeks, I think that is crazy nonsense. I also don't like free; I think you have to charge. It's very hard to go from zero to whatever you're charging. So, I would say if you need clients yesterday, you're doing a single-session intro offer with a very much hands-on experience, where someone is told, you find out what they need in an interview style, and then a concierge style at the end about what's going on. That's what you need. If you don't need a ton of clients, then your intro offer can be a little longer, and can actually be a higher need to say yes, meaning instead of doing a private session and the intro offer is $60 for one session, it might be $180 for three. That obviously is going to get rejected more, because it's a bit more. "I don't know if I want to spend $180 on you, I just met you, I don't even know you." But you don't need a lot of people, so you're like, "I only want the best to come through," right? So you really want to make sure you're picking that. Now, obviously, the higher the intro offer's time and money commitment is, the more likely you're actually going to have a second purchase if they do it in a condensed form of time. That's why I disagree with two weeks or one month, I really do, especially for in-person. I think you want to keep things quick, because when that dopamine high is happening, that's when they're more likely to buy. If it's three sessions that they can take over three weeks, good luck, because they only felt the high in the moment when they drove their car home, they actually didn't get the benefits. But if it's three sessions in one week, you're more likely to get that second purchase. You want people to feel the benefits, because let's be really honest: Joe Pilates has a quote that everyone likes to use, but they don't finish the sentence. "In 10 Pilates sessions, you feel different. In 20 sessions, you look different. In 30 sessions, you have a whole new body." But they don't finish it: "If you come three to four times a week, or your money back." That's what Joe said, that's what his ad said. If you're just coming to Pilates once a week, it'd be like trying to study Spanish once a week. I can recognize words, but I'm not going to be able to understand Bad Bunny, that's not happening. I have to do it multiple times a week, and science is there, no matter the modality. Unless you're doing something three or four times a week, you're actually not making a change.

Julian Barnes 26:58  

Well, that's the key, right? Earlier you said you're here for the transformation. The first step, I would argue, in the transformation is transforming your daily routine. What you just said is people need to adopt a new routine that says, "I'm coming on Tuesday morning, Thursday after work, Saturday morning." I'm committed to that change. See, hear these terms: commitment, investment, transformation. They need to commit. You need to present them with a prescription. You are more likely to be successful if you present a prescription that gives them the opportunity to adopt a new routine from day one.

Lesley Logan 28:10  

Here's the thing: you will sound more confident when you're talking with them if you're making them rise up to the occasion. It is understanding their intake forms.

Julian Barnes 29:12  

You're leading them to rise to the occasion.

Lesley Logan 29:18  

Yes. Here's the thing: are you more likely to come to the person who says, "When do you want to come in?" If you're someone who's listening who says, "When do you want to come in? Do you want to come in next week?" I'm going to tell you right now, your business is a hobby, and eventually the IRS is going to audit you, so that's not going to be good for you. You're not gonna be profitable. If you're telling people, "Hey, you should come, you're gonna come two times a week. I have 10:00 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays, does that work for you?" That is me telling you. You're going, "Hmm, does it work for me?" But you're not, you're more likely to look at your calendar like, "When do I want to come in? Oh, next week actually feels really full. Now I can't come in," right? You want to actually tell people and prescribe people and have the confidence in what you're doing, and this is where I think a lot of people have a lot of fear. "Oh my god, they'll think I'm being rude." No, they won't. They're going to think that you're in control. This is a business. It's a business. 

Lesley Logan 30:06  

And also, I don't want to waste people's money, so you can even say that. Look, here's the deal: if you're only going to come once every other week, this is kind of a waste of money. You shouldn't really do this; you could probably do something at home on YouTube. If you really want the transformation, you have to commit to it, and the commitment looks like this. That's where I would say, whether you do memberships or packages, I don't like unlimited, because that is craziness, you also can't prescribe people the times to come in. "If you want to hit this goal in the next three months, I recommend our three-time-a-week commitment. If that's too much for you, there's a two-time..." You have these things that people can choose, a journey, a path. If you're only gonna have one time a week, here's the deal: you can never miss, and I'm gonna need you to do homework, because the reality is, one time a week, if that's all you can afford time or money-wise, I get that something is better than nothing, but you gotta do something at home. Otherwise, it is a waste of your time and money, and I don't wanna waste your money. And when you talk like that with people, they're like, "Oh, this person really knows what they're talking about." When you ask them, "When do you want to come in?" a broken clock is right two times a day. You're going to get some people, but those are the type-A people who happen to be near you or close to you, and they kind of like you. You're not going to have a business where it's easy to predict how much money you're going to make month after month.

Julian Barnes 31:15  

Would you say that transformation requires the three C's? You need to change your routine, you need to be consistent about the changes you're making in routine, and you have to be willing to get rid of your comfort zone, get out of your comfort zone. Very little change occurs when you're comfortable.

Lesley Logan 31:37  

Oh, you know what happens: if you don't change, the world does, and you just actually get further behind. So I do think that... I love all those three C's, and I think that's really helpful for people. Here's the thing, the objections you're going to get are three. There might be some other ones, but these are the three I've heard teaching for a really long time, and I used to run nine studios for a high-end fitness company, so I have heard them all, which are: "I don't have the money." Guess what, everyone says that when they actually don't really want to tell you why they can't do it, or they didn't like it. It's an easier thing. You're not going to go show me your wallet, right? So, "I don't have the money," and "I don't have the time." This is one for people who want change, but they're afraid of leaving their comfort zone. So, this is where you actually have to have a speech ready in hand. "I get that. I'm a very busy person. Here's what we're going to do: we are going to pre-schedule your sessions for the next month, so you can schedule your whole life around it. How about we start two weeks out, because it's a little easier? Two weeks out, it's not overwhelming. We're going to schedule your whole life around it, and because of our cancellation policy, you're going to cancel your friends over this, and you're actually going to get the transformation." Or they have to "think about it." If they have to think about it, there's a couple things going on. You weren't good enough at making sure they understood how what you're doing is going to help them with their transformation. You didn't get an honest goal out of them, or you actually didn't tell them how you're going to get there, so they're kind of in, but they're not sure. Or you have way too many offers. If you have too many offers, "I don't know what to do. If I see we have these packages, and we have these packages, we have this class over here, we have this class over here..." It's too confusing for me, and I have to think about it. You want things to be very easy for people to make a yes. And so, if they have to say, "Oh, I have to talk to my husband," that is also a way of saying, "I don't have the money," or "I'm not sure," because most women have the ability to spend the money on what they want. The first time I ever heard this as a brand new teacher, I said, "No problem. If your husband has any questions, here is my number. Remember, these are the goals we talked about, here's how we're going to get there." And if you want me to chat with him about how this is going to work out, I'm happy to do that. Guess what? He came up to my studio the next day and he said, "My wife can come as much as she wants, whatever she wants, she can come as much as she wants. I just want her to be happy," right? Most of the time it's not the husband; it's that she was not sure if she was worthy of the commitment, and we have to hold space for that. But if you can actually think of the objections you have, and then come up with your responses ahead of time, you're gonna come off more confident when they have those. And then guess what, they can go think about it. Okay, great. "I'm gonna reach out next week, I'm gonna reach out tomorrow, I'm gonna call back on the follow-up. Is that okay with you?" You'd be surprised how many people come in if you follow up.

Julian Barnes 34:04  

Now, here's one of the areas where we may disagree. I agree with everything you just said. Sometimes it's okay to say, "We may not be for you."

Lesley Logan 34:13  

Oh, we're not going to disagree on that. I love that.

Julian Barnes 34:17  

I hear you. The three objections: don't have time, can't afford it, not sure. Okay, I hear you. We may not be the right place for you. We are the place for people who are willing to make a commitment to the transformation they seek. We work with people who are committed. We work with... and then whatever's in your community, you know, describe them. They might be business owners, executives, presidents of corporations, whatever is in your tribe, in your community. We work with the best of the best. If you want to be part of that, we'd love to have you, but I get it, we may not be for you, and that's okay. 

Lesley Logan 34:56  

That's okay. Julian, I love this, because I just coached someone today, and she was talking about, "Oh, they got sick and they couldn't do this, and now they're good there." I said, "You should fire them as clients, they're not good clients." In fact, I would call that dirty money. Every single teacher out there who's taking clients who just come in willy-nilly, that is dirty money. It's actually never going to get you good referrals. There's certainly not gonna be a walking billboard. The best advice I ever got when I first started teaching Pilates, best advice, a teacher took me aside on my first day, and he goes, "Get one client and make them obsessed with you. You focus every energy and everything you have on that one client, and you will have clients for life." And he's not wrong. I was gifted a duet session from a teacher who was moving, and I took that to heart. They're like, "We can't come next week." I'm like, "Oh, well, I'll see you... let's go with an extra one this week. Gotta make it up."

Julian Barnes 35:43  

Exactly right.

Lesley Logan 35:44  

And they're like, "What? We don't do two in a week." I'm like, "Well, you're missing next week. I'm not gonna wait two weeks to see you. What change are we gonna have? We gotta do this." They never miss a session. Guess what? Within two weeks, I had two of their friends from their building, right? Because I was like, "If you want to work with me, this is how often you have to do this." And here's the thing: when you tell people, "We might not be for you," one, some people will rise to the occasion because they don't like to be rejected, and two, you're leaving space for someone who's going to actually add to the community and make your business successful. And, by the way, more importantly, you're going to make an impact on them, because it's not fun to teach people who are not committed it's, actually exhausting.

Julian Barnes 36:18  

I know you believe in karma.

Lesley Logan 36:19  

I do. 

Julian Barnes 36:20  

Right, as we sit in a room full of crystals everywhere.

Lesley Logan 36:24  

Some people, I'm wondering when their karma is coming. I'm just gonna say.

Julian Barnes 36:28  

So you have to be confident enough that the universe will present you what you need when you need it, and that confidence is really tested when you have some financial needs and the wrong client walks in. You have to be confident enough, both in your own abilities and that the universe will provide for you the right way. You have to be confident enough to say no to the wrong person, so you keep space open for the right person, as you said, and you have to be confident that the universe is going to bring that right person to you.

Lesley Logan 37:12  

Yes. Well, and.

Julian Barnes 37:13  

But it's not going to always be on your schedule.

Lesley Logan 37:15  

No. And that... well, that's here's the thing, we've been talking about these different leads, you actually don't get to decide when people are going to finally come in the door. So you have to make sure that whatever you're doing is making sure it's put in front of them and reminded in front of them, and they're reminded again until they're like, "Oh, I'm finally ready." We actually don't get to decide when they come in the door, but once they're there, we absolutely can say, "You're in my house, and in my house, this is how we do things," right? Like my house, you can leave your shoes on, we got a dog, he goes in and out, this is a desert, we're fine, but some people's houses, the shoes go off. I was just at a friend's house who's in the Pilates industry, and he's like, "Yeah, you take your shoes off," and we went upstairs, and he's like, "Oh, there's a deck, put these slippers on," and I'm like, "Oh my god, there's so many rules!" But guess what, it's his house. Those are the rules of participating in his world, and so I would just say it's okay to have these rules. It really helps people understand the boundaries, and it will make for better clients who are more consistent, and guess what, they will go back to the best way to get clients: refer you better clients.

Julian Barnes 38:15  

Great. So now, how do we keep them? How do you recommend that your clients act in such a way as to increase lifetime value? First of all, what is lifetime value? Second, why is it important? Third, how do you increase it? What is it? Why is it important? How do you increase it?

Lesley Logan 38:34  

So you can correct me. I'm going to do a simple lifetime value with clients: like if you have clients for two years, how much money do you often make off them? And getting an average of a lifetime value really helps you understand how many clients you really kind of need for your business to predict or project what you want to make. You want to make a million dollars for your studio, and your average lifetime client is X. Then you need 25 of those clients to get there, right? So it really helps you understand the business you're going to have. And our businesses, we have a really amazing lifetime value of a lot of our clients. It's kind of insane for our membership bases that are online, what they are, and so once we know those, it really helps us understand how much money are we going to spend marketing, right? Especially if you're an on-demand business or membership basis.

Julian Barnes 39:12  

How much you're willing to invest in marketing.

Lesley Logan 39:14  

Yes.

Julian Barnes 39:14  

If you know that your member is paying you 100 bucks a month, which is 1,200 bucks a year, and they have an average tenure of two years, then you know that you have about $2,400 for every client.

Lesley Logan 39:27  

Yeah.

Julian Barnes 39:28  

So now you back, that's not even that's before profit.

Lesley Logan 39:30  

Yep. Okay. Yep.

Julian Barnes 39:32  

Now you back that down and back that out and say, "Well, how much am I willing to invest by an acquisition cost? Am I willing to invest $100 to make $2,400? Sure. Am I willing to invest $2,000 to make $2,400? Not so much."

Lesley Logan 39:32  

There are people who will do that, and I think they're crazy.

Julian Barnes 39:33  

So you know that number because you want to know how much you want to invest.

Lesley Logan 39:37  

Yes, and it's really important, and it really does take time to get that value if you're a brand new studio. This is going to be something. 

Julian Barnes 40:00  

6 to 18 months, minimum. 

Lesley Logan 40:02  

So it's really important. What was the second two questions?

Julian Barnes 40:06  

That's what it is. How do you keep your members with you for two, three, four years? How?

Lesley Logan 40:14  

Okay, so first of all, this is going to sound crazy. If your value system doesn't include commitment and consistency, you've already started your business off on the wrong foot for a long-term lifetime value of a client. You have to actually have in your value of your business, "We want committed or consistent clients." What are we going to do? It's part of our value system to make sure that happens. Maybe that comes from communication, maybe that comes from transparency, maybe that comes from responsibility, maybe that comes from community, but you have to decide in your value system how you're going to get there from the get-go. Because everything in your value system dictates how you make decisions on who you hire, what services you offer, what days you're open, all that stuff, right? Second thing is, if you're not making sure your clients are consistent, if you're just letting them cancel and there's no fees, they're not committed. Guess what, they're going to eventually go somewhere else, because no one's making sure they show up.

Julian Barnes 41:11  

The word there you're looking for, I think, is accountable.

Lesley Logan 41:14  

Yes.

Julian Barnes 41:15  

Accountable. You have to hold your clients accountable to the prescription for the transformation that they said they want. You didn't tell them what they wanted; they told you what they wanted. You told them how to get it.

Lesley Logan 41:29  

Yeah, exactly. So, I think this is where people are afraid they'll lose clients if they uphold a cancellation policy. Nope, you'll lose them because you didn't. Now, you might lose them in the beginning, like, "This is too harsh." Great, this is not the studio for you. That studio on the street is in charge, go there. I don't know if you'll get your goals, but you won't be charged for not showing up here. You said you wanted to do this; I held a space for you, right? It's really important. And you'll say it in your own words, but I promise you, I promise you, I had clients when I was in LA... I taught in LA for 12 years. I was there for 14, taught 12 years in LA, and when COVID hit, I still had more than half of my clients from the first year I started teaching.

Julian Barnes 42:08  

How? What did you do to maintain that LTV?

Lesley Logan 42:12  

Aside from my boundaries, if I traveled, there was a teacher coming into their space at their exact same time, so their schedule didn't change just because my schedule changed. I think this is really important: no matter the size of your space, you've got to have backups or a backup policy in place, so that you can get sick, have to travel, or have a baby, and make sure that they're taken care of at the schedule that they committed to, because it's really hard for them to move their schedule, right? Second thing, if you're not reinstating what they're getting from you, you think that they're mind readers, they're not, right? So, you have to remind them how far they've come, how close they are to their goal. "Oh, you've hit this goal, where are we at now?" You also need to actually... they talk so much, they are nonstop, they think you're their therapist. If you're not listening to the things they're saying they're going to go do with their family, "Oh, you're going to go hike such and such volcano in Europe? Okay, we're going to add some exercises in to make sure you can do that. Oh, you want to start running a marathon? Okay, we got to do these things to help keep your hips open, otherwise your back's going to hurt." You need to hear the things that they're saying they want to do with their kids, their family. You have to insert yourself. 

Julian Barnes 43:15  

You have to listen. I'm hearing you say, 'Listen, listen.'

Lesley Logan 43:17  

And what do most teachers do? This is the thing, I say this, the industry is having an amazing moment right now, but I promise you, right now, because all the teachers are focused on cues, and all the students are focused on how many people are in the class, you are going to see the pendulum swing the other way. Because people are not there for your cues; they're there for the transformation. And if you're not looking with your eyes at what their body is doing, you don't know what cue you need. You have to see what they're doing, and then give them the correction that they need in that moment. And because we have different learning styles and things like that, you can't... I'm sorry, you can't have memorized cues. You have to learn how to be present, and be present to listen to what they're saying when they're leaving. What are they saying? "Oh, you know, my sister's coming to town next week." Guess what I'm saying: "Oh, is your sister coming with you to class? Do we need to reschedule your sessions?" Because if you can start to train them, then they're never missing, they're getting the consistency. But you have to know that their goals are going to change with their life. My clients, 12 years long, I mean, it's amazing what height we got out of them, and they're older. So I think it's really important for people to actually remember that the impact you want to make is there if you listen, and they'll stay because you keep reminding them how Pilates is part of their life.

Julian Barnes 44:32  

And so churn, to wrap it up, LTV and churn are related. You want your LTV to be high so they stay with you for many years, and you want to reduce your churn, which is the percentage of clients or members who leave your studio. What are some of the best practices that studio owners can implement to minimize churn?

Lesley Logan 44:53  

So, I think this is where, if your business is based off waitlists and 12-hour things, and hoping people cancel so they will get off the waitlist, you're actually going to have churn. I actually think this is where we have to really think about who we're trying to serve and how we're serving them. And I would really make sure that your clients are able to be part of the journey of the growth of your business. They should be part of it, celebrated, reminded that they're there. They always need to have a name. Every single person, whoever you hire, no matter how big you get, if they are not saying people's first names, and also following up, "Oh, you've been gone for two weeks because of X surgery. How are you doing? Yes, we paused your membership, but..." actually check on them. "Oh, I don't want to bother them." Oh my god, they won't respond if you're bothering them! We have to actually stick around and be in people's lives, and follow up and remind them that they matter and that they're missed. And if you have any teachers who are not remembering people's names and not remembering that they've been gone, you're going to have a churn problem. I think the reason why my businesses have grown, even in coaching people, and that we have people who've been with us since day one, is because we constantly remind everybody who the OG people were. These people are here; they've been with us for the long haul. They remembered us when it was small, but they're being introduced to the new people when it's bigger, and they're feeling that they're part of a community. I think people forget that people, at the base of everything, just want to belong. And if you're not able to look them in the eye and remember their name and introduce them to somebody else, they're going to feel unseen at some point. So I really do think that churn is reduced when you see people as a human being.

Julian Barnes 46:27  

So, I have a bonus question for you which is, right in your wheelhouse as a veteran instructor, more like a comment for you to reply to, from the very beginning of this conversation, you haven't used this word, but it's my takeaway of what you've been saying: impact. We talk about how people want transformation. Talk about how do you convert from lead to first-time visitor? How do you convert from first-time visitor to second purchase? How do you keep them a long time? How do you minimize churn? To me, the answer is impact, and what we, at BFS, don't focus on front of house, we're not Pilates instructors, but you obviously are. And so what I like to remind people, and I'm going to ask you to elaborate, I like to remind people none of the processes, none of the systems, none of the messaging, none of the stuff matters if you're not delivering fire classes each and every time. Agree, disagree, assess?

Lesley Logan 47:29  

Oh, I agree. I also think it's really interesting because I come from this as a classical Pilates instructor, but I coach a lot of contemporary-based Pilates. So my fire classes on the Reformer always start with footwork and probably end with the same exercise. So, when you say fire classes, I think it's really important that I say.

Julian Barnes 47:47  

I want to say impact. The classes have to deliver impact.

Lesley Logan 47:50  

Yeah, they have to. Well, I'm saying I'm agreeing with you. I'm also saying you don't have to be someone who's recreating the wheel every time, but people have to feel so different than when they walked in the door, because if they feel the same, then they're not coming back. This is a nice hobby that they have, you fit the thing, but as soon as road construction's up or their job goes across town, you're out of it. Here's what I know about being a teacher for so long in LA: people would drive across freeways to stay with the same teacher because of the impact. Why would they do that when there's a studio... it's LA! There are, and by the way, it's LA, like New York, the best Pilates instructors in the world are in these places, and they're going across town. Why? It is because of the impact. And I think this is where people lose their confidence: they see other people doing things and go, "Oh, I should do that, too. Everyone's Reformers are beige now; I should do beige. Everything is this." No. What is it that you said you would give people, and what is it that they want? And if you can stay clear on that and keep understanding what their new wants are, you will have them for life.

Julian Barnes 48:59  

This goes back to something you said earlier today: take one client and give everything to, say that again, you said?

Lesley Logan 49:07  

Take one client and you make them obsessed with you, and then you'll have clients for life.

Julian Barnes 49:11  

Okay, so unpack that, because I think you're talking about how do you make them obsessed. To me, that sounds like you're saying give them 110%, teach the best class every time, you are the best.

Lesley Logan 49:38  

It goes back to accountability. I'm going to give 110% in every session, but you have to show up for the sessions, and it's a two-way street, I'm not in your body, right? So you got to make sure that they feel like they can trust you to tell you what's going on, but they have to show up for these sessions, because guess what, they don't get the transformation if they come once every other week.

Julian Barnes 49:44  

Well, I guess I was talking about the instructor. The instructor has to show up prepared for every session.

Lesley Logan 49:24  

I think this is where, for instructors, I would say, and this goes for the studio owners who are hiring, teaching them how to teach Pilates can be taught. Personality is humongous, and so if you're bored as an instructor, your clients are bored. You have to be a curious person. I think being a Pilates instructor for the long haul means you are an absolutely curious person. "Why is that person moving like that? I said it like that, why did they do that?" You can't be like, "I said it like that, they did it differently." No, why did they do it differently?

Julian Barnes 50:21  

You can't be thinking about your dinner plans while they're going through the hundreds.

Lesley Logan 50:22  

You have to be looking at them going, "That is really interesting. I wonder... I don't think we'll do that thing I planned for class based on what I'm seeing right now." You have to be so present and so curious. Understanding the exercises, classical, contemporary, hat is teachable. That's time that I'm not worried about. Passion, if you are not passionate about this, you will sell nothing. You have to be passionate about what you do, because some people have been sold smoke and mirrors for so long, they're kind of not trustworthy, but your passion is going to get them over the thing to actually try out the transformation. You have to be excited for them, you have to hold them accountable, but then you actually have to teach the body in front of you. And this is where people have problems: they don't know how to teach the body in front of them, and that is going to take skill. It's going to take time, but it's going to take you being present, not thinking about dinner. And I also just want to say, caring a little bit more about what it is that you're doing. If you're a teacher who just wants to get paid, and this is really fun, that's fine, go be in a class-based place. There's a bunch of franchises that will take you; that's perfect for you. They care about classes being filled and good music, and that's fine. But if you want to do this for life, I would really strongly look for studios where they are a solo owner, where they care about how you teach, where they invest in it, and then you can develop your skillset. But you got to be present in the space that you're in, so you can teach the body in front of you, and that's where the impact will happen. And you're going to hear them say, "Hey, I did this thing," and then you need to celebrate it with them, and then you need to celebrate what you did, too. I think this is where a lot of people forget to give themselves credit for what they did in that session, too.

Julian Barnes 51:49  

So, let's summarize. We talked about the five KPIs: number of new leads per month, conversion rate of lead to first visit, conversion rate of first visit to second purchase, increasing your LTV, and minimizing your churn. What's the one or two takeaways you want people to remember about how they achieve those five KPIs?

Lesley Logan 52:11  

Okay, this is really important: what is the impact you want to have? Like, why are you teaching? It actually doesn't matter how much Julian and I can tell you with numbers how much you can make. Julian, I believe, by this chart, can make a spreadsheet, and I can help you figure out what you're going to charge, and we can show you with this many people you're gonna make millions of dollars, that actually doesn't matter to me. You have to know who you are, why you're teaching, and the impact you want to have. Because then from there, and that value system, we can actually develop the business that will have all these things. But if you're like, "Oh, Pilates is cool, I just want to teach it," you're going to have a really weirdly put-together business that we're going to have to unravel a lot of bad stuff later. So I want you to really get clear: who is it that I'm here for? What's the impact I want to have? Oh, Pilates helped you through your back pain? Great. Maybe you have a whole studio focused on Pilates for back pain, and you'll still have people for life, once they're out of back pain, they'll just stick with you. That could be your focus, but if you're not clear on why you do this, it's just that it's a hot thing and you can make some money. Oh my god, go trade stock! I mean, there are so many other things you could do. This is something that will require you to really like people and care about their transformation, but if you don't know who you want to help, it's going to be like trying to throw things at a wall and trying to herd kittens. It will not be fun, it will not be profitable, not long term, anyways. And it's not going to be something you're going to do. You'll come to me and want to sell your business, and I'll be like, "There's nothing to sell." So we have to start with your "why," who the impact is, and then from there, if you have all that, we can put any type of Pilates business under that. There are so many different ways, but you've got to have that for me to actually help you in a way that's going to achieve not just what you want, but the impact you want to have.

Julian Barnes 53:50  

Let's leave it right there.

Lesley Logan 53:51  

I love it, Julian. This was so fun. You guys, thank you so much for being here and listening to all this. I hope this was helpful. Julian, where can they see this public report? Where can they view it? Can they put their own numbers in? What can they do?

Julian Barnes 54:05  

Yes, go to BFSpilatesreport.com or BFSreport.com. You can complete the assessment. When you complete the assessment, you receive your own scorecard where you can benchmark your metrics against other studios. So, BFSreport.com.

Lesley Logan 54:22  

Perfect. Okay, there's... I didn't prepare you for this, but here you go. We do ask people to give bold, executable, intrinsic, or targeted steps to be it till they see it. So, based on your experience in the life of numbers and all the businesses you've seen, and whatever you think be it till you see it means, what would be a tangible, actionable step they could take?

Julian Barnes 54:45  

Be it until you see it?

Lesley Logan 54:46  

Be it until you see it. We don't fake it till we make it here, that's negative, that's imposter. Like, be it until you see it, acting as if you're the thing before you're there.

Julian Barnes 54:54  

Remember, you're the boss. They came to you. Do not give away your power. They came to you, right? There are a thousand studios they could have walked into, and maybe they walked into several of them, but they walked into yours. They gave you permission to tell them how you can change their life. Don't give your power away. 

Lesley Logan 55:14  

Yeah, I love that so much. Okay, you guys, you know what to do. Until next time, Be It Till You See It.

Lesley Logan 55:20  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 56:02  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 56:07  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 56:12  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 56:19  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 56:22  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.